Rome, Italy

Rome was a pretty cool city in general. We spent the first few days on the outskirts in a beach neighborhood called Ostia, and then moved nearer to the center of the city for the remaining days. There isn't a whole that needs to be said about the city - there are so many places to see and so much history there that it was pretty easy to keep busy. Unfortunately, I didn't get to experience much of the night life because I broke a filling and had to get an emergency root canal, and for the few days leading up to that I had an exposed nerve and was in a lot of pain whenever I ate or drank. As per usual, here are some photos:









Looking pensive...











On the whole, sweet city.

Florence / Pisa / Viareggio, Italy

Surprisingly, after all of the cities I have been to so far, Florence was one of my least favorite cities. That's not to say that it wasn't a nice place or that there wasn't anything to do, but the entire thing felt like one big tourist trap - it didn't feel like an authentic Italian city at all. Walking on the streets, you almost NEVER heard Italian spoken, mainly just English and other languages. All shopkeepers and locals tended to speak English as well. The people visiting seemed in a rush to simply see all the churches, museums, etc. before they had to leave, and didn't really care about doing anything else. After a few days I got sick of the city. Nonetheless, it was a pretty city:







I did end up meeting up with my friend Scott who was studying abroad there for the summer, which was fun. We ended up going out a few nights while we were there:



While we were in Florence, we took day trips to Viareggio and Pisa, which are about an hour away by train. Viareggio is just a typical beach town - not super pretty or anything, but very laid-back with beaches, small shops, and bars. I'm you could find much better beaches in Italy, but it offered a nice escape from Florence so we enjoyed it a lot:







There isn't a whole lot to say about Pisa. I think most people just go there for a day to see the leaning tower and leave, because that's about all there is to see there. It seemed like it was nice enough though from what I could tell from walking around:







I do think Florence is probably worth seeing, but unless you are really into the touristy stuff I wouldn't recommend spending a lot of time there. For me, it got old pretty fast.

Parma, Italy

Parma ended up being our first stop in Italy, although it was almost completely unplanned. The first city we arrived in was Milan, and per our usual style, we didn't make any sort of reservations in advance. This was the weekend that Milan was playing in the champions league final, so nearly all the hostels near the center were booked and the cheapest hotels available were in the 200 Euro per night range. We really didn't like the vibe that we got from the city, so after about an hour or two of walking around we went straight back to the train station and caught the next train to somewhere interesting, which ended up being Parma.



Parma was our first taste of Italian food, and it didn't disappoint - after all, Parma is the city where Parmesan cheese was invented. We ended up eating out every day, which was pretty pricey, but definitely worth it. We had lot's of great coffee, bread, wine, pasta, pizza, etc.





The city itself was very nice. It wasn't a very big city, so it had a nice relaxing feel to it. There wasn't much of a party scene there, but there were a decent number of bars and places to hang out at night. We weren't looking for anything crazy at the time, so it was fine. We did end up watching Milan win the Champions league there, which was pretty sweet. We tried to catch the last train back to Milan to pull an all nighter partying there but missed it by about 6 minutes, so we just stayed in Parma to celebrate.

Other than that, there isn't a whole lot more to say about the city. Here are a few other pictures:

Nice, France

Nice was our final stop in France. We had originally planned to go from Montpellier straight to Milan, but there was no direct train so we figued Nice would be a nice place to stop. It is a medium sized town near the border of Italy right between Monaco and Cannes.







We were hoping that it be surrounded by the famous white sand Mediterranean beaches that southern France is known for, but we were disappointed by rocky beaches instead.



We only spent a day there, but it seemed like an overall pretty decent city. It wasn't particularly flashy or pretty, but it did have a few nice areas and seemed like it had a lot of things to offer.

Montpellier, France

Montpellier was a nice but pretty average city as far as coolness goes, but it was a very different experience from other cities because we used couchsurfing for the first time. Couchsurfing is a site where you can connect with people from different countries who are looking to host travellers from around the world and stay with them. We ended up staying with a guy there who was really cool - he took us to bars with his friends, helped us around the city, jammed with me on guitar, and even gave us a key to his apartment. I liked the experience a lot people I got to see a bit more of the local culture than I usually do when just doing touristy type stuff, and it also saved a lot of hotel and hostel costs. Its pretty amazing the amount of trust that people can have after only knowing someone for a day.

Nevertheless, here are some photos from around the city.

Barcelona, Spain

Barcelona so far has been my favorite city that I've been to in Europe (and I'm writing this while in Florence, so I've seen a bit at this point). It has everything - great nightlife, beautiful beaches, huge parks, good sports teams, and tons of stuff to do. I could definitely see my self spending a few weeks there if I had time, or even living there for a little bit.

Our first night in Barcelona was a bit stressful though. As many of you probably know, I'm not really one to plan ahead, so most of this trip (at least in Europe, not as much in S. America) I usually just show in up in a city, take the subway into the center and walk around until I find a place to stay. This time, however, that plan failed pretty badly. Our train go in around 9pm, so by the time we got organized and made it into the city it was nearing 10pm. It just so happened that the weekend we got there coincided with a french holiday, so there were THOUSANDS of french people there. We tried going to literally 15 hostels and hotels (huge ones too, with 200+ beds) that were all completely sold out because of the french holiday. We finally found one around midnight with exactly two beds left (but only for one night) and took it so that we could just find something in the morning. Eventually everything worked out, but it would have sucked to have to sleep out in the streets for a night.

Here are a few pictures from around the city:













We saw a Flamenco show, which was a bit pricy but pretty cool.





The weekend we got there, Barcelona was playing there final game of the season, which if they won would mean that they would take first place and win the Spanish League. They prevailed, which made for some crazy parties and celebrations that night. Unfortunately I had hurt my back (sciatica) and was on some medications which didn't allow me to drink alcohol, but it was still really fun. There was music and dancing and firecrackers everywhere, and the whole city was completely alive.











Bo also managed to snag two movies with her phone's camera.





I highly recommend Barcelona if you have the chance.

Granada, Spain

Our third stop in Spain was in Granada, a smaller city best known for the Alhambra. I really liked the city, but we only stayed there for two nights because outside of seeing the Alhambra there didn't seem to be a whole lot that was particularly special about it.

One cool thing about that city was that with any drink that you ordered in any restaurant or bar in the city, you received a free tapa (essentially a small appetizer). This was usually something like sausage, cheese on bread, chips, etc, but they were all really good, and drinks were only about 2-3 Euro so it was relatively cheap.

The city itself was very artsy, with stone roads, colorful buildings, musicians playing, and lots of plazas. It was very laid back and relaxing.





Here is a view of the Alhambra from point San Nicolas, a church at the top of the Arabic district.



Inside the Alhambra is quite impressive, with palaces, huge gardens, outdoor theatres, etc. It was pretty amazing.













All in all, a pretty cool city.