Europe Details

ALL RIGHT, time to write about my trip.  My mom had been wanting to visit Europe her whole life, so my dad finally organized it.  We went to six cities, each for 3 to 5 days: Barcelona, Paris, Nice (pronounced like "niece"), Rome, Amalfi coast, and Florence.  We must have walked at least 50 miles EASY because I have never felt my legs so stiff and sore after waking up just from WALKING.  Anyways, here are some details about each city:

Barcelona had a great hotel and the people were the nicest here out of the whole trip.  The only major sight we saw here was the Sagrada Familia (a church), which has been in construction for 200 years and is expected to be completed in 2026.  We went up into the towers, which must have been a thousand feet off the ground, and I am t e r r i f i e d of heights o_o  I couldn't deal with being up there long XD  Oh, and after being on planes for 13 hours, I would sometimes feel as if the ground were shaking slightly.  This lasted for days - and I totally felt that while we were in the towers, and it scared me so bad that I was practically crawling back to the elevator. XD  I would HATE to be in a real earthquake while up there.

I think Paris had the best sights to offer, especially the Garnier opera house and the Louvre.  We went inside the Eiffel Tower, but with my acrophobia, I could barely handle the second floor.  No way I was going to the very top, but my parents did.  And it is NOT true that French people are rude.  There were plenty of very nice and helpful people.  I was surprised that about 90% of them spoke English fairly well, and most of those people also spoke other languages!  I got to go to the Pokemon Center too!  I was disappointed by their merchandise, as the news on the site said there would be more, and yet they only had plushies of the Kalos starters, Pikachu, and Helioptile.  Oh well, I got me a Froakie. X3 The art gallery more than made up for it though.  Definitely better than I expected.

Nice is a coastal city whose beaches were made up entirely of stones instead of sand, so... I guess you have to bring pillows and multiple towels if you want to get a sun tan there.   I think this city had the best food of the trip.  Our hotel room was huge and it even had a kitchen with not only a fridge, but a microwave, pots and pans, stove, utensils, plates, dishwasher - everything lol.

Rome... was very strange.  Sorry to say, but the people there were as rude as can be.  The sights were great though.  We saw the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, the Vatican museum and Sistine Chapel, and the Coliseum.  I loved the Coliseum, but I wish we could have gone inside at night.  People say you get very weird vibes there due to the violent history...

The hotel room in Amalfi gave us a great view of the Mediterranean Sea.  It was very beautiful and tropical, and I loved the nautical decorations in the hotel.  If you know anything about Amalfi, though, you know what the roads are like: they are narrow and they twist around the sides of the mountains.  There are many hairpin curves, and yet people drive like maniacs even though they could shoot off the edge at any moment and plummet down thousands of feet (or crash into oncoming traffic).  My dad had rented a car not knowing this and they only had manual transmissions left. X_X  Why do they even still make those?  As if driving there wasn't scary enough.

We drove from Amalfi aaaaall the way to Florence, and we had many issues with the car rental service, but our reward was the best hotel ever.  It had been there since medieval times and the rooms were decorated like mansions.  Ours was a mini-suite like the one we had in Nice.  My dad kept saying that the bathroom was bigger than our whole room in Amalfi   The people in Florence were much nicer than in Rome, so that's a plus.  The major sight here was the Dome of Santa Maria Fiori something-or-other, which was fantastic.

I wish I could share our photos, but they're on our other computer right now :/  Even when I do review them, it'll be hard deciding which ones to show!  We filled up three 16GB SD cards with photos, plus another 450+ on my mom's cell phone XD  They will come eventually!  Thanks to everyone who read this far!