Travel as an Introvert
My long-overdue summary of my trip around Europe last summer and the long-lost video footage of the entire thing!
Bergamo
Our last stop as a group was Bergamo. We wanted to go to Milan, and the closest airport that fit all of our needs was Bergamo. Xin Yun went on to see Milan, but Alec and I were kind of digging just being in Bergamo. We walked to the old town and explored our last narrow Italian streets. And some Italian treats. On a map we'd gotten there were a few different underground caves/tunnels. And since that seemed pretty cool we spent most of our time trying to find their entrances. All in all, it was a good, relaxing way to spend our last day of the trip.
Letters to Juliette
One of the places I really wanted to visit in Northern Italy was Verona. I wanted to go and see the letters to Juliette. It's supposed to be a place where women right to Juliette, of Romeo and Juliette, for love advice. We had very little time in Verona, so my heart was kind of broken when the night we arrived it was closed. I didn't really think it would be a place that could be closed, so that was my first surprise! But we had dinner out on the plaza, which was beautiful. I also had some amazing blackberry gelato that tasted so fresh.
Cinque Terre: Doors
My favorite part of Italy (other than the coast) was the colorful buildings- and the colorful doors! They were all so different, and so gorgeous. And the mailboxes in Europe are so much better than ours.
Cinque Terre: Manarola
We were running out of daylight. So instead of hiking to Manarola, we took the train from Corniglia. And since we'd spent most of our time hiking, we decided to explore this town more. It was a pretty wonderful adventure. And during our exploration, we found a trail of blood. Leading to a guy who had somehow lost his finger. Talk about excitement! After all of the climbing of stairs and hills we headed back to Riomaggiore for dinner.
Cinque Terre: Corniglia
Most of our time had been spent hiking so far. So our stop in Corniglia was pretty short. It took a million steps to get there. But we peeked around a bit. Then we went to our last town in the hike by train: Manarola.
Cinque Terre: Vernazza
After Monterosso we arrived in Vernazza. Definitely my tied for my favorite town in Cinque Terre. It was lunch time by then, so we stopped and ate at this restaurant on the sea. We watched the waves crashing into the rocks and everyone playing on the beach while we ate. This was where I had the best pizza of my life. The sun decided to come out so I enjoyed that while we ate. When we finished eating we explored the tower. Then, it was back on the train to the next town: Corniglia!
Cinque Terre: Riomaggiore
Alec and I both celebrated our birthdays on this trip. We're a year apart in age, but only a week apart in birthdays. I chose to be in Cinque Terre (pronounced Chink-Wa Tehr-Ay) for my birthday. If you don't know where this is, google it before you even see this post. I wasn't on a boat, so I couldn't capture beautiful pictures of the colorful buildings on the coast. But the pictures that are out there are fantastic!
Midnight in Paris
In the previous post, we started exploring Paris. While we were so central to everything, we decided to see some of the main sights. Which meant starting off with a better view of the Eiffel Tower in its entirety. So we crossed headed across the Seine. Then, we decided to hit a few more well-known sites while we were in the central area for it all. Which meant accidentally coming across the Arc de Triomphe. How were we even stumbling across these massive landmarks?? Right before our second stumbling it started to rain. And then, it started to pour. Which made me smile pretty hard because one of my top three fave movies of all time is Midnight in Paris. In the film, Owen Wilson's character talks about how much he loves Paris in the rain. And I gotta say, it was pretty awesome.
The Airport Caught on Fire!
The last place Alec and I visited on our own was Rennes, France. It's on the northern coast, and the goal was to visit Mont Saint-Michel. It's a French class staple, and was the only thing really out of the way in France that I wanted to visit. Rennes had an airport, and was not too terribly far away. We got off of our plane and noticed that this airport only had one terminal. After waiting for ages to get my bag, I kind of had to laugh. It's so quick to get bags off of a huge airport, but took forever in an airport with one terminal.