Paris
-Louvre
-Eiffel Tower
-Latin Quarter neighborhood
-Notre Dame
-Musee D'Orsay
-Arc De Triomphe
-Seine river cruise
-Sante Chappelle
-Marais neighborhood
-Luxembourg garden
-Pompidou museum
-Sacre Coeur
-Eiffel Tower
-Latin Quarter neighborhood
-Notre Dame
-Musee D'Orsay
-Arc De Triomphe
-Seine river cruise
-Sante Chappelle
-Marais neighborhood
-Luxembourg garden
-Pompidou museum
-Sacre Coeur
Day 1: Sunday Sept 6 2009
Reached Paris at about 9:45 am. We were supposed to reach there at 6:45am, but thanks to United Airlines and their old rickety planes, we had a 3 hour delay at Charlotte airport due to maintainence issues. Neways, my strategy to avoid jet-lag was to arrive in the morning...spend the whole day site-seeing and get so tired at night that you will automatically fall asleep. :). Another strategy was sleeping pills. (Use in moderation) They are a good way to avoid severe jet-lag. Immigration and baggage claim was a breeze. We were out of the airport in 1/2 hour.
Though we could have taken a RER from the airport to our hotel, we decided to spend some money and take a taxi to our hotel. We just didnt want to haul our bags and get tired even before our day started. Taxis are more expensive in Paris compared to the other cities in Italy and the fare gets more expensive on a Sunday and after 10pm. Ouch! But It was worth it. We reached our hotel early but we still got to check in early. We had decided to not spend too much on hotels since we werent going to stay there for most part of the day anyway. We stayed at Hotel De La Comete near Jaures metro station. My basic requirements for a hotel was: clean, private bathroom, close to metro, friendly staff, has an elevator and cheap. Overall I was happy with this hotel. We got a basic Paris map from the hotel. This is usually enough if you are travelling by metro.
Metro system was a little confusing at first but we figured it out after we took one wrong train and then it was easy. The Sunday that we were to reach Paris was a free Sunday. The first Sunday of each month is a free Sunday in Paris. i.e. a lot of museums are free to public and there is no entrance fee. This includes museums like Louvre, Musee D'Orsay, Pompidou Museum, Musee Rodin, etc. I didnt check others because I wasnt interested in them. Sante Chappelle and Arc De Triomphe are also free on the first Sunday during the winter months; but this didnt apply to us. Since Musee D'Orsay was closed on Monday and this was the only day we could visit it, this place was the first place we decided to do. By the time we reached the Museum it was about 11:45am. 
I was expecting a 2 hour line but we were in the museum in 10 minutes. We followed Rick Steeves tour and absolutely loved it. This is a must see museum, even if you dont know much about art (like me). It has an absolutely impressive collection. The top floor was more crowded that the bottom one. One tip I got from tripadvisor was to visit big museums first thing in the morning to beat crowds. You can go up to the terrace and get a beautiful view of the Louvre and the Seine river.
By the time we were done with Orsay I was famished. We were there for about 2-3 hours and hadnt had lunch (or breakfast) yet. We quickly picked up a baguette and a crepe and had lunch at the steps on the Orsay. The food was terrible. But being a Sunday, most good restaurants in Paris are closed. We could have had lunch at the restaurant in the museum but we didnt have the time to eat a leisurely lunch. We also realized that the camera battery was out and since we werent carrying the extra battery with us, we had to go back to the hotel. We were a bit tired and decided to sleep for an hour or so.
Then we went to the Pompidou museum (Modern Art). This museum wasnt on my must see list but since it was free, I wanted to check out if possible what modern art is all about. Again the lines werent too bad. About 15 minutes and we were in. This was probably the most boring museum I ever visited and I am glad I didnt pay the 12Euro entry fee for it. I was laughing in half the rooms when I saw a canvas divided into 3 boxes and presented as art. This is definitely not a place where you should take young kids. Trust me, all museums we went to had nudity but nothing like this museum. It was graphic. But the building is interesting and different than most of the classical museums you see in Paris. This area also had street performances in the evening and the atmosphere was quite fun.
We walked from here to the Notre Dame passing Hotel De Ville along the way. We didnt visit the Notre Dame basilica but just the walk was beautiful. Being near the Seine river near Pont Neuf during sunset is very very romantic. Paris in general is a very romantic city and it is better if you dont understand French. :) You will see that most restaurants have outdoor seating and almost all of them with outdoor seating are full and all the chairs face the street. People watching is the most favorite thing to do among Europeans. We saw this all over the place. And what do they talk about? To us, it appeared that they were judging us, our clothes, shoes etc. Atleast that was the direction they were looking in. We ended up doing the same thing: judging people; except I was awed by their dressing style.They do dress very very well, especially the women, even on a Sunday. It was a huge contrast from the T-shirt, shorts style of dressing in the US. But I am sure if you go to New York city, you will find really well dressed people.
We then took a train and went to Sacre Coeur. We decided to take the funicular train instead of climbing those stairs. By this time, our feet were killing us. I had read that Sacre Coeur is a fun place to be in the evening around sunset, but I didnt find this place as exciting. We went to the basilica. It was good. Do this only if you have extra time else skip. We then went home, had dinner in a restaurant close to our hotel and went to sleep by 10:30 pm. Phew, that was a full day.
Day 2: Monday Sept 7 2009
The first thing we wanted to do was the Louvre. I had learned from Tripadvisor that if you enter the Louvre from the Rue de Rivoli entrance, you wont find a line and go right into the Louvre. It was certainly true. The Louvre opens at 9am and we were there at 9:30am, no lines and we went right into the Devon wing. First thing we did was see Mona Lisa. I knew that it was small so I wasnt very disappointed. Rick Steeves does a great job of showing how art progressed from 2D to 3D. How the themes evolved, how background was added, the meanings of the paintings, etc. The Louvre is huge and very impressive. We admired most of the paintings in the Denon wing, admired the ceiling, saw Venus, King Louis crown, ancient greek statues, etc. Loved it. You can spend the whole day here. Of course after 3 hours our feet were killing us and we were hungry.
We had a quick bite at the cafe in the Louvre so that I didnt faint :) and then walked along the Seine quays to the Notre Dame on Ile de Cite . There isnt much line to go to the Notre Dame basilica. The line is usually to go to the top and by the way, you have to climb stairs. There is no elevator. We had decided that the only way we were going on the top of any monument was to take an elevator. It is a nice basilica to visit (Hey, its free), but the exterior is more impressive. We then went to Sante Chappelle which is also on Ile de Cite.
This is probably the only place we stood in line for more than 10 minutes. There was a 30 minute wait and a Paris Museum pass wouldnt have helped us because the wait was for security check. Beware, there are 2 entrances out here, one if for the court and one if for the church. Dont waste time standing in the wrong line. Inspite of this being a church, there was a 8 Euro entry fee. Most basilicas are free cause who charges you to visit a church. But the stained glass windows are nice to see, especially in the afternoon. Though I liked it here, you can skip this if you dont have the time or the energy. Next stop: Latin Quarter which is right next to Ile de Cite.
Again you visit the Marais district and the Latin quarter to get a feel of these area. Kindof like visiting the 3rd Street Promenade in LA. We had a filling Chicken pita out here. Very nice. We were so bored of seeing ham and cheese on every menu. From here we went to the Arc De Triomphe. Again we did not climb to the top. Its a nice monument but something I thought we could skip. We had decided not to do Champs-Elysees or Place de la Concorde. From here, next stop Eiffel Tower. To view the Eiffel tower for the first time, I would advise seeing it from the Trocadero side. By the time we reached the Eiffel Tower it was about 6pm. On the way we saw a vendor selling mini Eiffel tower momentos. The guy was a bangladeshi and he asked us where we were from. When he learnt we were from India, he gave us like 3 Eiffel towers in different sizes for the price of 1. So we got 3 of them for 5 Euros. The guy was happy to see us :)
There are usually 2-3 lines to get to the top. Most people see the first line and stand in line there. Lookout for the second line; it is usually much shorter. We stood in the second line and were in the elavator in 10 minutes. You can climb the stairs to get to the top if you like. We went to the 2nd level and the view from there is absolutely gorgeous. I had read on Tripadvisor that there is no difference in the view from the 2nd level and from the 3rd level, so it isnt worth the extra money to go to the 3rd level. We enjoyed this view for some time. I had booked an hour long river cruise with Vedettes de Paris. Their location was right across from the Eiffel Tower. If you buy their tickets online you end up saving about 5Euro per person. (atleast at the time I booked).
During the month of September, they had a promotion where you get the cruise + a glass of champagne for 11Euro per person but you have to give them a specific time. I had checked on sunrisesunset.com and had found out when it gets dark in Paris in September and had choosen a 9pm cruise. We had dinner (same ol' crepes and baguette) right across from the Vedettes office. Eiffel tower twinkles for the first 5 minutes of every hour. Its magical to watch. I had found this out and timed our seine cruise so that we get to watch this before we left and as soon as we came back. Everyone (including me) rushed to the top to get a good view of the sites during the tour. If you do this, try to sit on the right side. It was cold and windy out there. But seriously its not as fun on the top. We realized this about 20 minutes into the tour. My husband went to the lower deck to get our champagnes and realized that there was a nice spot down there. We went to the lower deck and went to the very front of the ship and had a very private cruise from here on. There was just one more couple with us there. You can hear the commentary better , enjoy the champagne and get great views and great pictures from down here. And it was not as cold as on the top deck. We absolutely loved this tour. It was very romantic to see Paris lit up at night and the water shining in the glow of these lights. This is a must do according to me.
When we came back at around 10pm, we saw the Eiffel tower twinkle again. :). We took the train back to our hotel and were so tired that we just slept right away. We had an early morning flight from CDG to Venice Marco Polo with Easjet airlines. We got the tickets for a good price. About 118 Euro for the both of us including the checkin. We asked our hotel to get a taxi to pick us up in the morning. The trains didnt start until 5am and we wanted to be at the airport by 5am.
Venice
-Doge Palace
-St Mark Basillica
-St Mark Square
-Grand Canal tour
-Frari church
-Church Tower
- Rialto Market
Day 3: Tuesday Sept 8 2009
We reached Venice airport on time. I had already purchased a 24 hour vaporetto pass through Venice Connected. I just collected the tickets from their center at Venice airport. This ticket also includes the bus fare from the airport to Piazzale Roma with ACTV bus 5. There is also another express bus from the airport to Piazzale Roma for 4Euro pp. You can choose either. Both take about 20-25 minutes. Our hotel was very close to the train station. We stayed at Hotel Minerva e Nettuno. Not a bad hotel. Again we got to check in early.
We had a quick breakfast at Brek nearby. Italy definitely has better food than Paris by the way. We then took vaporetto and went to St Mark Square. I wanted to check out the Rialto Market in the morning but we didnt have time for that. By the time we reached St Mark Basilica, it was about 11:40am. We used Rick Steeves tip of checking in our luggage at the nearby check-in and got in right past all the lines. We used Rick Steeves audiotour but it was a little difficult to follow here. We visited the museum and the treasury inside. It was really good. My husband especially enjoyed it. The whole interior of this basilica is done in mosaic which are laid such that they reflect the sunlight during the day at different angles. I cant imagine the amount of time it took to complete this basilica. It is also one of the oldest basilicas. Oh, by the way, the reason for us doing the basilica at this time is cause it is lit up from inside for only one hour each day between 11:30am to 12:30pm. I would recommend seeing it at this time, but its ok to visit it at another time as well.
By the time, we were done with St Marks Basilica, I was very cranky and irritable because we were behind time by about an hour. This is where I decided to slow down. Venice is such a relaxing and wonderful place and I was losing out on the feel of Venice by trying to do more in a short time. We decided to take it slow and walk slow and just enjoy Venice. Oh, by the way, the walking shoes which I had specially bought for this trip were killing me, so I switched to my Sketchers flipflops and they were so much better. From here we went to the Campo San Polo area; near the Frari church.
By this time we had decided to drop the Frari church, but there was an awesome restaurant here which I had read so much about that I had to try it. My hubby's wish during our trip was to eat good pizzas, so after much research I finialized the 'Antica birraria la corte'. It was so nice and relaxing to walk the streets of Vcenice with no pressure to make it to the next place by a certain time. We enjoyed lunch there. I had some house wine; which was really good. My husband loved the pizza. Overall this was one of the best lunches we had on our trip. Just so relaxing and good food. We got a little lost on the way but it was fun. We then took the vaporetto and went to the Accademia area. The Accademia bridge was very romantic and the view of San Salute from here is awesome. From here we walked to Campo Santa Stefano. Had gelato at Paolin. Nice rum raisin gelato. Walked from here to St Mark's square. This is a very nice walk lined with small canals. Venice is such a romantic city and very very relaxing.
We were glad that we had slowed our pace down a bit. We then went to the Doge Palace. Again I had got my tickets for the Doge Palace from VeniceConnected. I got a discount if I visited after 3pm. Also the lines were supposed to be shorter after 4pm. When we went at 3:30pm, there was noone else in line. I guess the crowds had gotten much less due to recession. We used Rick Steeves again. We read his tour as he took us from room to room. We both loved the Doge Palace. Its a nice place. The floors are just like our old tiles in Bombay (the chipped ones), but the Doge Palace is pretty impressive. Nice place to visit in Venice. By the time we were done with the Doge Palace, it was about 5:30pm. We wandered around and sat down at a cafe and just had some coffee and did some people watching. Around 6:30pm, we went to the St Mark's square, enjoyed the scene there a bit. We saw kids trying to chase away the pigeons, but I guess the pigeons are so used to humans there that they wouldnt even fly away. I tried chasing them a few times...they wouldnt fly :(...did some more people watching.
Then we went to the top of the clock tower. It has some fabulous views of Venice. I had timed it so that we were at the top around sunset, we enjoyed the sunset from here. It was beautiful. Then we went to Dorsoduro area; just to check out the area, A lot of people decide to stay here when in Venice. It was a nice area probably a little less touristy. Had gelato here and then went out for dniner. I had researched this place called :'Enoteca Mascareta Di Lorenzon Mauro' which is about a 10 minute walk from St Mark Square. The place was fun, no pizzas though. the food was nice, the wine was good, the owner was fun. We had one glass of wine each and he gave us another glass of wine for free and told us:' There is no driving around in Venice' :).
After dinner we went back to St Mark's square, enjoyed the orchestra at the various restaurants there and went back to our hotels. Overall a very relaxing, fun day. I felt that one day was too short in Venice. We wanted to stay there for atleast one more day in Venice. It was difficult to say goodbye to Venice. And yes, we didnt do the gandola ride. Again something we had decided before hand. I think it is a tourist trap to pay 80-90 Euro for a ride, but it is probably worth it. :). Maybe next time.
Florence
-Uffizi Museum
-Accademia
-Duomo
-Borgello Museum
-Piazza Michaelangelo
-Mercato Centrale
-Mercato Nuovo
-Ponte Vecchio
Day 4: Wednesday Sept 9 2009
We took a 6:30am train from Venice to Florence. Train system in Italy is awesome. Since our hotel in Venice was just a 5 minute walk from the train station, we left at 6am, reached the station, found our train, coach, seats, got something to eat and took off exactly at 6:30am. We reached Florence at 9:30am. I had heard that the route to Florence from Venice was very scenic but it was ok.
After we reached Florence, we deposited our bags at the Baggage deposit at the train station and went to the Mercato Centrale. Had a breakfast of mozerella cheese, tomato and bread and some coffee. The one complain I have with Italians is that they serve their coffee lukewarm instead of hot. Its just not the same. This area is lined with stores that sell a lot of leather purses and jackets. Our trip to Florence was too short to shop in these stores but I would have loved to.
We went to the Borgello museum. They have a good collection of bronze statues and some more Michaelangelos. If you dont have time, you can skip this museum. We then had lunch at the Yellow bar which is right across from the Bargello museum. The food there We were a bit tired, so we decided to skip the Accademia (Original David). This was probably a mistake. I heard that the original David is really hot, the David copies in Piazza Signoria and Piazza Michaelangelo are no comparison. We then visited the Duomo exterior and interior. Though we had heard that the view from the top of Duomo is really nice, we didnt have the time to stand in line and climb the 400+ stairs, so we skipped it. The duomo interior was ok. I guess after seeing St Mark Basilica and Doge Palace our expectations were high.
We then walked along the pedestrain streets and had a gelato at Perche No?. I had a watermelon gelato. This is probably the best gelato I had in the whole trip. It had an amazingly organic taste. We strolled along along Mercato Nuovo, rubbed the pig's nose. Its supposed to ensure your return back to Florence. Then we went to Ponte Vecchio, then went to Piazza Signoria. Checked out the sculptures at this square, stepped into Palazzio Vecchio to check out the inner courtyard. The ceiling in this courtyard is well decorated.
By this time, it was about 4:10pm and we had a reservation at the Uffizi at 4:15pm. We had checked out the line at the Uffizi earlier and the wait time without reservations was about an hour. So we were glad we had made reservations here. The Uffizi had a very nice collection of paintings and sculptures. Again Rick Steeves audioguide for the Uffizi made this tour very enjoyable and knowledgable for us. Our tour ended around 6:30pm or so. We then went to the nearby Tintori bus stop to catch bus #13 to Piazza Michaelangelo. While waiting for the bus we went to the nearby grocery store and got a couple of bottles of water. Piazza Michaelangelo gives really great views of Florence. We took about 10 minutes to get there by bus. We spent about 1/2 hour at the Piazza and enjoyed the sunset views from here and took bus#13 to the train station.
Our train to Rome was at 8:49pm. We reached the train station at about 8pm. While I picked up dinner at a nearby restaurant, Neel got our bags back from the baggage deposit. By the time we finished dinner, it was time to board our train. The schedule at the station incorrectly showed our train as going to Milan instead of Rome. We were able to figure this out just in time and ran with our bags and boarded the train. We just made it to our coach and took our seats and the train took off. Phew we made it. We were so tired that if we had missed the train we would have been pretty made. The train went non-stop to Rome, we slept through most of the trip and we reached Rome at about 10:15pm.
It was pretty easy to find our hotel in Rome. I had booked one right next to Termini because Termini is a very central location in terms of transportation. The guy who opened the door to our hotel looked so Roman, it was hilarious. Both me and my husband were taken aback, this guy looked Roman, walked Roman, talked Roman and even smelled Roman. :( He looked like his day job was to dress like a gladiator at the Colosseum. This day was very hectic and we knew that when we planned it. I would have liked to reserve a whole day in Florence and stay there for the night. We both felt like we enjoyed every city more when we spent the night there. Nightlife was magical in all the other cities.
Rome
-Colosseum
-Palantine Hill
-Roman Forum
-Pantheon
-Trevi Fountain
-Spanish Steps
-Vatican Museum
-Sistine Chapel
-St Peter's Basilica
-Borghese Gallery
Day 5: Thursday Sept 10 2009
We were so tired by the 4th day that we decided to take it a little slow. So we got up by 9:30am or so. Our hotel (Rome Accomodations B&B) served us breakfast in our room. This is something which I really loved about hotels in Italy vs in Paris, that in most hotels in Italy, breakfast is included in the room rate. After a good breakfast, we went to Termini and bought our Roma Passes. We decided on the Roma Pass cause we had decided to do atleast the Colosseum and the Borghese gallery. The Roma Pass also includes bus and metro transportation throughout Rome. We took a metro and went to the Colosseum by about 11:30 am.
The Colosseum is very conviniently located right outside the train station. We thought that maybe we should take the guided tour through Tourinrome.com. They offer a 10Euro per person(not including ticket) for a tour of the Coloseum, Palantine Hill and Roman Forum. This company was recommended to us and we had already booked our Vatican tour through them, so we decided, why not. Please note, that the comapny advertises a group of 15 people at a time, but our group was actually 30 strong, though it didnt seem to affect the quality of the tour in any way.
Though we didnt stand in line for too long because of the tour guide, we saw people with Roma Passes walking right through a different line, which was shorter than the line for tours. The tour of the Colosseum was pretty good, but after the tour I compared notes with Rick Steeves' tour of the Colosseum and he was pretty much telling you the same thing that the tour guide told us.
After the Colosseum tour, we walked around the Colosseum Museum which we found quite interesting. It gives a good timeline and history of the Roman empire. (This is not included in the tour, it is a self-guided tour).
Our next trip to the Palantine hill and Roman Forum was scheduled at different times in the afternoon. So decided to have lunch and then join the tour at 3:55pm. Though I was trying to look for a restaurant recommended by Rick Steeves, it was a bit difficult to find. I hadnt researched eating options very well for Rome :(, so we ended up eating at one of the restaurants which seemed to have a crowd and decent food. Lunch wasnt too bad.
We went back to the Colosseum to meet David from TourinRome and he took us to the Palantine hill. He did paint a great picture of the Palantine hill during the good ol days and made it easy for us to imagine how it would have been, where the Emporor's private chambers were, where his public chambers were, where the gardens stood, etc. Now the whole place is in ruins which kind of makes you sad because if the place existed as is, it would have been so grand. David then took us to a place from where you could see the entire Roman Forum and pointed out important locations in the Forum. I really liked David's tour of the Palantine Hill. I didnt check Rick Steeves tour of the Palantine hill mainly because he doesnt have a guided audiotour for it, but I think David did give us more information. He told us that all the expensive marble that was used to build the Palantine hill was taken by the Vatican when the Roman empire fell. So when you look at the grandeur of the Vatican museum and especially the St Peter's basilica imagine that marble in the Palantine hill. I wish I was somehow able to see the Palantine hill during the glory days.
I was disappointed by the way he gave us the tour of the Roman Forum. It seemed so superficial. We decided to do the Roman Forum ourselves and even though we had Rick Steeves audioguide for the Forum, we forgot to listen to it. Rick Steeves does have a good audiotour of the forum, use it. We then went from the Roman Forum to the Capitol Hill and to Victor Emanuael's monument. By this time, it was 6:30pm. From there we took a bus and went to the Pantheon. The Pantheon closes at 7:30pm so we reached there with just enough time to see the Pantheon and marvel at the dome and symmetry.
When we got out of the Pantheon, the whole atmosphere outside seemed different. There were musicians playing and there were a lot of people just hanging out at the Piazza. When I had browsed through Rick Steeves' book earlier, I had seen his Night tour of Rome. Since Pantheon was part of this night walk, we decided to do this tour. So we walked to Piazza Navona (skipped Campo de Fiori). Piazza Navona was a pleasant surprise. There are 2 fountains at this Piazza, lots of restaurants and lots of artists displaying their art. My husband just loved this place. He has been wanting to buy oil-painted art for so long and this place looked like heaven for him.
After spending some time here, we walked along and read Rick steeves night tour and enjoyed the way as he took us along different Piazzas. The other Piazzas were not half as lively as Piazza Navona or the Pantheon area. Then we can to the Trevi fountain. It was a fair out there, filled with people. But it looked amazing and so grand. We loved it here, you could just sit there, have wine and enjoy the fountain. There were a few people there who had bought a bottle of wine and glasses and were enjoying wine out there.
Then the night tour took us to the Spanish Steps. This was probably my biggest disappointment in my whole Europe trip. They are just steps!! with a fountain in front of it. But overall, I loved the night tour and would recommend it highly. Its very romantic. By the way, we also saw a pickpocket in action during our night walk. He flicked a girl's wallet when she was taking a picture. The girl didnt look like she realized it at all. Rome was so different and lively at night, everybody seemed to be out and having a good time. We went to a restaurant close to the Spanish Steps in a small alley and had a dinner there. The food was ok, nothing to write home about, but the people watching was fun. There was a man, about 50+, who was sitting with a 20+ woman and seemed like the Dos Equis man. He was the most interesting man in the world, very charming, drawing everyone towards him. The women sitting next to him eventually also started talking to him. He seemed to know the people at the restaurant very well. He even knew the street vendors well. :) He was our source of entertainment that night. After dinner we just walked to the metro station and went back to the hotel.
Overall, I would rate this day to be one of the best days of the trip. I absolutely loved every monument and every tour. Didnt enjoy the food as much but that's ok.
Day 6: Friday Sept 11 2009
We had booked the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel tour with Tourinrome.com for 45Euro per person (this included the 13 Euro entrance fee to the Vatican museum). When I booked I was told to come to the office by 9:30am but our tour guide David told us to meet him at the metro station by 10:30am, so we decided to meet him at 10:30. Just gave us some more time to sleep in. The site says that the tour takes 3 hours, but do not expect to start at 10:30 and be done by 1:30pm. by the time we started the tour it was about 11:15pm. Meanwhile, they were collecting more people to go along.
Since we were with a tour, we got to go right in, but these days Vatican sells their tickets online, so you just present it at the front door and skip all the line. Our tour guide Brandy was good and made the tour pretty interesting. She told us the difference between Greek scuptures and eary Roman scuptures and Renessaince sculptures and gave us some history behind each piece. The tour did seem a little bit rushed but the Vatican museum is pretty big and has a lot of pieces. I didnt really check Rick Steeves guide for the Vatican. I dont think he has an audio tour for it and if we had to read about each piece as we went through it, it would have probably taken us more time. This is the only place, where I am not sure whether Rick Steeves is better or even to par with the tour guides. The tour of Sistine Chapel was also nice. Sistine Chapel was smaller than I had imagined it to be, but it is nice to see the art work there.
Our tour ended at about 2:15pm. I was starving by this time. We quickly had pizza for lunch in the cafe at the Vatican and then went to St Peter's basilica. This was about a 15 minute walk from the Vatican museum. I was a bit disappointed that this was not included in our tour. By the time we reached the basilica it was about 3:30pm and there was a huge line. It seemed to be moving quickly but I thught it would take us hours to go through this line. We had a 5:00pm appointment at the Borghese museum and they had asked us to be there by 4:30pm to collect our tickets. I didnt think we had enough time to do the St Peter's basilica and was a bit disappointed and threw a mini tantrum at my husband :) He eventually convinced me that we could do it all, so we stood in line and fortunately for us that huge line just took just 10-15 minutes. There were a lot of tour guides offering a tour of the basilica for 20 Euros, dont listen to them, just stand in line. It moves very quickly. We were finally inside the basilica at about 4:00pm.
I am so glad we went to St Peter's basilica. It is so grand and completely shows the wealth of the Vatican. The gold, the marble, the paintings the sculptures are all mind blowing. Michaelangelo's Pieta glows. We had only about 30 minutes we could spend here so we had to breeze through it. I tried to follow rick steeves tour but we didnt have enough time for that. I wish I had planned Rome better and allocated time for each monument and researched more about the crowds. I would have liked to spend atleast another 30 minutes in the basilica but I am really really glad we got to see it.
We ran out of the basilica at 4:30pm, tried to catch a cab at the closeby taxi stand but there were no cabs there at the time. Eventually at about 4:40pm, we got a cab to take us to the Borghese gallery. Borghese gallery is a little difficult to reach using the metro, you have to walk a lot and we had planned to take a cab to it anyway, buses are more accessible though. Cabs are cheap in Rome, it cost us about 10 Euro and 15-18 minutes to reach the Borghese gallery from the St Peter's Basilica.
We reached Borghese gallery at 4:55pm, just in time to pick up the tickets and the audioguides. With Borghese gallery, you need to reserve your timeslot in advance. They have 2 hour timeslots from 9-11,11-1,1-3,3-5,5-7 each day. I had called them before we left for our trip and reserved the 5-7 slot. We used the Roma Pass here, so the tickets were free. You arent allowed to take any bags etc in the Borghese museum and the audioguide was recommended to us. The sculpture at the Borghese gallery was a pleasant surprise to me. Bernini's sculpture at this gallery was absolutely amazing. his version of David, Appollo's chase were breathtaking. I loved the Borghese gallery. It has a beautiful collection of art and sculpture and also has beautiful marble floors and the audioguide is good as well. Our tour there ended at 6:55pm. They start kicking you out by that time :)
Since we had loved Piazza Navona so much the previous night, we decided to go there again. We took a bus from near the Borghese gallery and got off at the Trevi fountain and walked to the piazza. It was not as magical as it was the previous night. For some reason the fountains werent lit up and one section did not have light and there was also some protest going on there. My husband wanted to get an oil painting from there, so we browsed through the collections of a few artists, till we found a painting of Venice that we liked. After that we went out for dinner.
This time though, I had asked one of the employees at the Borghese gallery to recommend a good pizza place in that area. She recommended 'Buffeto' as well, but she also recommended a place called 'Pizzeria Monte Carlo' which is very close to 'Buffeto'. She even drew me a little map on how to get there. David, our tour guide had also recommended 'Buffeto' in Piazza Navona for the best pizza in town. We asked around and got to this place. But the line at 'Buffeto' was long and we didnt have the enrgy to stand in line, so we went to Monte Carlo. We were seated in about 5 minutes. There were a lot of locals out there and the atmosphere was very casual. The food was pretty inexpensive. My husband ordered the Monte Carlo pizza and I got pesto pasta (silly me). His pizza was one of the best pizzas we had during our trip along with our Venice lunch. I wished that I had ordered the same. It was so tasty, my pasta was ok. Nothing special. We also ordered the house wine and had tiramisu and panna cotta for dessert. The bill was just 27 Euro. I absolutely recommend this place. Seek it out and try their Monte Carlo pizza.
Paris
-Versailles Palace and gardens
Day 7: Saturday Sept 12 2009
We had a 9:00am flight with easyjet from Rome Ciampino airport to Paris Orly. I had found out that there are a few shuttle buses that take you from Termini to the airportfor about 4Euro per person. There was one called TerraVision and another called SIT and I had decided to go with SIT because I had heard that Terravision busses get full pretty quickly. The previous day before we let for the Vatican we went to the Termini to check where both busses started from and as hard as we tried we couldnt find the SIT location, we asked around and nobody knew about SIT. They only knew about Terravision, so we got the timetable from them. Their left Termini at 6:30am and reached airport at 7:05am which suited us perfectly, so we decided to catch the Terravision bus.
I had spoken to our hotel manager, Luigi the previous night and had told him that we will be leaving at 6:15am today and he was kind enough to offer to give us our breakfast early at 6:00am even though they usually start serving breakfast at 7am. I had set my alarm at 5:30am, but the damn thing didnt ring. :@. I woke up at about 5:55am mainly because I could hear Luigi preparing our breakfast and then my husband and me rushed and got ready. Luigi gave us our breakfast at 6am and somehow we had our coffee and were ready at 6:15am. Since we had settled our bill the previous night, we headed out the door and started walking to the Terravision office which was on the other side of Termini. We reached there at about 6:25am, loaded our bags, got ourselves a seat and the bus left at 6:30am. Phew, we made it. The bus was full when it left, we got 2 of the last 4 seats.
We reached the airport at 7:05am, checked in with easyjet. There wasnt a big line there and checkin was a breeze. Boarded our plane and reached Paris Orly at 11:00am. BTW, if you think American domestic flights are bad, Easyjet doesnt even give you water for free and they charge you for every checked baggage. But inspite of that they were cheaper than taking a train from Rome to Paris. From Paris Orly, we took the Paris metro and went to our hotel near the Luxemboeurg metro station. We checked in, took a shower, went to a nearby place to have lunch and then took a train to go to Versailles. By the time we were done with this whole thing and ready to take the train to Versailles, it was about 2:30pm. I knew we were late because I wanted to be inside the gates of Versailles by 2:30 pm in order to see the Petit and Grand Trianon. Getting up late in Rome and deciding to take a shower in Paris and sitting down for lunch had set us back an hour, we could have easily saved that time. :(
We reached Versailles by about 3:25pm, when we reached the palace there was a line to get the tickets. So it was about 3:50pm when we got to the ticket counter. The lady at the ticket counter refused to give us tickets to the Petit and Grand Trianon because she said we wont be able to do it anyway. So we got our tickets for the Palace (which is subsidised after 3pm). We also wanted to see the gardens because Saturday and Sunday were the only days the fountains are flowing and fortunately we were there on a Saturday. You get tickets for the gardens near the entrance to the gardens, another line. Couldnt they just have one line for tickets for both the palace and the gardens? Neways, this line was short. We decided that we absolutely had to do the gardens by 5:00pm because the palace closes at 6:00pm and we needed atleast an hour to see the palace.
The gardens were beautiful and the fountains looked awesome. This was the coldest day on our trip and it was very windy and we were walking around from fountain to fountain and each fountain was beautiful and a lot of them were grand. It would have been peaceful to walk around the gardens if we werent in such a rush to do it in an hour. But I am glad we did it. We could see people boating in the lake close to the Petit Trianon which was far away from the palace. I think the walk is about 30 minutes. You cant even see the trianons from the palace. They are pretty secluded. We managed to finish our tour of the gardens by 4:55pm and went to the palace. We got our audioguides for the Palace. These were included in the price of the ticket, but they didnt even have a map of the rooms they were going to talk about.
Versailles Palace Ticketing and Sales is probably the most disorganized I found among all the other places I visited. Everything is at a different place. You go here for the audioguide and then somewhere else for the map and somewhere else for the tickets. Cant you give me everything around the same place? Anyways, I guess I was more mad because we didnt have time :) We started our palace tour at 5:05pm or so. The audioguide is pretty boring and gives just enough information to let you know which room you are in and a one liner about why it is important. Inspite of the time, there were 2 tourist groups with us, so we knew we would be able to do the tour in an hour. Honestly, you dont need more time than that. We moved from room to room listening to the audioguide and saw the Hall of Mirrors, King's bedroom, Queen's bedroom, etc and then the Versailles Museum. Most of the pieces we saw here were copies, we had already seen the originals in the Louvre.
We finished the Palace tour at about 5:55pm and by that time they had sharted shoving people out. Frankly we didnt have any more energy :). We took some more pics outside the palace and then took the train back to Notre Dame. I had reserved a table for us at a nice French restaurant called Monjul in the Marais district because I wanted us to go to atleast one good french restaurant and try out their food, so that our impression about French food was something other than baguettes or crepes with ham and cheese. We walked from the Notre Dame metro station to monjul, (which was about a 15 minute walk) and reached there at 8pm. The restaurant was empty when we came in but in half an hour it was full.
We ordered a nice 3 course meal of Foie gras for appetizer, I ordered risotto as my entree and a medley of chocolate and strawberry dishes for dessert and my husband ordered seared tuna and pistachio panna cotta for his. After we had our first bite of foie gras we knew we would be full just by eating the foie gras. It was so rich and heavy. They served all their food like they serve food on Top Chef on the Food Network Channel. :). The ambience was ok, not very romantic. We both enjoyed our entrees but we were too full to eat dessert, so we took a break and had dessert after some time. The restaurant is run by 2 guys, one of them speaks English and always was in a hurry. The other guy who did not was very sweet and took our picture and joked a bit with us inspite of the language barrier. By the time, we got out of the restaurant, it was about 10:15pm. We were having dinner for about 2 hours!!! We took a cab from here to our hotel and that's how our day ended.
Next day we took the RER to the airport. I had picked our hotel such that it was close to the RER line which took us to the airport because I didnt want to change lines with luggage in hand, even though we only had one bag each to carry. We reached the airport in time, had French breakfast with croissant and baggutte, went through security, took a 2Euro massage outside near our departure gate and left for home.
And that is how we did Paris, Venice, Florence and Rome in 7 days. :) Oh, by the way we managed the whole trip with a budget of $4250-$4500
I was expecting a 2 hour line but we were in the museum in 10 minutes. We followed Rick Steeves tour and absolutely loved it. This is a must see museum, even if you dont know much about art (like me). It has an absolutely impressive collection. The top floor was more crowded that the bottom one. One tip I got from tripadvisor was to visit big museums first thing in the morning to beat crowds. You can go up to the terrace and get a beautiful view of the Louvre and the Seine river.By the time we were done with Orsay I was famished. We were there for about 2-3 hours and hadnt had lunch (or breakfast) yet. We quickly picked up a baguette and a crepe and had lunch at the steps on the Orsay. The food was terrible. But being a Sunday, most good restaurants in Paris are closed. We could have had lunch at the restaurant in the museum but we didnt have the time to eat a leisurely lunch. We also realized that the camera battery was out and since we werent carrying the extra battery with us, we had to go back to the hotel. We were a bit tired and decided to sleep for an hour or so.
Then we went to the Pompidou museum (Modern Art). This museum wasnt on my must see list but since it was free, I wanted to check out if possible what modern art is all about. Again the lines werent too bad. About 15 minutes and we were in. This was probably the most boring museum I ever visited and I am glad I didnt pay the 12Euro entry fee for it. I was laughing in half the rooms when I saw a canvas divided into 3 boxes and presented as art. This is definitely not a place where you should take young kids. Trust me, all museums we went to had nudity but nothing like this museum. It was graphic. But the building is interesting and different than most of the classical museums you see in Paris. This area also had street performances in the evening and the atmosphere was quite fun.We walked from here to the Notre Dame passing Hotel De Ville along the way. We didnt visit the Notre Dame basilica but just the walk was beautiful. Being near the Seine river near Pont Neuf during sunset is very very romantic. Paris in general is a very romantic city and it is better if you dont understand French. :) You will see that most restaurants have outdoor seating and almost all of them with outdoor seating are full and all the chairs face the street. People watching is the most favorite thing to do among Europeans. We saw this all over the place. And what do they talk about? To us, it appeared that they were judging us, our clothes, shoes etc. Atleast that was the direction they were looking in. We ended up doing the same thing: judging people; except I was awed by their dressing style.They do dress very very well, especially the women, even on a Sunday. It was a huge contrast from the T-shirt, shorts style of dressing in the US. But I am sure if you go to New York city, you will find really well dressed people.
We then took a train and went to Sacre Coeur. We decided to take the funicular train instead of climbing those stairs. By this time, our feet were killing us. I had read that Sacre Coeur is a fun place to be in the evening around sunset, but I didnt find this place as exciting. We went to the basilica. It was good. Do this only if you have extra time else skip. We then went home, had dinner in a restaurant close to our hotel and went to sleep by 10:30 pm. Phew, that was a full day.
Day 2: Monday Sept 7 2009
The first thing we wanted to do was the Louvre. I had learned from Tripadvisor that if you enter the Louvre from the Rue de Rivoli entrance, you wont find a line and go right into the Louvre. It was certainly true. The Louvre opens at 9am and we were there at 9:30am, no lines and we went right into the Devon wing. First thing we did was see Mona Lisa. I knew that it was small so I wasnt very disappointed. Rick Steeves does a great job of showing how art progressed from 2D to 3D. How the themes evolved, how background was added, the meanings of the paintings, etc. The Louvre is huge and very impressive. We admired most of the paintings in the Denon wing, admired the ceiling, saw Venus, King Louis crown, ancient greek statues, etc. Loved it. You can spend the whole day here. Of course after 3 hours our feet were killing us and we were hungry.
We had a quick bite at the cafe in the Louvre so that I didnt faint :) and then walked along the Seine quays to the Notre Dame on Ile de Cite . There isnt much line to go to the Notre Dame basilica. The line is usually to go to the top and by the way, you have to climb stairs. There is no elevator. We had decided that the only way we were going on the top of any monument was to take an elevator. It is a nice basilica to visit (Hey, its free), but the exterior is more impressive. We then went to Sante Chappelle which is also on Ile de Cite.
This is probably the only place we stood in line for more than 10 minutes. There was a 30 minute wait and a Paris Museum pass wouldnt have helped us because the wait was for security check. Beware, there are 2 entrances out here, one if for the court and one if for the church. Dont waste time standing in the wrong line. Inspite of this being a church, there was a 8 Euro entry fee. Most basilicas are free cause who charges you to visit a church. But the stained glass windows are nice to see, especially in the afternoon. Though I liked it here, you can skip this if you dont have the time or the energy. Next stop: Latin Quarter which is right next to Ile de Cite.
Again you visit the Marais district and the Latin quarter to get a feel of these area. Kindof like visiting the 3rd Street Promenade in LA. We had a filling Chicken pita out here. Very nice. We were so bored of seeing ham and cheese on every menu. From here we went to the Arc De Triomphe. Again we did not climb to the top. Its a nice monument but something I thought we could skip. We had decided not to do Champs-Elysees or Place de la Concorde. From here, next stop Eiffel Tower. To view the Eiffel tower for the first time, I would advise seeing it from the Trocadero side. By the time we reached the Eiffel Tower it was about 6pm. On the way we saw a vendor selling mini Eiffel tower momentos. The guy was a bangladeshi and he asked us where we were from. When he learnt we were from India, he gave us like 3 Eiffel towers in different sizes for the price of 1. So we got 3 of them for 5 Euros. The guy was happy to see us :)
There are usually 2-3 lines to get to the top. Most people see the first line and stand in line there. Lookout for the second line; it is usually much shorter. We stood in the second line and were in the elavator in 10 minutes. You can climb the stairs to get to the top if you like. We went to the 2nd level and the view from there is absolutely gorgeous. I had read on Tripadvisor that there is no difference in the view from the 2nd level and from the 3rd level, so it isnt worth the extra money to go to the 3rd level. We enjoyed this view for some time. I had booked an hour long river cruise with Vedettes de Paris. Their location was right across from the Eiffel Tower. If you buy their tickets online you end up saving about 5Euro per person. (atleast at the time I booked).
During the month of September, they had a promotion where you get the cruise + a glass of champagne for 11Euro per person but you have to give them a specific time. I had checked on sunrisesunset.com and had found out when it gets dark in Paris in September and had choosen a 9pm cruise. We had dinner (same ol' crepes and baguette) right across from the Vedettes office. Eiffel tower twinkles for the first 5 minutes of every hour. Its magical to watch. I had found this out and timed our seine cruise so that we get to watch this before we left and as soon as we came back. Everyone (including me) rushed to the top to get a good view of the sites during the tour. If you do this, try to sit on the right side. It was cold and windy out there. But seriously its not as fun on the top. We realized this about 20 minutes into the tour. My husband went to the lower deck to get our champagnes and realized that there was a nice spot down there. We went to the lower deck and went to the very front of the ship and had a very private cruise from here on. There was just one more couple with us there. You can hear the commentary better , enjoy the champagne and get great views and great pictures from down here. And it was not as cold as on the top deck. We absolutely loved this tour. It was very romantic to see Paris lit up at night and the water shining in the glow of these lights. This is a must do according to me.
When we came back at around 10pm, we saw the Eiffel tower twinkle again. :). We took the train back to our hotel and were so tired that we just slept right away. We had an early morning flight from CDG to Venice Marco Polo with Easjet airlines. We got the tickets for a good price. About 118 Euro for the both of us including the checkin. We asked our hotel to get a taxi to pick us up in the morning. The trains didnt start until 5am and we wanted to be at the airport by 5am.
Venice
-Doge Palace
-St Mark Basillica
-St Mark Square
-Grand Canal tour
-Frari church
-Church Tower
- Rialto Market
Day 3: Tuesday Sept 8 2009
We reached Venice airport on time. I had already purchased a 24 hour vaporetto pass through Venice Connected. I just collected the tickets from their center at Venice airport. This ticket also includes the bus fare from the airport to Piazzale Roma with ACTV bus 5. There is also another express bus from the airport to Piazzale Roma for 4Euro pp. You can choose either. Both take about 20-25 minutes. Our hotel was very close to the train station. We stayed at Hotel Minerva e Nettuno. Not a bad hotel. Again we got to check in early.
We had a quick breakfast at Brek nearby. Italy definitely has better food than Paris by the way. We then took vaporetto and went to St Mark Square. I wanted to check out the Rialto Market in the morning but we didnt have time for that. By the time we reached St Mark Basilica, it was about 11:40am. We used Rick Steeves tip of checking in our luggage at the nearby check-in and got in right past all the lines. We used Rick Steeves audiotour but it was a little difficult to follow here. We visited the museum and the treasury inside. It was really good. My husband especially enjoyed it. The whole interior of this basilica is done in mosaic which are laid such that they reflect the sunlight during the day at different angles. I cant imagine the amount of time it took to complete this basilica. It is also one of the oldest basilicas. Oh, by the way, the reason for us doing the basilica at this time is cause it is lit up from inside for only one hour each day between 11:30am to 12:30pm. I would recommend seeing it at this time, but its ok to visit it at another time as well.
By the time, we were done with St Marks Basilica, I was very cranky and irritable because we were behind time by about an hour. This is where I decided to slow down. Venice is such a relaxing and wonderful place and I was losing out on the feel of Venice by trying to do more in a short time. We decided to take it slow and walk slow and just enjoy Venice. Oh, by the way, the walking shoes which I had specially bought for this trip were killing me, so I switched to my Sketchers flipflops and they were so much better. From here we went to the Campo San Polo area; near the Frari church.
By this time we had decided to drop the Frari church, but there was an awesome restaurant here which I had read so much about that I had to try it. My hubby's wish during our trip was to eat good pizzas, so after much research I finialized the 'Antica birraria la corte'. It was so nice and relaxing to walk the streets of Vcenice with no pressure to make it to the next place by a certain time. We enjoyed lunch there. I had some house wine; which was really good. My husband loved the pizza. Overall this was one of the best lunches we had on our trip. Just so relaxing and good food. We got a little lost on the way but it was fun. We then took the vaporetto and went to the Accademia area. The Accademia bridge was very romantic and the view of San Salute from here is awesome. From here we walked to Campo Santa Stefano. Had gelato at Paolin. Nice rum raisin gelato. Walked from here to St Mark's square. This is a very nice walk lined with small canals. Venice is such a romantic city and very very relaxing.
We were glad that we had slowed our pace down a bit. We then went to the Doge Palace. Again I had got my tickets for the Doge Palace from VeniceConnected. I got a discount if I visited after 3pm. Also the lines were supposed to be shorter after 4pm. When we went at 3:30pm, there was noone else in line. I guess the crowds had gotten much less due to recession. We used Rick Steeves again. We read his tour as he took us from room to room. We both loved the Doge Palace. Its a nice place. The floors are just like our old tiles in Bombay (the chipped ones), but the Doge Palace is pretty impressive. Nice place to visit in Venice. By the time we were done with the Doge Palace, it was about 5:30pm. We wandered around and sat down at a cafe and just had some coffee and did some people watching. Around 6:30pm, we went to the St Mark's square, enjoyed the scene there a bit. We saw kids trying to chase away the pigeons, but I guess the pigeons are so used to humans there that they wouldnt even fly away. I tried chasing them a few times...they wouldnt fly :(...did some more people watching.
Then we went to the top of the clock tower. It has some fabulous views of Venice. I had timed it so that we were at the top around sunset, we enjoyed the sunset from here. It was beautiful. Then we went to Dorsoduro area; just to check out the area, A lot of people decide to stay here when in Venice. It was a nice area probably a little less touristy. Had gelato here and then went out for dniner. I had researched this place called :'Enoteca Mascareta Di Lorenzon Mauro' which is about a 10 minute walk from St Mark Square. The place was fun, no pizzas though. the food was nice, the wine was good, the owner was fun. We had one glass of wine each and he gave us another glass of wine for free and told us:' There is no driving around in Venice' :).
After dinner we went back to St Mark's square, enjoyed the orchestra at the various restaurants there and went back to our hotels. Overall a very relaxing, fun day. I felt that one day was too short in Venice. We wanted to stay there for atleast one more day in Venice. It was difficult to say goodbye to Venice. And yes, we didnt do the gandola ride. Again something we had decided before hand. I think it is a tourist trap to pay 80-90 Euro for a ride, but it is probably worth it. :). Maybe next time.
Florence
-Uffizi Museum
-Accademia
-Duomo
-Borgello Museum
-Piazza Michaelangelo
-Mercato Centrale
-Mercato Nuovo
-Ponte Vecchio
Day 4: Wednesday Sept 9 2009
We took a 6:30am train from Venice to Florence. Train system in Italy is awesome. Since our hotel in Venice was just a 5 minute walk from the train station, we left at 6am, reached the station, found our train, coach, seats, got something to eat and took off exactly at 6:30am. We reached Florence at 9:30am. I had heard that the route to Florence from Venice was very scenic but it was ok.
After we reached Florence, we deposited our bags at the Baggage deposit at the train station and went to the Mercato Centrale. Had a breakfast of mozerella cheese, tomato and bread and some coffee. The one complain I have with Italians is that they serve their coffee lukewarm instead of hot. Its just not the same. This area is lined with stores that sell a lot of leather purses and jackets. Our trip to Florence was too short to shop in these stores but I would have loved to.
We went to the Borgello museum. They have a good collection of bronze statues and some more Michaelangelos. If you dont have time, you can skip this museum. We then had lunch at the Yellow bar which is right across from the Bargello museum. The food there We were a bit tired, so we decided to skip the Accademia (Original David). This was probably a mistake. I heard that the original David is really hot, the David copies in Piazza Signoria and Piazza Michaelangelo are no comparison. We then visited the Duomo exterior and interior. Though we had heard that the view from the top of Duomo is really nice, we didnt have the time to stand in line and climb the 400+ stairs, so we skipped it. The duomo interior was ok. I guess after seeing St Mark Basilica and Doge Palace our expectations were high.
We then walked along the pedestrain streets and had a gelato at Perche No?. I had a watermelon gelato. This is probably the best gelato I had in the whole trip. It had an amazingly organic taste. We strolled along along Mercato Nuovo, rubbed the pig's nose. Its supposed to ensure your return back to Florence. Then we went to Ponte Vecchio, then went to Piazza Signoria. Checked out the sculptures at this square, stepped into Palazzio Vecchio to check out the inner courtyard. The ceiling in this courtyard is well decorated.
By this time, it was about 4:10pm and we had a reservation at the Uffizi at 4:15pm. We had checked out the line at the Uffizi earlier and the wait time without reservations was about an hour. So we were glad we had made reservations here. The Uffizi had a very nice collection of paintings and sculptures. Again Rick Steeves audioguide for the Uffizi made this tour very enjoyable and knowledgable for us. Our tour ended around 6:30pm or so. We then went to the nearby Tintori bus stop to catch bus #13 to Piazza Michaelangelo. While waiting for the bus we went to the nearby grocery store and got a couple of bottles of water. Piazza Michaelangelo gives really great views of Florence. We took about 10 minutes to get there by bus. We spent about 1/2 hour at the Piazza and enjoyed the sunset views from here and took bus#13 to the train station.
Our train to Rome was at 8:49pm. We reached the train station at about 8pm. While I picked up dinner at a nearby restaurant, Neel got our bags back from the baggage deposit. By the time we finished dinner, it was time to board our train. The schedule at the station incorrectly showed our train as going to Milan instead of Rome. We were able to figure this out just in time and ran with our bags and boarded the train. We just made it to our coach and took our seats and the train took off. Phew we made it. We were so tired that if we had missed the train we would have been pretty made. The train went non-stop to Rome, we slept through most of the trip and we reached Rome at about 10:15pm.
It was pretty easy to find our hotel in Rome. I had booked one right next to Termini because Termini is a very central location in terms of transportation. The guy who opened the door to our hotel looked so Roman, it was hilarious. Both me and my husband were taken aback, this guy looked Roman, walked Roman, talked Roman and even smelled Roman. :( He looked like his day job was to dress like a gladiator at the Colosseum. This day was very hectic and we knew that when we planned it. I would have liked to reserve a whole day in Florence and stay there for the night. We both felt like we enjoyed every city more when we spent the night there. Nightlife was magical in all the other cities.
Rome
-Colosseum
-Palantine Hill
-Roman Forum
-Pantheon
-Trevi Fountain
-Spanish Steps
-Vatican Museum
-Sistine Chapel
-St Peter's Basilica
-Borghese Gallery
Day 5: Thursday Sept 10 2009
We were so tired by the 4th day that we decided to take it a little slow. So we got up by 9:30am or so. Our hotel (Rome Accomodations B&B) served us breakfast in our room. This is something which I really loved about hotels in Italy vs in Paris, that in most hotels in Italy, breakfast is included in the room rate. After a good breakfast, we went to Termini and bought our Roma Passes. We decided on the Roma Pass cause we had decided to do atleast the Colosseum and the Borghese gallery. The Roma Pass also includes bus and metro transportation throughout Rome. We took a metro and went to the Colosseum by about 11:30 am.
The Colosseum is very conviniently located right outside the train station. We thought that maybe we should take the guided tour through Tourinrome.com. They offer a 10Euro per person(not including ticket) for a tour of the Coloseum, Palantine Hill and Roman Forum. This company was recommended to us and we had already booked our Vatican tour through them, so we decided, why not. Please note, that the comapny advertises a group of 15 people at a time, but our group was actually 30 strong, though it didnt seem to affect the quality of the tour in any way.
Though we didnt stand in line for too long because of the tour guide, we saw people with Roma Passes walking right through a different line, which was shorter than the line for tours. The tour of the Colosseum was pretty good, but after the tour I compared notes with Rick Steeves' tour of the Colosseum and he was pretty much telling you the same thing that the tour guide told us.
After the Colosseum tour, we walked around the Colosseum Museum which we found quite interesting. It gives a good timeline and history of the Roman empire. (This is not included in the tour, it is a self-guided tour).
Our next trip to the Palantine hill and Roman Forum was scheduled at different times in the afternoon. So decided to have lunch and then join the tour at 3:55pm. Though I was trying to look for a restaurant recommended by Rick Steeves, it was a bit difficult to find. I hadnt researched eating options very well for Rome :(, so we ended up eating at one of the restaurants which seemed to have a crowd and decent food. Lunch wasnt too bad.
We went back to the Colosseum to meet David from TourinRome and he took us to the Palantine hill. He did paint a great picture of the Palantine hill during the good ol days and made it easy for us to imagine how it would have been, where the Emporor's private chambers were, where his public chambers were, where the gardens stood, etc. Now the whole place is in ruins which kind of makes you sad because if the place existed as is, it would have been so grand. David then took us to a place from where you could see the entire Roman Forum and pointed out important locations in the Forum. I really liked David's tour of the Palantine Hill. I didnt check Rick Steeves tour of the Palantine hill mainly because he doesnt have a guided audiotour for it, but I think David did give us more information. He told us that all the expensive marble that was used to build the Palantine hill was taken by the Vatican when the Roman empire fell. So when you look at the grandeur of the Vatican museum and especially the St Peter's basilica imagine that marble in the Palantine hill. I wish I was somehow able to see the Palantine hill during the glory days.
I was disappointed by the way he gave us the tour of the Roman Forum. It seemed so superficial. We decided to do the Roman Forum ourselves and even though we had Rick Steeves audioguide for the Forum, we forgot to listen to it. Rick Steeves does have a good audiotour of the forum, use it. We then went from the Roman Forum to the Capitol Hill and to Victor Emanuael's monument. By this time, it was 6:30pm. From there we took a bus and went to the Pantheon. The Pantheon closes at 7:30pm so we reached there with just enough time to see the Pantheon and marvel at the dome and symmetry.
When we got out of the Pantheon, the whole atmosphere outside seemed different. There were musicians playing and there were a lot of people just hanging out at the Piazza. When I had browsed through Rick Steeves' book earlier, I had seen his Night tour of Rome. Since Pantheon was part of this night walk, we decided to do this tour. So we walked to Piazza Navona (skipped Campo de Fiori). Piazza Navona was a pleasant surprise. There are 2 fountains at this Piazza, lots of restaurants and lots of artists displaying their art. My husband just loved this place. He has been wanting to buy oil-painted art for so long and this place looked like heaven for him.
After spending some time here, we walked along and read Rick steeves night tour and enjoyed the way as he took us along different Piazzas. The other Piazzas were not half as lively as Piazza Navona or the Pantheon area. Then we can to the Trevi fountain. It was a fair out there, filled with people. But it looked amazing and so grand. We loved it here, you could just sit there, have wine and enjoy the fountain. There were a few people there who had bought a bottle of wine and glasses and were enjoying wine out there.
Then the night tour took us to the Spanish Steps. This was probably my biggest disappointment in my whole Europe trip. They are just steps!! with a fountain in front of it. But overall, I loved the night tour and would recommend it highly. Its very romantic. By the way, we also saw a pickpocket in action during our night walk. He flicked a girl's wallet when she was taking a picture. The girl didnt look like she realized it at all. Rome was so different and lively at night, everybody seemed to be out and having a good time. We went to a restaurant close to the Spanish Steps in a small alley and had a dinner there. The food was ok, nothing to write home about, but the people watching was fun. There was a man, about 50+, who was sitting with a 20+ woman and seemed like the Dos Equis man. He was the most interesting man in the world, very charming, drawing everyone towards him. The women sitting next to him eventually also started talking to him. He seemed to know the people at the restaurant very well. He even knew the street vendors well. :) He was our source of entertainment that night. After dinner we just walked to the metro station and went back to the hotel.
Overall, I would rate this day to be one of the best days of the trip. I absolutely loved every monument and every tour. Didnt enjoy the food as much but that's ok.
Day 6: Friday Sept 11 2009
We had booked the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel tour with Tourinrome.com for 45Euro per person (this included the 13 Euro entrance fee to the Vatican museum). When I booked I was told to come to the office by 9:30am but our tour guide David told us to meet him at the metro station by 10:30am, so we decided to meet him at 10:30. Just gave us some more time to sleep in. The site says that the tour takes 3 hours, but do not expect to start at 10:30 and be done by 1:30pm. by the time we started the tour it was about 11:15pm. Meanwhile, they were collecting more people to go along.
Since we were with a tour, we got to go right in, but these days Vatican sells their tickets online, so you just present it at the front door and skip all the line. Our tour guide Brandy was good and made the tour pretty interesting. She told us the difference between Greek scuptures and eary Roman scuptures and Renessaince sculptures and gave us some history behind each piece. The tour did seem a little bit rushed but the Vatican museum is pretty big and has a lot of pieces. I didnt really check Rick Steeves guide for the Vatican. I dont think he has an audio tour for it and if we had to read about each piece as we went through it, it would have probably taken us more time. This is the only place, where I am not sure whether Rick Steeves is better or even to par with the tour guides. The tour of Sistine Chapel was also nice. Sistine Chapel was smaller than I had imagined it to be, but it is nice to see the art work there.
Our tour ended at about 2:15pm. I was starving by this time. We quickly had pizza for lunch in the cafe at the Vatican and then went to St Peter's basilica. This was about a 15 minute walk from the Vatican museum. I was a bit disappointed that this was not included in our tour. By the time we reached the basilica it was about 3:30pm and there was a huge line. It seemed to be moving quickly but I thught it would take us hours to go through this line. We had a 5:00pm appointment at the Borghese museum and they had asked us to be there by 4:30pm to collect our tickets. I didnt think we had enough time to do the St Peter's basilica and was a bit disappointed and threw a mini tantrum at my husband :) He eventually convinced me that we could do it all, so we stood in line and fortunately for us that huge line just took just 10-15 minutes. There were a lot of tour guides offering a tour of the basilica for 20 Euros, dont listen to them, just stand in line. It moves very quickly. We were finally inside the basilica at about 4:00pm.
I am so glad we went to St Peter's basilica. It is so grand and completely shows the wealth of the Vatican. The gold, the marble, the paintings the sculptures are all mind blowing. Michaelangelo's Pieta glows. We had only about 30 minutes we could spend here so we had to breeze through it. I tried to follow rick steeves tour but we didnt have enough time for that. I wish I had planned Rome better and allocated time for each monument and researched more about the crowds. I would have liked to spend atleast another 30 minutes in the basilica but I am really really glad we got to see it.
We ran out of the basilica at 4:30pm, tried to catch a cab at the closeby taxi stand but there were no cabs there at the time. Eventually at about 4:40pm, we got a cab to take us to the Borghese gallery. Borghese gallery is a little difficult to reach using the metro, you have to walk a lot and we had planned to take a cab to it anyway, buses are more accessible though. Cabs are cheap in Rome, it cost us about 10 Euro and 15-18 minutes to reach the Borghese gallery from the St Peter's Basilica.
We reached Borghese gallery at 4:55pm, just in time to pick up the tickets and the audioguides. With Borghese gallery, you need to reserve your timeslot in advance. They have 2 hour timeslots from 9-11,11-1,1-3,3-5,5-7 each day. I had called them before we left for our trip and reserved the 5-7 slot. We used the Roma Pass here, so the tickets were free. You arent allowed to take any bags etc in the Borghese museum and the audioguide was recommended to us. The sculpture at the Borghese gallery was a pleasant surprise to me. Bernini's sculpture at this gallery was absolutely amazing. his version of David, Appollo's chase were breathtaking. I loved the Borghese gallery. It has a beautiful collection of art and sculpture and also has beautiful marble floors and the audioguide is good as well. Our tour there ended at 6:55pm. They start kicking you out by that time :)
Since we had loved Piazza Navona so much the previous night, we decided to go there again. We took a bus from near the Borghese gallery and got off at the Trevi fountain and walked to the piazza. It was not as magical as it was the previous night. For some reason the fountains werent lit up and one section did not have light and there was also some protest going on there. My husband wanted to get an oil painting from there, so we browsed through the collections of a few artists, till we found a painting of Venice that we liked. After that we went out for dinner.
This time though, I had asked one of the employees at the Borghese gallery to recommend a good pizza place in that area. She recommended 'Buffeto' as well, but she also recommended a place called 'Pizzeria Monte Carlo' which is very close to 'Buffeto'. She even drew me a little map on how to get there. David, our tour guide had also recommended 'Buffeto' in Piazza Navona for the best pizza in town. We asked around and got to this place. But the line at 'Buffeto' was long and we didnt have the enrgy to stand in line, so we went to Monte Carlo. We were seated in about 5 minutes. There were a lot of locals out there and the atmosphere was very casual. The food was pretty inexpensive. My husband ordered the Monte Carlo pizza and I got pesto pasta (silly me). His pizza was one of the best pizzas we had during our trip along with our Venice lunch. I wished that I had ordered the same. It was so tasty, my pasta was ok. Nothing special. We also ordered the house wine and had tiramisu and panna cotta for dessert. The bill was just 27 Euro. I absolutely recommend this place. Seek it out and try their Monte Carlo pizza.
Paris
-Versailles Palace and gardens
Day 7: Saturday Sept 12 2009
We had a 9:00am flight with easyjet from Rome Ciampino airport to Paris Orly. I had found out that there are a few shuttle buses that take you from Termini to the airportfor about 4Euro per person. There was one called TerraVision and another called SIT and I had decided to go with SIT because I had heard that Terravision busses get full pretty quickly. The previous day before we let for the Vatican we went to the Termini to check where both busses started from and as hard as we tried we couldnt find the SIT location, we asked around and nobody knew about SIT. They only knew about Terravision, so we got the timetable from them. Their left Termini at 6:30am and reached airport at 7:05am which suited us perfectly, so we decided to catch the Terravision bus.
I had spoken to our hotel manager, Luigi the previous night and had told him that we will be leaving at 6:15am today and he was kind enough to offer to give us our breakfast early at 6:00am even though they usually start serving breakfast at 7am. I had set my alarm at 5:30am, but the damn thing didnt ring. :@. I woke up at about 5:55am mainly because I could hear Luigi preparing our breakfast and then my husband and me rushed and got ready. Luigi gave us our breakfast at 6am and somehow we had our coffee and were ready at 6:15am. Since we had settled our bill the previous night, we headed out the door and started walking to the Terravision office which was on the other side of Termini. We reached there at about 6:25am, loaded our bags, got ourselves a seat and the bus left at 6:30am. Phew, we made it. The bus was full when it left, we got 2 of the last 4 seats.
We reached the airport at 7:05am, checked in with easyjet. There wasnt a big line there and checkin was a breeze. Boarded our plane and reached Paris Orly at 11:00am. BTW, if you think American domestic flights are bad, Easyjet doesnt even give you water for free and they charge you for every checked baggage. But inspite of that they were cheaper than taking a train from Rome to Paris. From Paris Orly, we took the Paris metro and went to our hotel near the Luxemboeurg metro station. We checked in, took a shower, went to a nearby place to have lunch and then took a train to go to Versailles. By the time we were done with this whole thing and ready to take the train to Versailles, it was about 2:30pm. I knew we were late because I wanted to be inside the gates of Versailles by 2:30 pm in order to see the Petit and Grand Trianon. Getting up late in Rome and deciding to take a shower in Paris and sitting down for lunch had set us back an hour, we could have easily saved that time. :(
We reached Versailles by about 3:25pm, when we reached the palace there was a line to get the tickets. So it was about 3:50pm when we got to the ticket counter. The lady at the ticket counter refused to give us tickets to the Petit and Grand Trianon because she said we wont be able to do it anyway. So we got our tickets for the Palace (which is subsidised after 3pm). We also wanted to see the gardens because Saturday and Sunday were the only days the fountains are flowing and fortunately we were there on a Saturday. You get tickets for the gardens near the entrance to the gardens, another line. Couldnt they just have one line for tickets for both the palace and the gardens? Neways, this line was short. We decided that we absolutely had to do the gardens by 5:00pm because the palace closes at 6:00pm and we needed atleast an hour to see the palace.
The gardens were beautiful and the fountains looked awesome. This was the coldest day on our trip and it was very windy and we were walking around from fountain to fountain and each fountain was beautiful and a lot of them were grand. It would have been peaceful to walk around the gardens if we werent in such a rush to do it in an hour. But I am glad we did it. We could see people boating in the lake close to the Petit Trianon which was far away from the palace. I think the walk is about 30 minutes. You cant even see the trianons from the palace. They are pretty secluded. We managed to finish our tour of the gardens by 4:55pm and went to the palace. We got our audioguides for the Palace. These were included in the price of the ticket, but they didnt even have a map of the rooms they were going to talk about.
Versailles Palace Ticketing and Sales is probably the most disorganized I found among all the other places I visited. Everything is at a different place. You go here for the audioguide and then somewhere else for the map and somewhere else for the tickets. Cant you give me everything around the same place? Anyways, I guess I was more mad because we didnt have time :) We started our palace tour at 5:05pm or so. The audioguide is pretty boring and gives just enough information to let you know which room you are in and a one liner about why it is important. Inspite of the time, there were 2 tourist groups with us, so we knew we would be able to do the tour in an hour. Honestly, you dont need more time than that. We moved from room to room listening to the audioguide and saw the Hall of Mirrors, King's bedroom, Queen's bedroom, etc and then the Versailles Museum. Most of the pieces we saw here were copies, we had already seen the originals in the Louvre.
We finished the Palace tour at about 5:55pm and by that time they had sharted shoving people out. Frankly we didnt have any more energy :). We took some more pics outside the palace and then took the train back to Notre Dame. I had reserved a table for us at a nice French restaurant called Monjul in the Marais district because I wanted us to go to atleast one good french restaurant and try out their food, so that our impression about French food was something other than baguettes or crepes with ham and cheese. We walked from the Notre Dame metro station to monjul, (which was about a 15 minute walk) and reached there at 8pm. The restaurant was empty when we came in but in half an hour it was full.
We ordered a nice 3 course meal of Foie gras for appetizer, I ordered risotto as my entree and a medley of chocolate and strawberry dishes for dessert and my husband ordered seared tuna and pistachio panna cotta for his. After we had our first bite of foie gras we knew we would be full just by eating the foie gras. It was so rich and heavy. They served all their food like they serve food on Top Chef on the Food Network Channel. :). The ambience was ok, not very romantic. We both enjoyed our entrees but we were too full to eat dessert, so we took a break and had dessert after some time. The restaurant is run by 2 guys, one of them speaks English and always was in a hurry. The other guy who did not was very sweet and took our picture and joked a bit with us inspite of the language barrier. By the time, we got out of the restaurant, it was about 10:15pm. We were having dinner for about 2 hours!!! We took a cab from here to our hotel and that's how our day ended.
Next day we took the RER to the airport. I had picked our hotel such that it was close to the RER line which took us to the airport because I didnt want to change lines with luggage in hand, even though we only had one bag each to carry. We reached the airport in time, had French breakfast with croissant and baggutte, went through security, took a 2Euro massage outside near our departure gate and left for home.
And that is how we did Paris, Venice, Florence and Rome in 7 days. :) Oh, by the way we managed the whole trip with a budget of $4250-$4500
