Carly from Calgary

hey guys, so after our early flight we dropped off our stuff at the hostel and then decided to check out the city. it seems like a pretty normal place if you are in the middle of the city centre... you don't really see any differences between that and some other european city until someone tells you the history of things that have happened. we basically just did a walking tour of everything and then took the public bus around to both the protestant and catholic neighbourhoods on either sides of the peace line. it was really interesting to see. we were pretty tired that night so we grabbed dinner and then went to bed. the next day we went to the giant's causeway on the northern coast which was amazing! that's why we stayed the ... read more

After Venice it was off to Austria- you can kind of see the crazy pace we've been following!! It was another long driving day and after checking out the city center it was time for bed! After getting up early we did a walking tour of the historical sites: various palaces and statues. As well as most importantly SHOPPED! The shopping was great here, as well as in Venice... wow you'd think these euros were burning holes in our pockets- but so far so good. You may have notice our entries are getting shorter, mainly because in some of these places we only have around 8 hours to see the whole city, so in Vienna we basically did shopping and then checked out one other major site, St. Stephens Cathedral (Der Weiner Stephensdem, or something llike ... read more

Well next stop was Roma! A fantastic city completely full of history. \the bus ride from Florence to Rome wasn't too bad so we made it into the city pretty early and it was HOT!! Atleast 30 degrees. Our group went to the Colosseum first which was awesome, probably one of our favorite landmarks so far! It was pretty amazing... The city is full of ancient ruins all over the place, so you'll see like a traffic circle that will have have marble columns in the middle from the time of the Roman Empire, definitely different from good ol' cowtown. We basically just spent the day walking around and taking it all in, we checked out the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps as well as the Pantheon. The craziest thing about the Pantheon is that it ... read more

Well once you see the picture below, we ll save you the trouble and just tell you now that YES, that is Kevin Bacon. And is you saw Bridget Joans Diary you,ll notice Colin Firth was with him also. After leaving Barcelona we headed back into France and we both agree this is one of our favorite spots so far, Cannes and Nice. We loved it here... We again stayed in tiny cabins but they are clean and warm so it works. So again after we arrived we just had some more cheap wine (amanda is slowly getting a taste for wine... hehe, possibly because its the cheapest thing around?) and played some cards... The next day we took the train into Cannes and lucky for us the International Film Festival is on. So we got ... read more

This was a lot of fun! We started off the evening "checking in" to our chateaux, really it was an extremely old french mansion and we stayed there with everyone on the same floor with 2 toilets for 40+ ppl. But being able to brush your teeth and look out the window at a vinery in the french countryside is priceless! We then went to a place where wine is made and had winetasting with cheese- it was also good. We ended up buying two bottles- pretty cheap though for excellent cab- the funny part was that it was all the canadians left at the end who stayed trying to get seconds (which we did!) After dinner there was a big party themed Shock Your Mother, meaning you had to dress in a way that would ... read more