Vienna Katie and I were actually a little disappointed with our stay in Vienna. We kept hearing such awesome things about it, so we booked 3 nights at our hostel there. Unfortunately, Katie got bed bugs and we weren't really sure how to fill up our 3 days in the city. We went on a long walk and saw a lot of the museums, but we didn't have a guide and often didn't know what we were looking at. Regardless, a few highlights... Schönbrunn Palace As usual, we didn't actually pay to go inside and see the royal residences. However, the [View Full Entry]

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Salzberg After dropping our bags off at the hostel, we had a quick lunch at My Indigo. We planned to walk around a bit after, but we were feeling pretty cold and tired and decided to stop for coffee first. We went to a little cafe and had the cutest coffees! Mine had a Jewish star in cocoa powder on the foam and Katie's had a star. We shared some Sacher Torte and it was DELICIOUS! After that, we walked for several hours all over. Salzberg is a really pretty city. We went to the Mirabel gardens (part of which was [View Full Entry]

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Munchen New Munich Walking Tour Our guide for the tour wasn't phenomenal, but she did show us the sights of Munich. We started at Marienplatz and watched the much over-rated Glockenspiel. We saw some pretty churches and our guide told us an interesting legend about the devil stomping his foot in one of them. We also saw the New Synagogue, the old and new town halls and the royal residences. Finally, we stopped by Hofbrauhaus, a large brewery with a beer garden, but we didn't get a chance to grab some food or drinks. Don't worry, I made it back there [View Full Entry]

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Interlaken Again, the train rides through Switzerland are gorgeous!! Switzerland is so green! We passed by some gorgeous lakes and waterfalls. It's almost like the country can't decide what season it's in though, because when you look up, everything is blanketed with snow! Interlaken is in the middle of two lakes and surrounded by the Swiss Alps... and absolutely beautiful. Some highlights.... Paragliding! Interlaken is the home of extreme sports and we decided paragliding would be our sport of choice for this trip. I can't really afford it, but I went anyway and it w [View Full Entry]

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Lucerne First of all, the train ride to Lucerne was the most beautiful ride on which I have ever been. Switzerland is SO SO beautiful! Everything was so green and the small towns in the hills are adorable. There was a gorgeous waterfall around each turn and the whole time we were riding towards the incredible snow-covered Swiss Alps. I could not wait to get off the train and take some pics! Cheese Festival After shopping for some warmer clothes to keep me more comfortable the rest of the trip (unfortunately, I think I had my last beach day in Cinque [View Full Entry]

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San Gimignano The next day (that would be Oct 12, happy birthday Dad!) we took a bus out of Florence to nearby San Gimignano. I had lessons with the guy who worked at the front desk of our hostel on how to pronounce the citys name because people kept calling it San Gio..something. This little city is so cute! Its an old medieval town that is completely surrounded by walls with no cars except emergency vehicles inside its gates. The walls and towers are from the 10th & 11th centuries. We had lunch at a fantastic little restaurant where I had [View Full Entry]

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Florence Sorry for the delay in updates! Its been a while since Ive stayed at a hostel with free internet and the internet cafés in Italy were really expensive. Got a little bit of catching up to do, so here are some of the highlights from my first trip to Tuscany... Markets As soon as we (Katie, 2 guys we met in Rome that have become our travel buddies and me) dropped our stuff at the hostel in Florence, we wandered to try and find a little food. We wandered straight into the huge outdoor market area where people tried to [View Full Entry]

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Cinque Terre The train ride wasn long from Pisa and it went though a bunch of industrial towns and tunnels... until suddenly we came out of a tunnel and saw the sea. It was gorgeous and we couldn wait to get off the trian! Beach We dropped the stuff at the hostel and went straight to the beach. The sun was out, but it was still a little chilly and I decided to wait until the next day to go for a swim. We went hiking the next day, but then spent part of the day after that back at the [View Full Entry]

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Roma Rome is such a gorgeous city! It's ridiculous how many big beautiful buildings, churches and fountains are everywhere. It seems like a really cool building that would be a major tourist destination in any other city is totally ignored in Rome because there's an even bigger one somewhere else in Rome! Gelato I've got to put gelato as a highlight first because it was probably the most frequented destination after my hostel. We managed to make our way over to Giolotti for gelato at some point every day (but never more than once a day)! I always had a dark [View Full Entry]

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Andalusia - Sevilla & Granada After a nice train ride from Madrid to Sevilla (where they showed High School Musical 3 on the train in English!), we managed to navigate our way on the buses and then through some small alleys to our hostel in Seville. Our hostel (HostelOne) was about a month old and really cute. It´s the best sleep I´ve gotten on the trip so far, which is great. We dropped off our stuff and went to explore the city a bit. Ending up at... Tapas & Gazpacho We found a nice tapas bar and ordered some Sangria... yum! [View Full Entry]

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