Departure day! Sad that the trip is over, but I think we’re all ready to go home. They needed to clean our flat for the incoming guests, so we packed up early (leaving our luggage) and went out for breakfast. Had some nice pastries in a French bakery (not as good as the ones that were in Paris, but still pretty good). Went on a brief hunt for magazines and were amused to find that they don’t seem to sell magazines in drug stores or book stores in London. We did eventually find a news stand by a tube station, but [View Full Entry]

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Final full day of vacation. We slept in a bit and then got going slowly because of residual exhaustion from yesterday’s late night. We had a breakfast of bagels and cereal and enjoyed the spacious house in the morning. Our final planned outing was to the Tower of London. Blue skies early in the morning turned gloomy, and rain began to fall just as our walk from the house to the Sloane Square underground station ended. It was still raining when we emerged from the underground at Tower Hill and we got pretty well soaked waiting in line to buy tickets. [View Full Entry]

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Up early to clean up and say farewell to our lovely Paris flat. Still raining off and on as we trudged down the street with our luggage towards the taxi stand. We figured a taxi would be the most reasonable way to get to the train station for our Chunnel-train back to London, but the rain apparently had caused a taxi shortage. A day earlier there had been a long line of cabs, but this morning we waited for 20 minutes (nervously looking at our watches) and nothing. Eventually we decided to go with plan B and take the metro. Very [View Full Entry]

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Second full day in Paris. Enjoyed breakfast in the apartment and planned our day. We hit the pavement around 11 with a plan to walk along the Rue de Rivoli towards the Louvre and then spend time in the Jardin des Tuileries. Cooler than yesterday and less humid. We made our way slowly, stopping to examine the sights and take photos. One major souvenir shopping excursion produced some trinkets plus a set of scarves for Sonia and Lauren. Lauren looked (to us anyway) quite Parisian in her skirt and scarf combo. We were awestruck by the vastness of the Louvre as [View Full Entry]

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Full day in Paris. We woke up around 9 and enjoyed a breakfast and coffee at home. The flat is a wonderful refuge and the functional coffeemaker was a big hit with Sonia. The kids enjoyed playing on the computer as the parents planned for the day. We had run out of steam a bit in the trip planning and Paris is really not that well planned-out for us. We checked our email and realized we had fraudulent credit card charges on one of our cards (sadly, we didn’t really find this terribly surprising after our experience in Rome). Cancelled that [View Full Entry]

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Up very early and pleased to have survived our stay in Rome without a fire. Cab to Ciampino airport took us on part of the Via Appia Antica - very interesting. Miles and miles of cobblestones, and even more ancient Roman ruins that we hadn’t laid eyes on before. Even at the airport, coffee is generally consumed at the bar -- the to-go cup being an alien concept to the Italians who are also apparently boycotting Starbucks - very odd and smacks of Mafia involvement. Flight was uneventful - As in the London-Venice leg, EasyJet was totally no-frills but delivered with [View Full Entry]

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Last day in Rome - We slept in till nearly 10. Our carefully constructed itinerary included a trip out of the city to see some ancient ruins that were particularly well preserved and apparently give a strong sense of Roman life ~2000 years ago. However, as we stared at each other, bleary-eyed and somewhat aching, we decided to opt for a plan B. We had more good coffee, this time in front of the Pantheon and then resolved to head to Piazza del Popolo and into the Villa Borghese (former estate, now park space). Rome is hot and dry and there [View Full Entry]

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Visit to the Vatican. Alarm set by 8 but we were not really moving until 8:45. Tickets supposedly were for 11 and didn’t want to miss our slot. We emerged to a pleasantly cooler day which made for a much more pleasant walk than yesterday’s. Mid-way we seemed to be making good progress so stopped for coffee and pastries at a less touristy out of the way café. Excellent coffee again and as we sat at sidewalk tables we got a taste of what the guidebooks warned us about: friendly older Italians who love children! An older gentleman came by for [View Full Entry]

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Second day in Rome. Slept past nine and it was hot when we woke up. Cleaned ourselves up and headed back to Piazza Navona for “breakfast” of croissants (called by their Italian name cornetas) and very tasty coffee. We took it slow and lingered at the shaded breakfast table, ordering a second course of pastries and coffee before heading off towards the Colosseum. The walk was a little bit over a mile, but we took it slowly and deliberately as we stopped at many sites and made an effort to keep ourselves in the shade. On the way we passed through [View Full Entry]

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Up in time to have a quick breakfast in the hotel. The very friendly desk clerk insisted on making (very tasty) cappuchinos for us even though we were in a bit of a rush. Turns out, we weren’t really in a rush at all. The water-bus to the train station went very smoothly and we arrived more than an hour early for our train. The Italians were true to stereotype and train was 40 minutes late. Once on board it was a very comfortable, relaxing and smooth ride. There was a brief moment of panic when it seemed like maybe we [View Full Entry]

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