We took a walk today between three of the Cinque Terre towns along the coast. It was an amazing view, and not really a bad hike. There were people who had rented boats that were down below in the coves, which looked like so much fun (I have to come back for that)! The waves were gorgeous crashing on the rock walls. We also walked down the famous trail of love where all these couples carved their names. It was a great view of the ocean with some great flowers and plants. The mountains had vineyards all along the sides with little great looking huts. We had an interesting experience with lunch when we though we order shrimp and ended up getting these crazy crustaceans that we had to break apart ourselves! It was definitely a ... read more

It is soooo hot in Venice that sleeping is almost impossible because our place (as with most) does not have AC! So we got up and out and went to St. Mark's. It was one of the oldest churches we've been in, with little restoration (the floor was literally sinking in). It was cool to see though because it had a very authentic feeling. It was almost completely gold with bible figures in the mosaic. Then we spent the rest of the day shopping around the very cute shops and adventuring down the streets. They have some really pretty blow glass that I really want to bring home, but have NO room. We had pizza for dinner and afterward got some really wonderful little chocolate shortbread cookies.... read more

Today was the BEST DAY EVER!! We decided that we were too tired to run around from site to site, so we took my dad's amazing advice to go to Berchtesgaden. It was about a 45 minute bus ride into the town, and then we took another bus to Konigssee where the great King's Lake is. We decided to take a boad ride down the lake to St. Bartholoma's chapel, and WOW it was amazing! The view of the snow-capped Alps from the crystal clear lake was incredible!! The weather was even beautiful for us all day long, with a nice breeze on the lake. It was such a nice relaxing day. I wish we had time to go back.... read more

We took a two hour train from Munich to Fussen to see Neuschwanstein (the Cinderella castle) and Hohenschwangau. It was a really gorgeous train ride into the country. We got to see a wonderful view of the Alps and German towns. We took a tour of Hohenschwangau first, the smaller of the two castles. We had a really funny man as our tour guide, so it was a good experience. Then we went to Neuschwanstein, and the views were stunning! From outside the window you could see the most beautiful lake and mountain range. It was amazing! The decorations definitely looked like Disney World. It wasn't like the castles in London or Paris at all, it was much more fairy tale like. The walls had paintings of different opera stories and tales of the times. We ... read more

Today was Louvre day!! We spent hours there just walking around looking at all the stuff. I didn't realize just how confusing the whole place is because it's sooo big! We got lost just trying to find the cafe for lunch and ended up walking around the entire place (not a short walk). We saw the Mona Lisa though, which was nice but not as big as I thought. My favorites were the French and Italian paintings. It's just the most massive collection of art ever, and now I know why people who want to look at ever picture have to go back multiple times. We did some window shopping after the Louvre, and then decided we're so tired that we're going to find something to eat.... read more