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| Europe | ||||||||||||||||||||
| The summer of 2005 I was a chaperone on a trip through Europe. We visited Italy, France and England the trip was fun, although we did have some bumps along the way. We started in Rome, a very amazing and extremely busy city. The thing that was amazing to me is that you are walking down the narrows streets in the midst of shops and cafes and you turn a corner and there is an ancient building right in the middle of the modern city. The architecture, beauty and history of Italy is amazing. We saw all of the sites, the Coliseum, Roman forum, Spanish Steps, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Piazza Navona, etc. We also spent a day in the Vatican and saw beautiful works of art, the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Square, Basilica of St. Peter it was amazing how massive the Vatican is. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| We them moved on to Assisi on our way to Florence. Assisi is what I imagine a typical Italian town to look like, perched on the side of a mountain, flowers in bloom everywhere. When you are in Assisi looking over the countryside, a patchwork of greens. We saw the Basilica of St. Francis, we had lunch at a small out of the way pizzeria, we found while wandering the alleys in Assisi. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| We continued on to Florence and saw the "Fake David" the real one was inside the Museum, the Ponte Vecchio which is a bridge with shops and homes built upon it. The Duomo in Florence dwarves the people around it, the Duomo is made of red, green and white Travertine marble. We also visited Basilica of the Holy Cross (Basilica di Santa Croce) where famous people such as; Niccolò Machiavelli, Galileo, and Michelangelo Buonarroti to name a few are buried. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| We had a half day trip to Pisa which is a surprisingly small place, of course with the exception of the Tower, Cathedral, and Baptistery there. The leaning tower was actually open and for about $20 could go to the top, although they would only let about 20 people go up at a time (for safety reasons I assume). The cathedral was displaying the remains of Pisa's patron saint Raynerius de Aqua or St. Rainieri, they take out his bones one a year for display. The Baptistery at Pisa was the best part, our guide Urano had the security guard close the doors of the baptistery and go to the middle of the building. He then started signing one note at a time, the acoustics were unbelievable, by the time the guard had sang a few notes you could hear an entire chord. It gave me cold chills, Urano said that every Easter the choir performs in the Baptistery (I can only imagine how moving that is). We then took the train to Paris, it was a 13 hour trip and each berth slept 6 people each, 4 of them were complete strangers. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Once in Paris we went to Notre Dame, the most breathtaking sight in Paris. Early the next morning we went to the Louvre and took in as much as we had time for. The Mona Lisa is actually a surprisingly small painting, the Venus de Milo and Winged Victory were both breathtaking. The glass pyramid over the main entrance was beautiful. I also had a chance to see the Paris Opera house which has been a dream of mine since I read the Phantom of the Opera in high school. I saw the grand staircase, the golden angels on the roof and the amazing interior of the house. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| We took a half day trip to Versailles which is about a 45 minute drive from Paris. The palace is immense, I could not even imagine living in something that size, even with an entourage. The art in the palace was massive in every room, although the throne was not as ornate or as large as I was expecting. The gardens were beautiful and the city itself was very lovely. We visited the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, which is perch atop Montmartre (the highest point in Paris), we sat on the steps and looked out across the Paris skyline. The locals were having wine and cheese while sitting on the steps and grassy hills around the Basilica. The Eiffel tower at night is a sight to see, every hour on the hour the sparkling lights illuminate the tower for about 5 minutes. Getting to the top takes patience as the elevators and stairs are packed with people. Although when you do get to the top the view is priceless, all of the lights of Paris shining around you. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| The next leg of the journey was the train to London, which took us through the famous Channel Tunnel. Once in London we took a bus tour through town to our hotel. We visited Piccadilly Circus, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace and St. Paul's Cathedral. The next day we went to the Tower of London where the ravens still reside. The ravens at the tower have there wings clipped so that they will not fly away. It was told that if the ravens ever left the tower the monarchy and the tower itself would fall. The Beefeaters gave us the tour of the tower which was very interesting, we saw the white tower, traitor's gate, the spot where the beheadings actually took place, along with the British crown jewels. London was the last leg of our trip and we made our way back to Montana. | ||||||||||||||||||||