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The train ride from Venice to Rome went pretty smoothly. Fortunately, no one was assigned to our section. Molly's suitcase with all her art supplies was too big to fit in the overhead compartment so we really had to squeeze it in so that it took up the space for the seats around us. Her friend Rob, a fellow art history major, had sent her a Top Ten list for things to do in Rome, so Molly examined that to plan out our itinerary in Rome (which included various sites to see works by Carravagio).

Our hotel was right across from the train station which was quite convenient. It was late, so we went straight to bed. On Friday morning, we headed directly to the bus stop to catch a bus to the Borghese. The Borghese is a small art museum. Each person is allowed two hours in the museum, and visitors are required to check bags and cameras, which allows for visitors to go through and just enjoy looking at the artwork. Molly and I made it through in a little over an hour. We were leaving the Borghese to the more central area of Rome and cut through this pretty park. The thing I really liked in Rome were the trees, that are mostly bare at the bottoms and round at the tops (again, check out my pictures on flickr/facebook). We wound through the city, visiting several churches to see the paintings. We stopped by the Trevi fountain (which is crazy and crowded) and stopped in a wonderful Gelateria, yum!

In the afternoon, we headed to the Palazzo Barberini, which has an amazing illusionist fresco by Pietro da Cortona. The room had nice cushioned benches, so you could just lay back and look up the ceiling. We also saw the painting of Judith Beheading Holofernes by Caravaggio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Beheading_Holofernes_%28Caravaggio%29). The facial expressions in the painting are unforgettable.

After a long day winding through Rome, Molly and I thought it would be nice to sit down to a tasty meal. We started heading in the direction of the Collosseum. We found a cute looking restaraunt with an outdoor sitting area shaded by vines. We decided to try it out, silly as I was thinking in Italy everywhere the food has got to be good. Wrong! We both ordered these four course meals. The first course ended up being these gross looking canned baked beans. The second course was worse than something out of a velveeta box. Molly and I both took a bite and lost our appetites. The waiter noticed we weren't eating and came over and waved Molly's fork in her face with the pathetic noodle on it. We asked for the check and decided to leave. Fortunately, they didn't charge us the full price of our meals.

After leaving the restaraunt, we decided to go for a walk and see some of the ruins. Those sites look really neat at sunset and night. We never actually went inside in any of them, that just didn't interest me, but it was neat walking around.

On Saturday, Molly and I caught the bus to the Vatican to get there before opening. After waiting in line for over two hours, we made it into the museums. I had mixed feelings about this visit. The museums themselves are awesome. A lot of cool things to see. Again though, this place attracts a lot of tourists with no sense of etiquette whatsoever. I have to admire the security guards, though. They really tried to keep the crowds under control. It was nearly impossible, but it was nice to see them trying.

After visiting the museums, we went to a castle in the Vatican. We didn't look around the castle itself much, but it had some great views of the city from high above. Because of our previous night's experience, Molly and I decided we didn't want to choose a restaraunt blindly, so we ended up choosing one from her Italy guidebook, The Ristorante Passetto. We each had delicious pasta dishes complete with dessert served by an award winning tiramisu chef (who was also our waiter). Next time I'm in Rome, I'll definitely be back.

We enjoyed the last night gazing at the ruins. Before heading back to get a good night's sleep for the plane ride home.

Molly and I caught a RyanAir flight from Paris to Venice based on my old roomie's, Sonja's, recommendation. The flight was definitely worth it. The flight was pretty cheap, but the cost added up once the extra baggage weight costs were included. I think we still ended up paying about the same as we would've taking the train, but the travel took about half the time. The flight was fun with a great view of the Alps from above outside our window.

After a shuttle from the Italian airport to Venice and a ride on the water bus, Molly and I arrived at our hotel. Our hotel was adorable, there was a gate we entered through and a nice little sitting area in a garden. In the reception area, there was a cat sleeping on a chair, making it feel like a cozy home for a few days. (again, check out the pictures). Since it was about 11 pm at that point, Molly and I went straight to our room and collapsed in our beds.

On Tuesday morning, we started out on the water bus headed towards Murano. Venice was constantly sunny and clear and we could see the mountains in the distance. We walked around for a brief period of time, then decided to continue onwards to the Biennale. I new the Biennale was a huge deal, but I didn't realize just how huge it was. We spent five hours that day at the Giardini portion of the Biennale. The Giardini is organized into various pavillions representing different countries around the world. I really enjoyed seeing what different artists are coming up with these days, especially seeing the different materials and technology incorporated into their works. My favorites at the Giardini were the Israele Pavillion which had pretty sillouettes painted around the room. I also really enjoyed the Swiss Pavillion and the Greece Pavillion because of the fun use of color. The Greece Pavillion had some transparent screens with patterns, that were layered, creating an interesting effect to look at. The Swiss Pavillion had paintings using a lot of fun bright colors and interesting textures with the paint strokes. We saw some other really cool and interesting works of art (and some crap mixed in there too) and had a great time.

After finishing up at the Giardini, we decided to walk through Venice towards St. Mark's square. We found a fun looking place to eat, where we each ordered some seafood. The food was good, however, I made the mistake of ordering fish which was priced by the weight. It was still a good meal, but if I had known how much it would cost, I would've ordered something different. After dinner, we finally made it to St. Mark's square and listened to some of the musicians in the square and sat by the water for a while looking at the boats before heading back to the hotel for the night.

We started off Wednesday in Murano, shopping for glass, and found some pretty earrings and frames to buy amongst the gaudy souveniers.. Then we continued on to see the Arsenale portion of the Biennale. This part was more like walking through a museum. I don't know how to sum it all up, except that it was pretty amazing.
Check out the website: http://www.labiennale.org/en/

After walking around all day, we decided to spend another evening just relaxing by the water looking at the boats in St. Mark's Square. We had a late dinner, and caught the end of a fireworks show on our way back to the hotel for the night. To top it all off we walked over a bridge near an Opera singer in a gondola.

On our last day in Venice, we decided to seek some of the other locations around the city. (The Biennale is pretty much all around, the Giardini and Arsennale are the central locations, but there is art to be found pretty much all around the city). We saw the Romany (gypsy) exhibit and the Mexico exhibit. The Mexico exhibit was really neat with the incorporation of modern technology. It involved a lot of sensors, such as this room that projected your shadow on the wall and tuned the radio based on where you moved to. There was another room, where you walked around and pictures of people would appear on the floor and "woke up" as you stepped over them, making interesting expressions.

I had wanted to see some of the Venetian lace, so Molly and I took the boat out to Burano as our last stop in Venice. We didn't realize that the boat ride took so long (about 40 minutes) and so were pressed in time. I managed to find a couple of cute handkerchiefs and an apron, but was a little disappointed since we were pressed for time and I didn't have a chance to actually see anybody making the lace.

Once we were back to the main part of Venice we stopped into the hotel to grab our bags to catch the train to Rome.

On July 28, I arrived in Paris after a fairly smooth flight taking Air France. After navigating my way through the airport to get my luggage, I found the place to catch the RER (which is one of the Paris metro systems...they have the RER and the metro, I never really did figure out the difference between the two). Anyhow, I took the RER to the university where I met Molly at the Foundation Suisse and enjoyed my first delicious Parisian pastries.

Molly and I then left to find the Hotel Sevres Montparnasse, which would be our resting place for two nights. The man working there was unpleasant. However, our room was lovely. We walked down to Luxembourg Gardens, which is a pretty park. They have a fountain where kids were pushing around toy sailboats, and some beautiful flowers.

From there, we headed on to Monmartre, which is on a high hill and has a beautiful view of the city. We sat down at a cafe which has been visited by artists including Rodin, Monet, and Toulouse-Lautrec. Molly ordered escargot and I had a quiche. I tried one of Molly's escargot, and it was actually pretty good. I don't think I could eat a whole plate, but as an appetizer, they are quite tasty.

To finish off a wonderful day, Molly and I went for a moonlit walk, starting from the Louvre and heading towards Notre Dame. The city is beautiful at night.

We began an action-packed Sunday at the Louvre. Although the Louvre has a great art collection, part of the experience of being there was made unpleasant by tourists who have no sense of etiquette. After "seeing" the Mona Lisa (which was really more looking at a frame that appeared to contain a painting but was impossible to really tell because of all the flashing camera bulbs) Molly lead me to some less crowded, more pleasant parts of the museum.

After a couple hours at the Louvre, we went in search of breakfast and found some delicious chocolate and pistachio pastries. It was raining, so we sat beneath the archways in the museum and watched the people passing by.

After breakfast, we went through the Louvre for a little bit longer to see some paintings. Once we were finished, we went outside and walked through the gardens in the Louvre. There was a carnival area, so Molly and I decided to ride a Ferris Wheel for some great views of the city. From the Ferris Wheel we could see people lining up for the end of the Tour de France. When we were finished on the Ferris Wheel a goofy sort of parade was beginning as part of the Tour de France Festivities. There were all sorts of whacky advertisement type trucks that came zooming by (much faster than the pace of an American parade). We saw a truck with fake pretzels protruding from the top, a gummy bear truck, and some sort of rocket-ship looking truck (which I had no clue what it was advertising).

We moved on from the parade to head towards Rodin's gardens, which was a nice, peaceful place to view art. There were several sculptures in the gardens and a pretty house. After walking through the gardens, we left to go towards Notre Dame. Before visiting the cathedral, we stopped for some Chocolat Chaud in a cafe, where we could see the Tour De France on TV. It was funny to see the Louvre, which we had just visited on the TV.

Notre Dame was amazing. It was my favorite thing in Paris. We entered the cathedral during a Sunday evening mass where there was singing and incense burning. After walking through the cathedral, we decided to get in line to go up in the towers. Once up in the towers, we were able to get fantastic views of the city, see the church bells, and bond with some gargoyles. I highly recommend seeing the towers to anyone visiting Paris.

When we were done in Notre Dame, it was about dinner time, so we found a nice restaraunt to eat in to celebrate our last night in Paris. We both had champagne, Molly ate some canard and I had some lamb with a delicious egg souffle on the side.

When we finished at the restaraunt the sun was beginning to set (the sun doesn't start setting until around 9:30 or so in Paris). Molly and I walked over to watch this ridiculously gorgeous sunset. (Just see the pictures on my flickr or facebook...words cannot describe)

I couldn't leave France without having some creme brule, so Molly and I stopped at a cafe for desserts. A perfect ending for a perfect day.

On Sunday, we prepared for the next step of our journey, Venice. We made a few stops for souveniers and saw the Arc de Triomphe before hauling our suitcases to catch the shuttle to the airport.