Luxembourg, Paris, and Rome... Oh My!

WOW... so much to tell... so let's go! (If this isn't my longest post... I don't what will)

Last week, I wanted to blog but was so sick.  Other than sleeping and watching the kids when I absolutely had to, I was trying to get ready for the big trip! It worked out well that my mom was coming on Friday because she was able to bring me "American" medicine!! HA!

My mom and our neighbor and friend Donna arrived on Friday.  I had a friend drop me at the airport to greet my mom! She made it to Luxembourg safely about 10am (local time).  We picked up the rental car (to have added freedom for the day) and headed into Luxembourg.  Aside from a detour created by the gps aka "the scenic route" we made it to Auchan.  Auchan is a sort of mall with shops and their version of super walmart.  We walked around and got a sandwich for lunch.  We went back to the airport to pick up Donna.  I then took them to downtown Luxembourg City where we walked around.  It was a beautiful day.  They enjoyed seeing the city.  We then went back to Auchan, more or less to show Donna.  After getting a few things for dinner, we headed back to the house.  We had a very European dinner of cheese fondue, baguette, salad with parmesan, and some mini French desserts.  After packing and getting all set up for the trip we went to bed.  Donna and my mom did incredibly well for all the traveling it took to get over to Europe.

Saturday morning we returned the rental car to the airport and took a bus to the train station.  Sabina was waiting for us at the train station and we headed off to Paris! It is a 2 hour train ride from Luxembourg to Paris.  Upon arriving in Paris, I talked to the tourist information about how to get to our hotel.  We took the metro to the nearest stop.  It was a little confusing so we had to ask a couple of times if we were going the right way.  Finally, we arrived at our hotel and got checked in.  The room was nice (nothing special, but clean!).  It was getting late in the day so we set off to find lunch.  After leaving the hotel and walking just a bit up the road we were met with the magnificent sight of the Arc de Trioumphe.  Simply amazing.  We found a small French cafe and had a nice lunch.  I had a huge bowl of cream of broccoli soup served with none other than a French baguette!  After lunch we bought tickets for the "red bus" a bus that would take us to all the major sights in Paris.  We road the tour bus almost all the way around, got lots of pictures, and heard much about the city.  It was a wonderful way to see the city without having to walk and since our time in Paris was limited.  We got off the bus at the Opera stop and were quite cold so we went to a cafe and had some tea and cappachino.  After warming up we hopped back on the bus and took it to THE EIFFEL TOWER!  We had seen it from the bus during the day, but at night it was breath taking!  And my favorite part... it sparkles! We stood at the Eiffel Tower for a long time, not realizing how late it was.  We we realized it was about 10pm we decided to head back towards the hotel and try to get some dinner.  We took the metro back to the stop close to our hotel but couldn't quite find it... We ended up in the middle of a round-about in the "bunny park"(a one entrance park or "island" and maybe the only grass in Paris... with about 15 bunnies hopping around).  When we finally figured out the direction of our hotel we started looking for somewhere to eat.  We found a pizza place that was still open (at 11pm) and had some wonderful mushroom and ham pizza (champignos and jambon).  We got back to the hotel about midnight and settled down for the night.

Sunday we overslept because Europe had daylights savings time and we kind of messed up the alarm clock.  Oh well.  We still got started about 9:30.  We took the metro to the Palace of Versailles.  It took about 35 minutes so we got breakfast before we left (some pan au chocolats!).  We arrived at the Palace of Versailles only to find the LONGEST line!  A little panicked because we only had one day, we devised a plan.  Sabina and I walked back to the train station to see if we could find an alternative place to buy tickets, and my mom and Donna went ahead and stood in line.  Sabina and I did find tickets in the convenience shop.  We walked back to the palace and we stood in line to get into the palace.  The palace was enormous.  All of these monuments and museums in Europe are so big.  It is hard to believe that so long ago they were able to create such structures.  It never ceases to amaze me.  We toured the palace and then part of the gardens.  Again it was a beautiful day and we were blessed by the great weather.  We left Versailles and went to Mountmarte (the church on the hill).  It was quite a sight with a beautiful view of the city.  Lots of steps up and down but worth the trek.  We stopped at a few souvenir shops and then headed back to the "Opera" area.  We found a nice French restaurant and had a wonderful dinner.  I had chicken marinated in thyme and mashed potatoes! We even tried snails! Eek! The flavor was good but I don't think I can get over the snail part. We had creme brulee for dessert! Yum! After dinner we decided to hop on the red bus one last time and took it to the Arc de Triomphe stop.  We walked back to the hotel and got ready for our early departure.

We left the hotel at 6am this morning to get a bus to take us to the airport.  The bus took about an hour then we made it through security and flew to Rome.  We took RyanAir (the MOST commercialized airline I've ever been on, but hey it was cheap).  We landed in Rainy Rome :(  A bus took us to the center of Rome where we then walked to our hotel.  What would have been a lovely walk was instead a very, very wet walk.  We made it to our hotel completely soaked.  Even the insides of our suitcases were wet.  The hotel is very quaint but very nice.  The room wasn't quite ready but the nice guy at reception made us coffee and tea while we waited.  Our room is super nice.  You have to put your room key in the wall to get power to the room!  We decided not to change clothes because the new ones would just get wet anyway.  The metro station is very near our hotel (big plus)! The colosseum was our first stop.  As we walked out of the metro station... there it was.  WOW> the Colosseum was breath-taking.  It's shear size and magnitude was amazing.  Because it was raining the line wasn't long so we took the audio tour. But not before we got our picture taken with Roman soldiers.  The tour was very interesting and seeing the Colosseum was almost unbelievable.  After our tour we found a small Italian restaurant and had some... pasta!  I had a cheese and spinach cannelloni... so good.  We took the metro back to our hotel stop and went to a grocery store.  So fun to look around grocery stores in other countries.  We were looking for a bakery... turns out one of the differences between Italy and France is that we've traded bakeries for pizza places and gelato stores.  Gelato is a good replacement for pastry.  I got tiramisu gelato, mom got caramel, and Donna got pistachio.  We walked to the hotel for an early night and have been relaxing ever since.

The Vatican and St. Peter's Basilica is tomorrow along with the Roman Forum.  Such history here.  I promise to put up pictures but my computer is acting funny.  I know the post isn't the same without them.  They will be up asap.  And I promise to blog more frequently because this one took forever ;)