Our trip was fabulous! We had good weather. It only rained one day even though it was forecast to rain a lot more than that. But most days were windy and that made if feel colder than I was prepared for. But it was probably better to be a little too cold for all the walking we did than if it was too hot and we got all sweaty.
So Bob picked up my mom from the airport on Wednesday at 7. He brought her home; I had about 30 minutes to tell her about the schedule and everything and then she drove us back to the airport. We had a 5 hour flight to New York that night. It worked out perfect because we got into New York about 6 and we went straight to the statue of Liberty. We got the second boat out there and we had no crowds at all. We had a great time walking around and then visiting ellis island too. By the time we were done it was starting to get crowded. Then we did a super walking tour of southern Manhattan. We saw Wall Street and the Bull statue and the new world trade center and the 9-11 memorial. That was really cool. And we went to Little Italy and Chinatown. We ate pizza at Lombardi's. That was really good. We sat for a bit at a public library, where we got in trouble for sitting in the children's section and then I got in trouble for sleeping at a table. It was a lot of walking that day. But it was just the start for our trip. Then we headed back to the airport for our second red eye.
We flew 8ish hours to Milan the second night (Friday). Bob was amazing at setting up all our transportation for the trip. He had trains and buses and metros all mapped out and tickets ordered and everything went so smoothly. We walked through downtown Milan to our hotel that morning in the rain. It turned out that it was fashion week in Milan while we were there and they were setting up to host the world's expo in a few weeks so things were busier and more expensive that usual. I was impressed with how thin and pretty most people were there. We got our hotel and walked to a market and had some great pizza that day.
It was hard to sleep at the right times that night. It took me several days to get over my jet lag. Bob did better than I did. I was ok if we were doing things, but whenever we sat on a metro or train or anything, I fell asleep. The second day in Milan (Saturday), Bob booked a 3 hour bus and walking tour. We went to the cathedral where the Last Supper is painted, and the Scala opera house, Scorza Castle and the Galleria shopping center where the first Prada was.
After that we took a bus to Bergamo. It's a city on a hill about an hour from Milan. It's a really cute little Italian city. We rode a funicular up the hill. They had lots of shops and a cathedral and cobblestone roads. That night we took a flight to Paris. We got to our hotel about 1:00 in the morning. We stayed at a nice hotel in a great area. It was called Hotel Demeure in les gobelins. We had a couple grocery stores, a bakery, creperie, kebab place and Metro stop on our road.
Sunday was really cold and windy in the morning. We went to sacrament meeting where we sat behind a woman from Utah and a woman from Norway. They had earphones for us in English. Then we went to Notre Dame. We waited in line to go to the top of the towers. That view was awesome. We had our first french crepes across the street from Notre Dame. They weren't as amazing as I had hoped they'd be. We went to the Pantheon and Pompidou Center.
Monday, we went to the Louvre. We spent about 4 hours there. It was amazing. I loved all the super decorated rooms near the Mona Lisa. We walked through the whole museum, but about hour 3, we hit fast forward and breezed through a few of the rooms. Then we walked through the jardin tuileries right outside of the Louvre. We walked to the Paris Opera House. We walked around the outside and then decided it was too expensive and wasn't included in our Paris Museum Pass and we'd already seen an opera house in Milan so we didn't go inside. Then we went to Sacre Coeur Cathedral. It was beautiful and so was the view. And then we went to the arc de triomphe.
We had pastries from the bakery nearby for most breakfasts. We also had Macarons there. They were awesome. Tuesday we went to musee d'orsay. We loved that one. But we also really liked that we went to the Louvre before the Orsay because we still took over 2 hours there, but if we had to do the Louvre after the smaller one, it would have felt more overwhelming. Then we went to the Eiffel Tower. We only took the stairs to the 2nd floor. But it was still a great view. That evening we took a river cruise on the Seine. That was cool to see all the locals come hang out by the river. We were hoping to see everything lit up, but we were just a little too early. So then we walked over to the Eiffel tower again to see it lit up. We got there just in time to see it sparkle at 10:00. That was awesome.
Wednesday, we rented a car in downtown Paris and Bob drove through those crazy streets. We drove out to Versailles. We stayed there for half the day. It was beautiful, but so super crowded. We didn't even see all of the main castle because it was so crowded. It was nice the grounds were so big. We enjoyed those and saw all of the lower houses and Marie antoinette's house. Then we drove another hour to Fresneux, France. I thought that was funny, like Fresno. We stayed at a Chateau there. Bob did an awesome job finding the place. The actual castle had mostly fallen down, but they'd restored all the side buildings and we stayed in one of those. It was beautiful and peaceful. We ate dinner there. We had pheasant and salmon and it was all delicious and french.
Thursday we drove to the airport and flew to Venice. We stayed in a great little flat outside of the main tourist area, which I loved. The tourist areas were so crowded. It was a little overwhelming. The owner of the flat met us with the keys. She talked with us for about an hour about all the politics and history of Italy. Bob was very impressive with how much he knows while he talked to her. We went out that night and walked around and had gelato and I had lasagna. It didn't have any cheese sauce in it. I don't know if that's an Italian thing or just that restaurant, but I think I like american lasagna better. We also went to St. Marks square. Being out at night I was impressed how much the sky with the ocean clouds looks like the ceiling they painted in the Venetian hotel.
Friday we took a walking tour of Venice and then rode on a gondola. There's only a limited number of actual gondoliers so to ride a gondola by yourself costs $80 for 30 minutes. We shared it with 2 other couples.
Saturday we took the water taxis to Murrano and Burano and Torcello islands. The glass and lace islands. Those were super fun. They were less crowded and fun to see. Especially Burano because the houses were so colorful.
Sunday we got up early and took a train to Milan and then flew to NYC. It was so nice to be heading back to America and closer to our kids. We got in around 7 to New York. I was so tired. It felt like 3 a.m. Bob got us a great hotel. We stayed at the Hilton on Times Square. That worked out great so we could see Times Square at night. We walked around for a while and Bob got some dinner and we went to bed.
Monday morning we got up and Bob found a place that was supposed to have good donuts that was about a 20 minute walk. That turned out to be one of my favorite things about New York. We went out about 8:30, right when everyone was walking to work. It was fun to see what that's really like for people who live there and not just all the touristy stuff we were doing. On the way back we saw a foot locker and decided to stop in because Danny had been trying so hard to get these red shoes he'd ordered for his birthday. They were backordered and then they sent the wrong ones and then they were backordered again. So we just thought we'd check it out. And they had them! It was so fun to surprise Danny with them. The rest of the morning we walked around Central Park. It was a great day for it. All the tulips were out and the trees were blooming. When we'd been in NY 12 days before, the trees all still looked dead. So it was nice to catch some Spring. We also ran into Line, from Norway while we were walking in the Park. It was such a blessing. She's a nanny there and we just happened to walk by her in this enormous park. It was fun to chat with her for a while. She also mentioned Norwegian air has cheap flights sometimes. So now we have all these grand ideas of taking our kids to Norway. Then we ate lunch at a great deli and flew home.
It was so wonderful to be home to our kids. They did great while we were gone. My mom stayed for 9 days and then Erica Kelly, a college girl in our ward, stayed the last 4 days.
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