Venice, the real one

There is no other place quite like Venice. Red roof tops, narrow alleys, and gorgeous winding canals. There are soooo many bridges. 409 to be exact. The entire city is built on wooden stilts, and I still can’t wrap my head around that.  

We took a train to Venice from Siena, after our stay in Chianti (read about that here).  I was so excited I could hardly sit still when we crossed the large bridge to the first island. It was exactly how I imagined it to be from what I've seen in pictures and the movies. Its otherworldly charm had me smitten. 

You can walk the entire city, and water taxis are not really needed at all. Our hotel was in San Polo, which was a really great location. It was very central to everything, and not a far walk for getting where we wanted to go. You can see the major sites of the city in two full days. We ended up seeing all that we wanted, and by the third day had no desire to keep walking on sore feet so we tried to kill time while we waited for our train to Paris. But then we realized we could still take advantage of the hotel’s rooftop terrace. So we grabbed a bottle of wine and a bar of chocolate and lounged for hours on the terrace of our hotel. It was lovely, and very much needed.

More photos after the jump...

Rome

I have always wanted to go to Rome. It has been on the top of my list ever since my tenth grade history teacher showed us photos of his travels there, and then especially when I took a college elective course in ancient archaeology. Rome has the Colosseum. It has some of the most ancient histories, old archaeological finds, and is one of the oldest continually occupied cities in Europe. It is the Eternal City.

Rome was our first stop in our travels. We checked in to our hotel, and even though we were jet-lagged and in need of a nap, we had to muscle through and stay awake until nightfall so we could try to correct our time clock. We decided to walk to the Colosseum and Palatine Hill, since it was so close to our hotel. Seeing the Colosseum in person for the first time was amazing. It is so BIG, and it is hard to fathom how old it is. We heard buying tickets at the Palatine is the best because you avoid the long line at the Colosseum, so we went straight there. The ticket combines Palatine Hill and the Colosseum, good for two days. Since we were already near the entrance of the Palatine, we did that first. Cameron and I absolutely loved it. We were thrown into one of the most ancient areas of the city, which was our biggest draw to Rome in the first place.

We were originally going to see the inside of the Colosseum the same day, but after walking around the Palatine, we were toast. We walked to a small street side café and had pasta, then went straight to our hotel. As soon as we hit the bed, we were out at seven o’clock. I remember Cameron and I waking up at midnight, and we were both thinking we had completely messed up the plan, but luckily enough we went back to sleep and woke up at the normal time.

Day Two: We walked straight to the Colosseum at opening. No line, hardly any people, and practically the whole Colosseum to ourselves. Complete win! If you’re planning to visit, there is no other way to do this (enjoyably). I had the best time taking photos because there were hardly any people crowding the views, and the sun rising over the wall of the Colosseum made beautiful light for the camera.

The next stop was Vatican City. We took the subway over there, and even though it was still morning, the lines were already super long. A guy on the street was selling company tours and we decided to take it, because group tours can skip the line, and then you have someone guiding you around and telling you some of the facts. Overall, the tour was not that great. She actually kind of rushed us through the museum, and we didn’t get a whole lot of explanations, but it was worth it to skip the line and navigate through to the Sistine Chapel. Even during the off season, parts of the museum were so crowded it was like herding cattle. The Sistine Chapel was… incredible. I couldn’t take any photos, but staring up at Michelangelo’s famous ceiling masterpiece was a bit surreal. We walked around St. Peter’s Basilica, which was pretty awesome. Crazy to think Saint Peter, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus, is buried there.

After the Vatican, we saw a bunch of other sites – The Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Altare della Patria, and the Imperial Fora.

On the third day we saw the Pantheon and had lunch in Piazza Navona, then headed over to the Villa Borghese. We had packed the entire city of Rome in just two and a half days, seeing several sites twice over. We were ready for our next town, but Rome was such an amazing start to our trip. We got to check off so many awesome places from our list. 

More photos after the jump...

The Proposal

We're engaged! It's already been a month, but I am just now sitting down to write about it.

Cameron and I stayed in Chianti, Italy at the most adorable and quaint hotel surrounded by vineyards. It was a short stop along our travels in Italy, as we were only there for two nights. That morning we wanted to take a walk to a winery to do some wine tasting, but the roads were not very walker-friendly. We took a trail down into a valley, but it didn't seem like we were going the right way so we turned around and started up the road, but soon realized there was no room between road and guardrail, so we decided to scrap that plan and go back to the hotel and hang out. There was really no reason to leave the hotel anyway, since the views from there were spectacular and they had plenty of wine and cheese.

As I was reading my Kindle overlooking the pool, Cameron said he had found a perfect spot for us to set up my camera and take pictures. He led me down the path, just around the corner of the pool, and he was right... the view was incredible overlooking hills of vineyards. I grabbed my camera and tripod and set everything up. We were taking pictures and soaking up the view. We paused to embrace for a moment, staring off into the hillside, when all of a sudden I could feel his heart beating fast and before I could even finish a thought, he turned me around, got on one knee, and said, "Babe, will you marry me?" I was in shock for a moment with the squealing ohmygodreally?! kinds of questions, but of course I said YES. Because we had the camera all set up, we were able to get pictures despite a sleepy shutter :).

Checking the pocket...

 YES! (He's still holding the ring in this picture if you look closely. In all my excitement, I forgot that step two is allow him to put a ring on it!)

Excuse the chipped nail polish!

Yay!

Cameron went to grab prosecco and two glasses, while I sat in the hotel room admiring the ring. The immediate moments following the engagement felt like a wonderful glowing dream... drinking prosecco by the pool, gazing at the ring, and the excitement of now getting to call each other fiance. We also spotted our first praying mantis that was floundering by the edge of the pool, and took a short hike through the vineyards in the late afternoon sun. Chianti will now always be such a special place.

Something to remember

(via tulips and lattes)

Maui Underwater

I have been such a blub lately. I get home from work and all I want to do is nothing. I haven't been feeling like myself lately, and I keep waiting to snap out of it. It doesn't help now that Cameron has left for Japan this week for work. That is naturally a bummer.

I am sorting and editing 740+ pictures from our Europe trip to be able to write about it here, but until then I thought I would share some Maui underwater photos from our trip with Cameron's family last May. I have had "Under the Sea" stuck in my head all day so it seems fitting. And reminiscing about Hawaii is actually cheering me up.