paris, france The last stop on my trip was Paris, France. This was my second visit to this lovely city and I think I may have fallen in love with it. My first visit to Paris didn’t end up all too well. I visited in late September 2012 and I was sick with a cold for the entire thing. I had flown from warm Barcelona to cold Paris and that…

madrid, spain After a long week in Barcelona, I took the train inland to Madrid. This was my very first time in Madrid and to be quite honest, I didn’t really know what to expect. Madrid is very different from Barcelona. It’s what I like to call regal. Being the capital of Spain, of course Madrid houses a royal palace for the established monarchy, but it wasn’t even that. The…

barcelona, spain Barcelona has to be my most favorite city in the entire world. I don’t know what it is about this city; I just love it. Barcelona is like a cosmopolitan city, beach town and walking museum of art all in one. It’s the best of all the worlds. The only thing I think it needs to improve on is food (I’m not a huge fan of Spanish–as in…

rome, italy After five days in Southern Italy, I took the train up to Rome for three nights. I don’t really like Rome all too much. I visited back in 2012 and stayed a week too long. There’s not much to see or do in Rome once you’ve seen and done everything (and what I mean by everything is all the touristy sites). I suppose there’s more to do in…

pompeii, italy While we were in Sorrento, we took a day trip to the ancient city of Pompeii to visit the ruins of the city devastated by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E. We took the Circumvesuviana commuter train there and back, and while the train ride was a bit lengthy, it was our cheapest option. Upon exiting the station at Pompeii, we went straight to the entrance…

sorrento, positano, & amalfi, italy After a few days in Cinque Terre, my friend and I headed south to Sorrento, Positano, and Amalfi. We caught a night train to Naples, which in hindsight was probably a really bad idea, and at Naples had to catch the Circumvesuviana commuter train all the way to Sorrento, which might have been just as bad as our night train. It was like stepping into…

cinque terre, italy After Florence, my friend and I decided to head up north and explore the Italian Riveria in Cinque Terre. So the deal with Cinque Terre is that it’s an area in Northern Italy that consists of these little towns in the cliffside. A total of five towns make up Cinque Terre: Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corneglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso. I stay a town up from Manarola, a little place…

pisa, italy While traveling from Florence to Cinque Terre, I made a slight pitstop in Pisa to, of course, see the Leaning Tower. It was a very short stop, so when I say a few hours , I mean a few hours. Pisa is small. Much smaller than Verona, I think. And when I say small, I mean it in a tourist sort of way. The main “tourist” part of…

florence, italy Hello Florence! I finally made it to Florence, which is really exciting because it was a city I was supposed to visit my first time in Europe, but unfortunately never got around to going to because of an unfortunate incident that occurred prior in my trip that forced me to go straight to Rome from Venice. So I made it a priority to go to it this time around.…