highlights (and a few lowlights) from our euro trip

we made it back! our trip to europe was wonderful...so much fun, full of adventures, and lots of quality time with my man. as always though, it's so nice to be home and back with our puppies.

here are my favorite (and a few least favorite) things from our trip:

paris

paris was cool! i really think i set myself up for disappointment in paris because i had such high expectations. i just thought it would be a romantic wonderland of beautiful sparkly things (i know...i know). needless to say, it wasn't, but we did have a really good time there!

our hotel in paris was the smallest of the trip, but it was in a good, walkable location in a safe neighborhood. 

we decided to use subways as much as possible during the trip to save on cab fares, and i'm so glad we did! we ended up using the subways in paris, london, and rome, and they were all good experiences. SO much cheaper than taking cabs everywhere, and it's so fun to ride along with locals and listen to them talk.

one of my least favorite things about paris was the amount of homeless people (and dogs). there were homeless people everyyyywhere, and 80% of them had dogs with them. while i'm glad they take care of the dogs and all the dogs we saw had food and beds, it still made me so sad!

we took a hop-on, hop-off bus tour in paris and i recommend it! we used l'open tour, and it took us to all of the major sights (the louvre, notre dame, the champs-elysees, arc de triomphe, eiffel tower, etc.). we did the tour the first day we were in town, because we landed at 7 am and couldn't check into our hotel room until about 3. we dropped off our luggage then went on the tour in an attempt to stay awake. we almost made it all day before finally succumbing to naptime.

my single favorite moment in paris was having dinner in the eiffel tower. there's a restaurant on the first floor of the tower that serves 3-course meals and is so romantic and beautiful! our dinner reservation was at 9, so we were inside the tower when it started lighting up and twinkling. the food was good, and it was such a memorable moment for us that i'm glad we were able to do.

notre dame..so beautiful, inside and out

laduree for macarons...such a beautiful store,
and amazing sweet treats

celebrated both 20 and 21 weeks while gone...you
have no idea how long it took us to find a 20 that i liked!

favorite moment in paris...dinner in the eiffel tower

london

london used to be my favorite city in the world (so far), and after our trip, it's still my favorite city in the world (so far). i realize i may visit somewhere in the future that trumps it, but as of now it's at the top of my list! it's just so clean (for a major city), i love british accents, and i'm a sucker for the monarchy. i love seeing crowns, royal parks, etc. everywhere..just so different and fun.

we did another bus tour in london since there's SO much to see and it's fairly spread out. we used the original london sightseeing tour and loved it! we made a huge loop of the city and saw all of the sights we wanted to. the bus tour also included free tickets for a thames river boat tour, so we took advantage of that halfway through our main sightseeing day. it was nice to sit and cruise down the river while still seeing some cool sights.

our hotel in london was fabulous! we stayed at the kensington hotel, and, while the room was a little smaller than we're used to, it was beautiful. the staff was awesome, and it was in a great location. we were only about a 5 minute walk from the nearest subway station, which took us everywhere we wanted to go in less than 15 minutes.

we also can say we (sort of) saw the queen! when we visited buckingham palace, we were out front by the queen victoria memorial statue and saw some commotion over by the road. the queen was leaving in her motorcade! we didn't really see her (or much of anything really), but it's fun to say we were there!

ellie's gift from the trip-the cutest onesie
covered in pink crowns!

my handsome husband in front of big ben

a police officer stopped us from walking down this one particular
sidewalk and when we asked, he said there was a parade coming!
trooping the colour was a few days away, and the parade was part of the
festivities kicking off the event. so fun!

venice

i'm so glad we went to venice on this trip! we didn't really know for sure what the 4th city we visited should be, and venice was sort of a random choice, but it was the perfect 3rd stop! 

i know it's sort of obvious that you have to take boats to get around in venice, but for some reason i was still so surprised when we got off the plane at the airport and had to book a boat instead of a taxi to our hotel. it was so fun though! pulling up to venice and starting to navigate the canals on the way to our hotel is one of my favorite memories from the trip.

our hotel in venice was awesome! we stayed at the aqua palace, which was in a great location, about a 5 minute walk from st. mark's basilica. it was right on a canal, and we had a first-floor room with windows opening out over the canal. it was so nice to sit in our room with the windows open and watch the gondolas go by.

we didn't do a gondola ride ourselves while in venice, for a few reasons. one, the whole gondola deal looked a lot cheaper and more touristy in person than i thought it would. i had grand ideas of secluded, romantic gondola rides with singing italian men in striped shirts, but really the only accurate thing about that dream was the italian man in the striped shirt. i only heard a couple sing, and there were so many gondola stands trying to get you to pay them for a ride. it was also pretty expensive for a ride at/after sunset, which is when we would've wanted to do it, so we opted out. i don't feel like i missed anything!

the pizza in venice was awesome, and we had a really good time just sitting at the outdoor cafes talking to people and watching crowds walk by. there's not a whole lot to see in venice like there is in the other places we visited, so it was nice to take some time to just sit, relax, and binge eat gelato. :)

pizza! 

boating

michael hates this picture of himself but i love it. this is a little
stoop at our hotel where they had stools and tables for you to just
sit and watch what was going on in the canal. so nice!

rome

rome was the most difficult city to navigate for me. first of all, it was about 95 degrees both days we were there, and more than half of the establishments in rome don't have air conditioning. secondly, all of the sights we wanted to see were fairly spread out, and not necessarily on a subway line, so it was harder to figure out whether to walk or take a cab to each. finally, being 21 weeks pregnant, i needed pretty frequent bathroom breaks. rome was the least convenient place to find a bathroom on the whole trip. not a huge deal normally, but to pregnant me trying to stay hydrated, it was annoying.

all that being said, the history nerd in me LOVED the sights in rome! it is amazing to see things that were built in 100 a.d. it's hard to even wrap my head around dates like that.

visiting the vatican and doing the guided tour of the vatican museums and st. peter's basilica was probably the highlight of the rome leg of the trip. we reserved the tour in advance through dark rome tours, and they were great! we had a group of about 15 people, and each of us had headsets so we could hear our tour guide talking. she was really knowledgeable about all of the art and history of the vatican museums, so we learned a lot from her.

since we had advance tickets, we were able to skip the mile-long line of hot, tired, and somewhat angry people that were already lined up at 9:30 am. if you go to the vatican, get your tickets in advance! it would be crazy to wait til the day of and waste time in that line.

st. peter's basilica was huge and beautiful, pretty similar to what i expected. we toured the underground grottos too, to see some tombs of past popes. we saw st. peter's tomb and the pieta, which was beautiful. 

i'm not a big fan of art in general, but the art i saw at the vatican was just overwhelming! to see paintings, sculptures, and architecture by raphael, da vinci, and michelangelo all in one place was pretty amazing. unfortunately you can't take pictures in the sistine chapel, but seeing the humongous last judgment painting by michelangelo in person was incredible.

inside the colosseum

outside of st. peter's

pieta

overall, we had a fabulous time and are so happy that we decided to do this trip! we saw a lot of people struggling with kids, strollers, etc., and we're really glad we did this trip before we have kids to either haul with us or leave behind. it was a perfect babymoon, and we are all adventured-out for quite awhile. i have a feeling our next few vacations will be of the all-inclusive beach variety. :) courtney-here's looking at you and harris for a joint vacay!

also, by way of baby ellie updates, she is now moving and kicking like crazy! my belly grew noticeably while we were gone, and i got several comments from strangers while on our trip. i also got offered a subway seat which was a fun, stereotypically pregnant experience :) it's so nice to be able to feel her move-it makes things seem so much more real!

now that the trip is over, we're in full-time nesting mode. nursery updates and a diy or 2 coming soon!