Living My Best Life in Paris , Rome, Capri, & Mannheim
We have ARRIVED! So Bestie and I are in Paris, #France. Details on the trip planning, cost and budgeting can be found HERE.
Have you ever gone on one of those trips with your friend and agreed that you two would "Fuck it up" as he puts it for the photos, hair, and outfits? Well, I must say we did, and it was great!
Day 1- 3 | Paris, France
We booked our hotel a few blocks from the #EiffelTower. It was BEAUTIFUL! The aroma of food and sugar filled the streets as we walked from the metro to our hotel. Traveling in Europe is quite simple and affordable. Also depending on the time of night, you aren't even charged for buses. We enjoyed some delicious breakfast at our hotel and hit the streets to explore. The top of the list was the Eiffel Tower so we set out on foot to reach the monumental destination. Upon arrival, we were prompted to purchase tickets at a high cost of roughly $35 Euro. I'm not that pressed to go to the top so we settled for some lovely photos a good distance away like many other travelers and locals.
Bestie found some Free Europe Walking Tours throughout the trip that ate up about 2 hours and helped us meet many interesting travelers. The tour guide wore a pink vest and had us meet him on top of the Opera Steps in Paris #magical. He took us through the streets to small quaint museums tucked in the corners of buildings, the home of Coco Chanel , and the FAMOUS Macaroon Shop, many hidden gems as they call them. If you love site seeing you will thoroughly enjoys this. But don't get it twisted, it is not free. You are encouraged tip your tour guide. I thought ours was amazing so I had no problem giving 15 Euro towards the experience.
Next, we booked a Seine River Tour for about $20 USD. After walking and eating and walking and walking and walking we decided to sit on a boat to discover Paris from the river. It was a well spent 20 bucks.
We ended the night with drinks at the hotel bar and flirty exchanges with the Chinese Parisian bar tender that resulted in lovely drinks and conversation!
Day 4- 6 | Rome, Italy
Oh ROME how I love thee! What a romantic place. At night. LOL . We had some troubles with transportation in Rome but I'll touch on that later. We took a few trains to Roma, Italy where our hotel was a convenient 2 blocks from Rome's main station. It had an old rustic feel. The plus side was that the hotel was more spacious than the Paris hotel, had ice cold AC and a rooftop terrace with the most amazing sunset view.
We booked our Free Night Tour and discovered:
✓ Quattro fontane
✓ Quirinale palace
✓ View on the Saint Peter's church
✓ Trevi fountain
✓ Piazza Venezia
✓ Monument Vittorio Emanuelle
I was in heaven! There was music playing the background and the night was lit up as if we were part of a movie. The tour guide was so dope! She invited us for drinks at a nearby wine spot that served chips and cheese. We roamed the streets eating pizza and laughing at life. Moments like these make life worth living.
The next day we went on an Enjoy Rome Tour including Colosseum, Pantheon, Trevi fountain, Gelato and much more! The price was 39.75 Euro and our tour guide was Giuseppe. You get this cool ear piece that the guide speaks to you through so that you can hear him while pushing through the crowds. There's plenty of time for exploring on your own, but with the beautiful scenery and historical information you'll want to keep up. Bring lots of water and a protein bar so that you don't pass out (This was the middle of June).
After the tour we probably could've collapsed into a coma lol. We went out to eat at one of the many Italian restaurants on the street and sipped on lovely red wine to top it all off. Keep in mind the locals come out at night while the tourists crowd the streets during the day. I didn't mind this so much since the pace of the night was very "don't sweat it" . Lol
We also booked a Food Tour called Eating Italy Food tours for about $100 USD. I can't lie , I was
extremely tired and really wished we booked a wine tour instead. The goal was to originally go to Tuscany but we decided to do Capri instead. Which was not a disappointment.
Day 7-8 | Capri, Italy
OMG #CAPRI! I had one goal, and that was to get to the #BlueGrotto . This lovely attraction was once a famous emperor's personal swimming hole. We arrived at our hotel that was off the side of the mountain way up at the top. We were on the side of the island that the personal boat tours escaped to, so this saved us a ton of money on the whole
"Private Beach" .
The beach consisted of small colorful pebbles and crystal clear waters. My work team asked me to bring back some "rocks" so I was able to actually bring back some pretty impressive ones. I bought a swimsuit from Zaful that was quite flattering. I had worked out 4 months for this trip just for these photos LOL. Afterwards we sat on the ledge of the street and watched the sunset.
Dinner that night consisted of exploring the cavern like streets with high end shops and wine EVERYWHERE! I was in heaven!
The next morning we we backed our bags and bought a Blue Grotto excursion at the pier. It had been closed the day before due to high tides and was going to be closed the next day so we got extremely lucky! The unlucky part was that everyone was trying to squeeze it in, so we had to wait over an hour to get in! I was totally caught off guard at the maneuvering it took to get into this beautiful pool. We split the boat up carrying roughly 30 of us into small 2 oar boats that carried 4 people that were then rowed by strong tanned Italian old guys. Like all of them were George Clooney's super buff uncles or something lol. The boat next to us had a crying girl. In my head I couldn't think of any reason as to what on Earth would ruin this- "She threw up" - nevermind.
After we made it back to shore we ran to the transport ferry back to Naples from which we came. You guys, it had been a long effin day! The workers were going through some strike issues so there were a lot of trains that were canceled going back to Roma. For what should've been a 3 hours trip , turned into an 11 hour journey!! We waited for a train to be available. We didn't pay for the fast ICE train so we ended up on the slowest path back. NO AC, SMALL WINDOWS, and the raunchiest smelling non deodorant wearing, fish market smelling people. WHY LORT! There was no way of putting that into non offensive terms trust me. I was SO over it.
The hotel was near the airport so that we wouldn't have to worry about the transportation in the morning. It was a very high tech hotel? That's the only way to put it lol. I think I showered for 45 minutes. Mostly standing and re-lathering until all of the soap was gone. I'm a germaphobe so everyone who knows me knows this was not a day I was hoping for. The only plus side was that we saw the Blue Grotto that morning. Lesson learned, use the back up money for convenience the first time.
Day 9-10 | Mannheim, Germany
My father lives here so I spent time with the family. Overall, we had a great time and visited a few castles!
Day 11 | Paris, France
It was our last full day on vacation, and it was in Paris. What should you do? This entire day was eventful! Just watch below. I will say this, I task Bestie with picking dinner that night My Treat! .....................I can't...............The restaurant had no handles so they had to let you in.......................it was 11pm and everything was closed...........................we hadn't eaten all day...............................every plate was 70EURO and above...............tiny little "fun size" expensive plates................ Goodbye.
Books on the Trip:
"Dark Matter" 5 Stars by Blake Crouch
"The Grand Design" by Stephen Hawking
