European Adventure: Entreveux, France

June 12, 2010
Day 1

     After Cervo, we left Italy and traveled north into France. We stopped in a town called Entreveux. I really enjoyed Entreveux. There was about a 3 mile walk from the campground on a trail with many deadly cliffs to get to the town. On the first night Katy and I borrowed my grandpas GPS and went on the trail. We walked around the town and it was completely quiet, every group we walked by was dead silent. It kind of got a little bit scary after a bit.
     On our way back down the trail with about a mile left my grandma met up with us, she was worried that we had been eaten by sheep dogs. It turns out that there are sheep in the mountains and, if you try to photograph them the guard dogs will take it as a threat and attack you.
     After getting back to our site we went up to a little lake by the camp office. We could kayak and canoe all we wanted so we took advantage of that offer quickly.

Day 2

Katy underground in the Citadel

The city of Entreveux from the trail.

Way up on top of that mountain is the Citadel

A STONE BED! in the Citadel

To the Left, a drawbridge into the Citadel, to the Right me sitting on a stone bed

     Our second day in Entreveux we went into the town to actually site see. The town had a citadel that we could go up to. I really enjoyed the Citadel, it was once used when the town was very old and people would take refuge there if they were going to be attacked. Probably one of my favorite things about the trip.

To the right, Me Kayaking at the campground.

European Adventure: Italy

June 9th-11, 2010

     On this day we visited Pisa, Italy. We saw the leaning tower and the baptistry. We were only in Pisa for about 20 minutes because it was just a quick stop on our way to Cervo, Italy. 


This is kind of a funny story.. we were not planning on going to Cervo, Italy..first we stopped where we had planned in a place called Partacci. It was a really gross campground to say the least.. there were bugs everywhere and it was kind of sketchy. Katy and I still went to check out the local beach only to see a few rather old and wrinkly men in brightly colored speedos laying on the beach. 

Needless to say, we packed up and left Partacci as early as we could the following morning. We ended up in a better town called Cervo. Cervo had a wonderful campground and a private beach for the people staying there. There was a nice little city on the hill and the weather was very warm. Katy and I spent few days being lazy on the beach. 

Water Changes Everything

European Adventure: Florence, Italy Day 1

     On this day, we packed up our stuff and headed toward Florence, Italy. We followed Tom-Tom to "Campeggio Michaelangelo" (thats the name of the campground we stayed at in Florence).
      On our way to Florence, we stopped in a little town called Padua, Italy to do some grocery shopping, Tom-Tom told us that there was a grocery store there. The grocery store was barely even in the town, it was just on a little side street hidden underneath and apartment complex. We were all getting frustrated looking for this little store. The stores are a lot different in Europe, they have a variety of cheeses, and tons of seafood that still had eyes just laying on ice in coolers. It was a neat experience but I like American grocery stores... where the seafood can't stare at me. We drove through the Apennine Mountain range to get to Florence, I remember seeing a few hills with just rows and rows of grape vines on them. There was tunnel after tunnel going through mountains, it was gorgeous. Finally, we arrived at Campeggio Michaelangelo and Tom-Tom was yelling us to turn around as soon as possible, we unpacked camp and relaxed.

(A tunnel going through a mountain)

      Later that day, we went to Piazza Michelangelo, its a square that looks over the city of Florence, it has the statue of David in it. It was really neat to look over the city, we could see for miles. I bought a sweater at the square and bought my mom a tea towel with Italy on it.

My grandparents and Katy on our way to the square.

Me standing at the square above Florence.

 Little did we know that tomorrow we would be climbing to the top of that cathedral. 

(This was me and Katy's home for a month.)

      At Campeggio Michaelangelo I remember that we were parked at the bottom of one of the steepest hills I have ever gone up, all the utilities were at the top of the hill. It was nice to know that every time that we walked up it we were deffinatly working our butt and calves but it got annoying because just when Katy and I got all settled back at camp we remembered that we had forgotten to brush our teeth, or we had to go to the bathroom, that hill was a killer after awhile. The next day we visited Florence (I'll have a Day 2 post for it).

European Adventure: Venice, Italy

June 6th, 2010

     Venice is an amazing place to see, maybe not an amazing place to smell but that's not the point. Beautiful would be a big understatement when describing Venice. There are so many people, bridges, and almost everywhere you look there is a canal. Katy and I actually made ourselves stop taking pictures of canals because there were so many that they began to look the same.

     We left the campground at around 7:30 am to catch the ferry to Venice. From what I have written, it wasn't what I had expected. I had really wanted to see St. Marks Square and Basilica but they were being renovated so they were covered with scaffolding that was covered with very large advertisements. 

     Venice is not really how they show it in the movies, don't get me wrong, its a very beautiful place but St. Marks square has vendors all throughout it selling tourist stuff. We went to McDonalds for lunch but later we stopped at a Jewish Bakery and had Bread Puddings, they were very good. 

     There are a lot of churches in Venice and we went inside a lot of them, we actually walked in on a church that had a service going on, it was an accident.    We walked in and walked right back out. My grandparents bought us each an ice cream, the ice cream in Venice was in my top 5 if not my number 1 favorite ice cream. 

     Throughout our day in Venice we walked around 10 miles, up and down stairs and tiny little alleys, it was sort of like a maze, if we didn't have Garmin (my grandpas GPS) we would have been lost! We took the ferry back to Camping Fusina, took showers had dinner and fell asleep. Venice was a really neat experience. 

European Adventure: Fusina, Italy Malcontenta, Italy

June 4th, 2010
     We arrived in Fusina, Italy completely exhausted. Fusina, Italy is right across the water from Venice. We spent our first day and a half in Fusina recovering from the flight. 

This is my grandparents camper, our home for the month that we stayed. It was tiny but it really did sort of become like home while we were there. Katy and I actually slept in a tent that we pitched just outside the camper at every stop.

 

This is part of the campground that we stayed at. 

Camping Fusina (the campground), had alot of random sculptures through out, this one in particular was called "the seed." (this was our first exposure to European "art." I was a little worried.)

The first day we walked around the campground and just took pictures of the signs and stuff, we knew what this sign said!

This is a picture of Venice from across the water at our campground.

Katy and I in Fusina.

June 5th, 2010

(Katy using the computer)

This was really interesting, the campground offered internet access in the "Cyber Bus." The Cyber bus was an old double decker bus and the upstairs had computers that you could pay and use. Since we had a whole day to hangout at the campground, we used the Cyber Bus quite a bit.

This is me inside the cyber bus.

Katy walking back to the camper.

My grandma was online and found that there was a little town called Malcontenta not far from Fusina. Katy and I went on a bike ride to see Malcontenta. It was a really cool little town, we didn't really know anything about it but we liked what we saw so we snapped some pictures. 

Malcontenta

Malcontenta

Malcontenta

Malcontenta 

European Adventure: Leaving the Nest

    

Katy and I during our layover at the Chicago Airport.

The Chicago airport is HUGE!

A picture from the plane, it was a really boring flight, and I couldn't sit still or focus on the movie, I was really apprehensive and excited about what the next month had in store.

  

This is the sunset from 36000 feet, it looks pretty much the same. As the sun set on the way there, the sun actually rose from the other direction not very long afterwards. It was kind of cool. 

This is the Picture I took right when the plane landed in Germany, this was really exciting, not only because we were in Europe finally, but because we were in Europe and we were in charge of ourselves. 

I am doing these posts about Europe in the order of our trip, keep checking as I will have more daily.