Taking It Day By Day: Our (first) Trip of a Lifetime Part 1

Because of my extensive work travel I’ve also accumulated a LOT of hotel points, which has allowed Spence and I to travel quite a bit. We did a 20 day trip to Europe and visited London, Paris, Rome, Venice, Prague, Munich in 2012.

When I started on the Catastrophe Team (Cat Team) Spencer and I quickly realized that this job was going to afford us some cushion in our monthly budget. Spencer had never been out of the country, other than our Mexican trip when we first started dating, so we decided that we'd celebrate having all our credit cards paid off by taking a European trip! I spent from January to the day we left in September planning, revising, researching and organizing our trip in all its detail. We flew into London, then onto Paris for a day, Rome for 3 days, Venice overnight, Prague for a few days, Munich and then back to London for a night before we flew back to the states.

We flew into London and spent a few days wandering around the city. We walked to the top of St. Pauls (starting our tradition of always trying to get to the highest point in a city we can walk or take an elevator to) and did the hop on hop off bus to get an overview of the city. We were pretty jet lagged and so it was an early night! The next day we did the Hop on Hop off , a Jack the Ripper walking tour and went to Euston Tap for some beverages. The last day in England we did a day trip outside the city to Bath, Lacock (used in a lot of the Harry Potter movies-- very exciting for us) and to Stonehenge. We bought a tour that allowed us to go into the inner circle of the henge, to this day its one of my favorite things we've done on a trip!

On the plane leaving from KC!

Iconic London view

Selfie at Stonehenge, we had a blast this day and got to see so many cool sites.

At the Roman Baths

Inside the henge, getting to see it so close instead of from the outer area where tourists are usually restricted to was incredible.

I believe I took this from the Hop On Hop Off bus one day

One of the views from the Eye

We had to take a selfie on the Tube, because, tourists!

They very helpfully try to keep you from dying while crossing the street

St. Pauls, we climbed to the top of the dome to catch some amazing views of the city

London Eye, we stayed at the hotel right behind it on our way back through the city.

After London was a quick overnight to Paris. I'd been to Paris a few times before and Spencer didn't really have anything that he "had" to see there. In addition Spencer really wanted to stay in a hostel on this trip. I agreed as long as it was only for 1 night, so we stayed at a hostel in Paris. We did a free walking tour with Sandemans, the first of many on our European trips. We actually ended up doing the free city tour and the Montmartre tour with them later that night and then spent the evening drinking with new friends in the bar from the movie Amalie. The next day we got up (after a long night out and then a mix up when it turned out that someone had moved my stuff off the bed in our hostel room and we had to turn on lights and wake up the other 2 people in the room). I felt bad for the other 2 people in our room, Spencer's snoring is legendary and after a few drinks its like a freight train. We dropped our bags off at the airport (or train station, I can't remember) and spent the afternoon and early evening wandering around the city. We walked along the Seine and to the Eiffel Tower, we took a river tour as well and on the way out of town we grabbed a few crepes (a necessity for me being in Paris).

Before our walking tour we stopped and saw the Louvre, but didn't make it in due to time constraints

First glimpse of the Eiffel Tower!

During our tour of Montmartre

Spence sleeping (he was the only one sleeping at that point) in our hostel.

Outside of Notre Dame

On the "Love Bridge" we totally added a lock to the bridge, even though I know they go through and remove them and toss them.

Nothing says Paris like the glass pyramids!

When I was in Paris in 2004 I got up at dawn and went walking, I took a picture of this same statue with the sun rising behind it, the shadows and the way the light shone through the space between her arm and the sword is one of my favorites from that trip.

On our river tour!

Before the river tour began

I think this was one of our last shots in the City of Love, we had a great 36 hours in Paris, Spencer even said he would want to go back at some point. High praise since he didn't really want to go the first time!

After our day and a half in Paris we took a flight to Rome for 3 days. Rome was one of Spencer's favorite stops on the trip, at least partially because we had some down time to just relax and wander around the city. We booked a tour into the underground portion of the Coliseum and then got to up to the higher levels that not everyone gets to access. We also did a tour of the Sistine Chapel before it was open to the general public, this made a world of difference. The 2 times I'd seen it before it was crammed with people and it was really hard to spend enough time to really appreciate the magnitude of the chapel. This tour also gave us early access to the rest of the museum before it was open and it was fantastic to see it all so empty instead of teeming with people. That same day we also went all the way to the top of St Peters (again with the highest views we can find), a total of 320 steps after the elevators stop working. The rest of the days in Rome we walked all around, Pantheon, Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, the Forum, Trajans Column, Mouth of Truth, Capitoline Musuem, Borghese Gardens, Piazza Navonna etc.

Mouth of Truth

As you walk up the stairs at St. Peters the walls start to curve along with the dome, it gets a little trippy if you aren't careful!

Spanish Steps

One of the best meals we had all trip, this is a little alley about 3 minutes from Trevi Fountain.

Outside the Vatican after our tour

View from the top of St. Peters, amazing view of the city

On our early morning tour of the Vatican and St. Peters, normally this area is crowded and its difficult to keep with your group. We didn't have that issue on our tour!