Au P'tit Grec

Au P'tit Grec on Rue Mouffetard is hands down the best place in Paris to get crepes. One of Marie's colleagues brought us here one night after we met them for drinks. It's very popular, so you almost always have to wait in a line, but it's definitely worth it. After getting crepes here we just stopped looking anywhere else because they were so good. On the savory side, you can get almost any combination of various meats, cheeses, spices that they have. We stuck with the classic "jambon fromage," which is just sliced ham and Emmental cheese. But they put a ton of cheese on each one, along with a few slices of ham, lettuce, tomato, onion. It's almost like a hoagie rolled up in a pancake. Delicious. The portions are huge.

Then they've got the sweet side covered too. You can get a crepe with chocolate sauce, Nutella, strawberry or apple preserves. Get any of those with bananas and/or topped with chocolate powder or crushed almonds. The "Nutella banane amande" is fantastic (Nutella, bananas, almonds). It's all amazing.

Their crepes are twice the size of any other crepe we saw, still reasonably priced, and they somehow always get the crepe to the perfect crispiness, which is huge in my book. Watching the guys make it in front of you is like getting a free show while you wait. Can't recommend enough. I'm going to dream about these crepes for a long time.

Barcelona

Barcelona is beautiful! We stayed in an apartment in Ciutat Vella, which was just inside a maze of small passageways. It was far enough from the super-touristy Las Ramblas that we weren't surrounded by other tourists, and there were plenty of shops and restaurants in the immediate area that we didn't have to go far most of the time. The Gaudi art/architecture throughout the city is all amazing. It's the most colorful and lively architecture I've ever seen, and he makes even little things like streetlamps beautiful.

Sagrada Familia is on a whole other level. It's still being built from Gaudi's original plans and won't be finished for another 30 years or so. But the inside is done, and it is incredible. The church is enormous, and full of intricate geometric shapes not found anywhere else. Gaudi was inspired by nature and wanted his buildings to have a similar feel. In Sagrada Familia the columns are like giant tree trunks, splitting into branches at the upper levels and connecting to the ceiling. All the windows are unbelievable stained glass that lets various colors of light in to create different moods in an atmosphere where people could relax and meditate. In the basement there is a crypt, where Antoni Gaudi himself has been laid to rest.

The Park Guell is a large park in Barcelona, with a section dedicated to Gaudi's work. It was originally supposed to be a housing development, and Gaudi was commissioned to work on it by Eusebi Guell, who also commissioned many of Gaudi's other works. The plan fell apart at Guell's death, and only two houses were actually created. It was then turned into a park. Gaudi's influence is seen everywhere, from benches of his signature broken tiles to sculptures of the same style, to walkways constructed out of smaller rocks, to the complex architecture of the buildings on the property. As you go higher in the park there are incredible views of the city, and although it's crowded it's a beautiful place.

On our last day we hiked over to Monjuic, which was the site of the 1992 Olympic Games. There are many buildings and structures leftover from those events, such as a large stadium and Olympic center. The area also houses the Joan Miro Museum and Castle Montjuic, as well as a couple other museums and gardens. The top offers a great view of the city, and on the castle side a great view of the harbor and ocean below.

We didn't make it to a Barcelona soccer match (football to these Europeans), but watched one in a bar. We'll definitely have to plan ahead and get to one next time. We had a lot of good tapas food, which is great because you get to try a bunch of different dishes. It's more like endless snacking than a large meal, which is right up my alley.

Barcelona is definitely one of our favorite cities visited on this trip, and we'll have to go back, especially if they ever finish work on Sagrada Familia.

Check out some of the too many pictures I took in the gallery.

Rome

Rome is the oldest city we've visited, and also the most crowded. Once off the plane we headed to the hotel, but our room wasn't ready yet so we wandered a little. We had a nice hotel room, right off the main street, Via del Corso. It was a great location, with tons of shops and restaurants nearby, and was also within walking distance of many attractions. We had our first Italian pizza, and it was fantastic! They also came with a croquette type fried ball of rice and cheese and meat. Once we were able to check in and put our bags down it was easier to explore, although we mainly stuck to the Via del Corso area. The city isn't too large, so we were able to walk everywhere and didn't have to worry about the metro. There was a lot to see, and to be honest I didn't know the significance of a lot of the monuments, but they were nonetheless impressive.

We saw the Piazza del Popolo, the Trinita dei Monti (AKA Spanish Steps), Palazzo Montecitorio, Castel Sant Angelo, and a number of other sights. One of the most incredible sculptures was the Trevi Fountain:

The Vatican was awe inspiring (as was the line to get into the museum!). The dome of St Peter's Basilica is visible from a number of other points in the city, and the structures in the main square are massive. The museum is free on the last Sunday of the month, so we luckily were able to take advantage of that, although the line to get in took a couple hours. Once in, however, there is plenty to see. Being the Vatican, there is mostly religious art, but there are other items as well. For example, there was a pretty interesting hallway dedicated to old maps, some of which were huge tapestries. There are also a number of other works given to various popes and added to the museum.

The halls and rooms are crammed with people, and nearly everyone makes a beeline through the galleries to the Sistine Chapel. The Chapel itself is amazing, and pictures don't do it justice. Michelangelo's work on the ceiling is incredible, as is the artwork of other artists around the room. One of the most impressive parts of all of it is the attention to detail and 3D shading of the borders. The trim and columns look like they are jumping out of the wall, but it's all flat in reality. It creates an optical illusion that I wouldn't have thought possible for the time it was created.

We took a walk down to the ruins of the forum and other buildings of ancient Rome. For a lot of it, there isn't much to see, but it's still amazing the structure that they had so long ago. As an American, many things on this trip are changing my perception of time. Even though I knew from school the disparity in age between countries, it really hits home just how young all of (westernized) North America really is. We climbed Palatine Hill, which has many ruins, including palaces, a stadium, and vineyards, and gives a great view of the Coloseum. The main reason I wanted to climb was that it's also supposed to give a great view of the Circus Maximus, an enormous racetrack, but unfortunately that side was closed off.

The Colosseum is very impressive, especially when you consider what technology and materials they had to work with. It is enormous, and very aptly named. When you look into the arena, the floor you see is actually the tunnels that ran under the stage. The stage itself was made of wood and covered with sand, so it rotted away a long time ago. Of course, having watched movies like Gladiator, I could imagine it full of Romans watching a match between warriors. I was impressed by the tunnel system and the stage's trap doors and other triumphs of ancient ingenuity.

Another awe-inspiring place is the Pantheon, which is still the largest unsupported concrete dome in the world. The building itself is one room, and the ceiling is composed of the great dome, which has a large hole in the center that lets in sunlight. The Pantheon is dedicated to the gods of ancient Rome, and is also used as a tomb.The painter Raphael is entombed there.

At all of the sights, and actually throughout the city, there were street vendors selling little things like sunglasses or souvenirs or toys. They were super aggressive to the point where they were really an unpleasant nuisance. We saw the police chase them away a few times, but it looked like a never-ending game of cat and mouse. They just pick up their things, run away until the police leave, then come right back.

On trying to leave on Monday night there was a problem with our plane tickets, so we couldn't get on our flight. To make matters worse, we were supposed to be on the last flight of the day and would have to find a flight out the next day. The train back to Rome is expensive, takes an hour, and we didn't have a place to stay anyway, so that led to the three of us sleeping in the airport in Fiumicino. I've never slept in an airport before, but apparently it's not that uncommon; there were at least fifteen other people who also stayed the night in the same area. We slept on metal benches and the tile floor, although we didn't get much sleep. After being in the airport for about eighteen hours, we finally made it on a plane back to Paris. It was a rough night, but we made it back alive.

Gallery for more.