Contiki 'European Discovery' Tour: Dec 08 - Jan 09, Part Two! ♥

Part two, as promised!

x Day Five - Venice, Italy

Hello, Venice! To me, Venice was like a real-life postcard: blue skies, marvellous scenery, fantastic history, sky-writing chipmunks - okay, so maybe that last part didn't actually happen! (Or did it?! No. No, it definitely didn't!) We began our afternoon in Venice by completing a ride on a gondola, eating calzone and then exploring St. Mark's Square, before piling into one of the girls' hotel room at night and (naughtily) drinking what felt like our body weight in Absinthe and Vodka. Oops! (Until we were all kicked out by the staff for accidentally making too much noise, that is!)

x Day Six - Rome, Italy

The agenda on day six of the tour? Gelato, sightseeing and dinner at an Italian restaurant, followed by a night filled with shenanigans in the heart of the city! (No, really. Tabledancing? Check! Rapping to Eminem? Check! Stumbling back to our hotel rooms a mere three hours before we were due to wake up? Uh, check, check, check!)

I've just realised that now would probably be an excellent time to point out that I'm not actually an alcoholic; I swear, I'm NOT! While the tour did involve partying of epic proportions, honestly, it's kind of impossible to want to do anything else. When you're on the other side of the world and you only have a single night in each city, what are you going to do? Spend the night in your hotel room?! No! You're going to make the most of it by soaking it all up like an enormous sponge and celebrate like it's 1999, of course! (Robert DeNiro's quote of ''you'll have time to rest when you're dead!'' became my credo during my Contiki experience!)

 x Day Seven - Rome, Italy

The Sistine Chapel and The Colosseum! In a word? Astonishing. In a few? Can we go back there?!

What a day. And what a night!

On our first morning in Florence we combed the beautiful city by walking through the streets, attending a Venetian glass-making demonstration, leather factory and a parade, before being whisked away to a castle-style building for dinner later that evening. From there, we were treated to a three-course menu (again, it was all you could drink beer and wine; gulp!) and were serenaded by an opera singer! We then made our way to an  'Electronic Space Disco', where on arrival you were presented a ticket to receive a free cocktail of your choice! What exactly did the 'Electronic Space Disco' involve? Karaoke! Dancing! Mingling with the locals! FUN!

x Day Nine - Lucerne, Switzerland

Would you like to know something terrible? I actually have NO photos of Switzerland! Zero! Zilch! This fills me with a tremendous sense of guilt, but my camera actually ran out of battery and I literally had no time to return to the hotel and recharge it, argh! So, the above photo is of Lake Como, Italy, which we drove past on our way to Lucerne: doesn't it look magical?! I wish we could have stopped and spent a day there, it looked like something from a fantasy movie! So what was Switzerland like? Astoundingly gorgeous, and very, very cold! It is most certainly on my 're-visit' list.

♥

The final installment is on its way!  

xoxo

(Update: Part three can be found here!)

P.S. Don't be fooled by that whole ''all Virgos are organised theory''; just LOOK at the state of my suitcase! (And yes, it did look like this each morning!)