European Voyage Part Due: Siena

I took a train from Germany to Florence a few years ago with one of my sisters, and I learned a hard lesson: comfort is worth the cost. Our ticket from Germany to Florence was cheap, but the trip took over 15 hours in the most uncomfortable seats imaginable; our knees touched the people sitting across from us. Due to my personal space and comfort issues, my mom and I sprung for a private sleeper car for this trip to Florence. It was leaps and bounds better than my previous experience; definitely worth the extra cost.

We left Dijon at around 8 in the evening and arrived in Florence fairly early the following morning. Since we bought Eurail passes, we just hopped on the next train to Siena without having to buy a ticket (those passes were by far our best investment). The train ride to Siena was pretty short, about an hour and a half, but I have to say that the Siena train station is pretty inconveniently located. We started to try to walk to our hotel, but got lost immediately. So on that note, we hopped in a cab. Our hotel room wasn't quite ready, something we determined after about 5 minutes of sign language and me consulting my Italian phrase book, so we left our bags and headed out to a cafe for breakfast. We thought we picked a good, local hangout-looking place, but after we sat down, a gaggle of American students came in. So much for that local thing....the food was good though. It took awhile to get used to the breakfasts in Italy. A lot of sweet pastries; I'm more of a savory breakfast person, but the coffee was always good.

Since Siena is BY FAR the most confusing city I've ever been to, it took us about an hour to find out hotel again. After getting settled in our room, we stopped at a book shop to get a map, and then walked around for awhile to see the sights.

Il Campo

Duomo di Siena


Insane tile work inside the Duomo


Ceiling inside one of the Duomo chapels

The least likely way of getting lost on our way to the church in the top left corner of the above picture was to cut down through town and trek back up. More work, but less frustration.

Finally, our destination

We were completely pooped after our day of travel, walking around, and getting lost numerous times, so we decided to have a nice dinner of cheeses, salamis, bread, and wine in our hotel room. It honestly might have been one of my favorite meals from the whole trip. Although I will say, the Romano pesto was quite possibly the worst pesto/spread I've ever had.

Gross pesto

On our last night, we were spent from our day trip to San Gimignano (pictures soon to come), so instead of getting lost yet again in the winding Siena streets, we went to a place right near our hotel. Best. Decision. Ever. And now I leave you with the best meal of our trip.

I'll take one of each please.

Bread with the greenest olive oil I've ever seen (picture didn't come close to capturing the color), salt, pepper, and rosemary. Simple, but DIVINE!


There's the money shot.


Yes, that's melted butter. What...I was on vacation.


So good it deserves one last look.

European Voyage Part Une: The Jura

What started out as a one week trip turned into two weeks turned into, "Well...might as well make it three." Our first stop was France. My sister and her boyfriend Victor were nice enough to let my mom and I invite ourselves on their trip to Victor's family home in the Jura region.

We actually flew into Geneva, Switzerland which was cheaper and actually more convenient than Paris. The drive to Victor's house was a couple of hours. I awakened out of my Tylenol P.M. induced coma long enough to take a few pictures of Lake Geneva and the Alps.

The Alps and Lake Geneva (hidden underneath the fog)

Oh about 5 minutes after this pictures was taken, I was passed out in the backseat of the car. I was told the drive took around 2 hours.

Victor had talked about his family's house, how it was from the 11th century and how his family restored it, but my god, I was not prepared. It was AMAZING. My jaw dropped.

Front gate

Front of the house (I couldn't stand back far enough to get the whole thing)


Side garden

GIGANTIC fireplace which my 5'4'' frame easily cleared

You can't go to France without going wine tasting. We went a place not too far from the house. It was super foggy, so we couldn't see much of the actual vineyards. We were there for the wine anyway. We tasted 5 wines that ranged from dry to very sweet. The sparkling was definitely my favorite. We bought a couple bottles, one for dinner and one to take back to the states. Had it not been the beginning of the trip, I would have liked to have bought a few more bottles to take home.

After we finished up the winery, we drove an area where a glacier crashed through god only knows how many thousands of years ago. Beautiful steep cliffs and waterfalls.

We definitely ate well during this leg of the trip. I wish I had gotten pictures of everything, but I slacked a little. I think my favorite meal was our lunch of cheese. If I could eat cheese and bread everyday, I would. My version of hell includes lactose intolerance. We got all of these cheeses at a grocery store.

Crazy brocoli-like vegetable we found at the grocery store.

Another fun meal was when we used the raclette. It's this cool griddle looking thing that you plug in, and underneath the griddle, everyone has their own little pan to melt their cheese (yes, even more cheese...be still my heart!). You can heat meat or cook vegetables on top, and then pour melted cheese over them. We had some brussels sprouts, potatoes, cold cuts, bread, and fruit. The best was definitely the classic French combo: cheese, a potato, and a cornichon.

We spent the last day with my sister and her boyfriend at this neat museum that used to be a church hospital. The roofs of the buildings had really cool tile patterns.

Crawfish eyes

Our train for the next leg of the trip left from Dijon, so we stopped for dinner and then walked around for a bit. Such a cute town! I wish we could've spent more time there, but we had to catch the train to Italy. Such a tough life....