Final Stop: Rome

Well, we've spent the last 2 days exploring the city of Rome, from our campground hostel just outside the city. Saw the Roman Forum and area ruins in one day, and today we roamed around the Vatican. Our timing was unbelieveably perfect, as we waited only 5 minutes to get into St. Peter's Basilica (the lineup when we came out was at least 2 hours long) and only 10mins for the museums and Sistine Chapel (the lineup when we first got there was at least 3 hours). Everything was very grand and gorgeous... almost unchurchlike!

We will be vegetating at the campground tomorrow poolside, flying to Munich tomorrow night, and then home on the 16th! No more touristy stuff for us... it's somewhat bittersweet, but we are definitely ready for some Canadian living.

Looking forward to seeing/talking to you all!

Cinque Terre

We arrived safe and sound in Levanto, Italy yesterday, despite having to be shuttled by bus a portion of the trip due to a problem on the tracks. Our hostel is great, and thank you sooo much mom and dad for the recommendation on the city! Today we took the train to the bottom town and walked up to the 3rd one, then took the train as we were only wearing flip flops. The towns are nice, but ours is much less touristy and more villagey. Italian pizza last night, and pasta tonight! This place really is gorgeous. Will post pictures eventually.

Hike to Gimmewald

Today we made a day trip to a tiny mountain town recommended to us by 2 girls at one of our previous hostels. We took a train to a town at the base of the mountain, and started hiking along a river trail past beautiful waterfalls on either side of us. We even walked behind one! Had a picnic lunch next to the river and continued along to the base of the mountain below Gimmewald. Then we climbed. The trail was gorgeous, and the views were absolutely stunning. It took us about an hour and a half to climb 500 vertical metres. The trail was about 4.5km. The town was iddy biddy with a few homes (no idea how they got stuff up there...assuming there was a road going up another part of the mountain!), so we just walked through and took the gondola down. This thing was awesome... I think it boasts the steepest cable car in the world. When we went over the cliff, I can see why! Mom, not recommended for you (from Emma). We took the bus back to the train station to save some time. Definitely goes in the books as the most beautiful hike we will ever do. Completely wiped out, we're doing laundry and making dinner tonight before heading to Cinque Terre tomorrow!Sideways view of the gondola drop.

ICE CLIMBING

WOW. That's about all that can be said about this most awesome adventure. Emma, Erich, and some random guy that actually went to highschool with Emma were the only ones in this wicked adventure to Steinglacier in the Alps. The drive up the mountain took us to where the glacier used to be a few decades ago (don't get us started on global warming) and then it was an hour hike through water, tundra scrub, and snow drifts waist deep in places. The hike took us to approximately 2200 meters above sea level, where we stopped for a bite to eat (the picture above was the view out) while our overworked guide shovelled snow off the glacier for us to climb. The climbing started with a rappel down. We were told in school not to run with scissors but nobody told us not to jump down cliffs wearing spikes and holding sharp axes.

which of course is going to cause an accident. Just kidding , seriously nobody got hurt well not really. Emma of course is much more graceful at falling down the glacier (i know it's a bit hard to tell, but these pictures are looking straight down).
Once the falling part is over, the climbing part starts.


That is until we accidently fell into the crack in the galcier... help help i'm stuck in the hole
Sherpa emma to the rescue!
So yeah, there are a tonne more pictures for us to show you, but this was so awesome, we climbed for about 4 hours which was pretty exhausting in both soft ice and very hard ice. We would definitely recommend this adventure to absolutely anybody.

The Most Beautiful Place on Earth

Emma and City gates of Lucern
City gates (we walked along the top and climbed the towers)
Lucern riverside (Ted, do you find this "puzzling" photo familiar?)
Lucern's famous Lion carved into a cliff
View of the city and mountains from the old city wall

Lucern was beautiful on the first day, but the weather didn't hold up for us for the other 2. Ted, you may rememnWe roamed around town on our 2nd day, and due to low clouds and 24 hour rain, we couldn't do the hike we wanted to. Instead, we took the train to Zurich and wandered the streets: stumbled upon a doggie parade and a gay pride parade - both highly entertaining :).View from the train from Lucern to Interlaken
View from Interlaken

We are now in the most beautiful place in the world, without a doubt. Nestled between two lakes, surrounded by the swiss alps is Interlaken. We caught a lucky day of having sunny weather after Luzern is was a complete bust with nothing but constant rain. The train ride into Interlaken probably has over 150 pictures between the two of us. Arriving in Interlaken we've done some hiking on a small hill near the town and started walking up to one of the mountains...but then realized we would need some dinner and thought we would save the serious climbing for tomorrow! There's Interlaken's most popular bar below the hostel, and they have live music tonight so we'll probably check that out before packing it in early for an 8:30 start tomorrow (that may not sound bad, but we've been lazy bums recently).Us on our mini hike