First, the weekend after Thanksgiving the London Crew and I hopped on a plane to Rome at sunset.
We got in around seven, promptly went out for pizza and fried mozzarella. On our way, we spotted this sign:
I've heard of park and ride, but this was a new one.
In the morning we got up bright and early and made our first stop the coliseum. Pro tip (which we read online): go early. Like, go when it opens. When we arrived first thing the line was pretty short - by the time we were finished an hour to an hour and a half later, it was at least 10 times as long.
Now, I don't know about you, but my knowledge of most of Europe comes exclusively from things I've seen in movies. For the Coliseum, that means the film Jumper, where Hayden Christensen teleports his way into the lower level (which is unfortunately off limits to mere mortals) just to impress Rachel Bilson. Afterward, they promptly get arrested.
Our visit was a little less eventful than theirs, but still nice. I discreetly followed a french tour group around the second floor and got to hear a little bit about the history beyond gladiator fights to the death.
Afterward, we took an adventure on the metro into the city to see some of the sights (another pro-tip: buying metro tickets sucks in Rome. Bring plenty of coins to make exact change!).
We made it to the Trevi fountain, where we did our best Lizzie McGuire impression and threw coins into the fountain while making outrageous wishes. Between this and that magical French well I drank from a few weeks ago, 2017 should be my luckiest year yet!
We saw the sights, we saw the city, we ate more pizza (hey, when in Rome...).
The first weekend in December we went on an organized day trip to Avignon, where we started out at the 3rd most visited site in France, the Pont du Gard.
Our plan of action after that was to visit the infamous Christmas market in Avignon. We got to the city, walked over the ramparts and past the famous Palace of the Popes - which was home to the heads of the Catholic church for 70-odd years in the 14th century - and promptly discovered that there was no Christmas market to be found.
Due to the state of emergency in France and the threats that terrorist organizations have made, especially surrounding events celebrating Christmas, Avignon made the call to forego their Christmas market for the first time this year
Fortunately for us, there was still plenty to see and do. There was a telethon happening in the main square which included musical performances (shout out to the older men's choir and their saucy choreography), service dogs doing tricks and receiving many pats, and an amazing food truck.
The big event this past weekend was our day trip to see the Fête des Lumières in Lyon.
I posted a video advertising the Fête at the bottom of my last post if you want to see some better examples, but here are my pictures from that day of the beautiful but smog-covered city:
The streets were packed. Hardly any of us had cell service so we had to use the buddy system and just hope that we would find each other in the end, which we did! We got to try hot wine and Aligot, a French specialty of cheese mixed with mashed potatos which somehow comes to an almost glue-like texture. Below you can see them lifting a big hunk of Aligot from the pot.
Even though the city streets were packed to the brim, the light shows were well organized and there was a lot of staff on hand to deal with the crowds. While shuffling through crowds of tourists, I did think a few times of the threat of terrorism looming over France and most of the continent (and the world), and how easy it would be to target an event like this where you have a huge group of people all stuffed into a small space together.
Luckily, Lyon made it through the weekend unscathed, but the same can't be said for Cairo or Istanbul, or Aleppo, whose struggle continues, and I'm sure for a lot of other cities in the world which haven't made major news. While I enjoy my last few days in Aix and head home for the holidays, they'll be on my mind.
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