SIGHTS FROM ITALY & SWITZERLAND

Hi everyone! :) Hope you all enjoyed your weekend and ready for a productive week! I know I am. Especially since I had Monday off from my day job, so I feel like this week has just flown! I've really been feeling inspired lately, so I couldn't wait to share this part of the "Eurotrip" with you all. I will try to alternate both Style and travel posts in the upcoming weeks. 

So, this week we are traveling back to Europe and we are stopping at two amazing places: Italy and Switzerland!

The first stop on our journey to Italy was the beautiful city of Verona. I instantly fell in love with it. It is definitely a smaller city, but it is very charming. It's filled with tons of shops, and cute cafes and quaint restuarants to eat. Verona is also home to L'Arena; which is a mini version of the Colosseum in Rome (another city that I'm dying to visit!). Here we only had a couple of hours to explore before we went to Venice, so I took full advantage of that. I did a little shopping, had pizza for lunch and ate gelato until I couldn't breath. I'd say it was a pretty amazing day. The highlight of this stop was to visit Juliet's balcony (Yes, Juliet, from Romeo & Juliet!) named "Casa di Giulietta" . There you see the famous balcony that is said to have inspired Shakespeare when he wrote the story. When you enter this area, you see the walls filled with graffiti of names of their loved ones and messages and letters...it was crazy! It was definitely not reminiscent to the movie "Letters to Juliet" but it was still sort of romantic. lol. There is also a statue of Juliet where everyone lined up to take a photo with. Legend says that if you touch her right breast, you are filled with goodluck, so you know everyone was trying to touch it lol ! There was a plethora of people everywhere desparate for a photo; I remember I had to just run toward the statue to try to get a decent photo, I succeeded! There was also a red box that had graffiti all over it where you could write a letter to Juliet and try your luck and see if someone responds back! I sure wrote my letter on the bus before we arrived to Verona, I just had to! It also had a cute souvenir shop of everything Romeo & Juliet. To be honest, it kind of minimized the magic when you realize everything was so commercialized :( But it was such a great experience to visit!

{EDIT: *3-28-17* : I wanted to let you all know that I received an answer back in the mail from Juliet in the beginning of 2017! It was completely unexpected..but I was so moved and happy. Magic DOES EXIST}

Upon arrival in Verona!

Juliet's "Balcony" !!

The famous Juliet statue ;) lol

An here's the letter box I spoke about where you put in your handwritten letter :) (photo below)

As our time in Verona slowly came to an end, we jumped back on the bus and headed for Venice! Now this city is just beautiful and it is filled with the most amazing architecture. We had such a great tour guide that was really funny and informative and made sure we didn't miss any spots! We first checked into our hotel, Hotel Delfino, which was so great. It was in a very central spot where there were places to eat, do some quick grocery shopping and eat gelato just minutes from our hotel! When we arrived at our meeting point, we took a ferry boat to Venice which was about 20 minutes or so. Upon our arrival to the city of Venice, our tour guide was there waiting for us. We started the tour in Piazza San Marco; this is Venice's "city center" and is where the amazing St. Mark's basilica is. We continued on in the city and made our way to their charming narrow streets filled with shopping, food trucks, restaurants, and LOTS of shopping to be done. In my opinion, Venice had the best selection of luxury and local to fulfill all of your shopping needs. I also had the chance to ride in a gondola! Now you can't go and visit Venice without experiencing a gondola ride. It was really memoriable and it was such a gorgeous day! All in all, I really enjoyed Venice and do recommend it as a point in Italy to visit!

Our awesome group in Piazza San Marco in front of St. Mark's Basilica :) LOL Can you spot me?!

St. Mark's Basilica

Gondolas!

Now I feel that I haven't blogged about all of my absolute favorite spots yet, but I have to say that Lucerne in Switzerland was one of my favorites. You really see a different part of Europe here; filled with mountains everywhere, charming little house, acres of land, farms, and so many other aspects that is difficult to talk about it all as I'm writing this lol. It is something straight out of a film. Our bus had to go up a mountain to get to our hotel! Which our hotel was nothing short of amazing. It was a "cabin style" room and the entire room looked like a cabin lodge and everything was made of wood, the room even had a balcony; it was fantastic. It's called Angel's Lodge in the beautiful city of Engelberg. It was overall one of the best stays on the trip. The next morning we headed to Lucerne, which is another impressive city in Switzerland. I must say that although I loved my time in Switzerland, I couldn't wait to leave, and do you know why?....because everything was SO expensive. I'm not sure if we were in a "touristy" area, but wow I found everything so over-priced for what it was; Nonetheless, Lucerne is such a magical city, you could even see the mountains in the far distance of the town; it was something right out of a storybook! :) Here we were able to explore the city for the day, we had some swiss chocolate (more than I should've, but who cares lol) . took in some amazing sight-seeing and even had the chance to purchase some authentic swiss army knifes! 

This is a Lion monument commemorating the Swiss guards who were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution. It was when the revolutionaries stormed the Tuileries Palace in Paris.

This is Kapellbrücke bridge. It is the oldest wooden bridge in all of Europe! It spans diagonally acorss the Reuss river in Lucerne, So beautiful !

The next day in Switzerland, we had an excursion that took us up the Swiss Alps! This was also a very memoriable part of the trip because how many people can say they went up the Swiss Alps?! It was called Mt. Pilatus and we made our journey all the way up to the mountain via a train! Can you believe that? They have an inclined train that goes all the way up the mountain! When we arrived we got to the explore the grounds and get something to eat too. Unfortunately when we went it was a very gloomy day so the entire grounds was filled with fog! We weren't able to see any of the amazing views like the photos. I was pretty disappointed by this because we spent about two hours up there, and couldn't see a thing! However, we did hike the mountain for half an hour or so and you could definitely feel the altitude from 7,000 feet up!

On top of the (world) mountain!

On our way back from the mountain, we had to navigate in these cable cars. I was so SCARED. The views were spectacular, but definitely scary. lol (below)

Also, I've been meaning to tell you all, I apologize for the quality of some of the photos. Half of the time I used my phone or my go-pro. So the quality isn't that great, but I still really tried to edit to the best of my ability. Hope you still enoy. :) 

Thanks for stopping by. 

Oh and as you probably know, I've been saving the best for last...next stop is PARIS.<3

'til our next adventure together.