Pardon my French, but when in Rome...

Yes, we have been overusing the above two expressions while in Rome and France. There's lots of updating on our travels, so I'll try to let the pictures speak for us (provided they upload properly....fingers crossed!).

Here's an overview of some highlights:

Sicily:
- We went to Palermo, the birthplace of the Cosa Nostra (the Sicilian Mafia) and the site of many an epic mob war in the 70s, 80s, and earlier. Despite this, it was a very beautiful city full of nice people. Although we really didn't have time to explore it very well, we did see their catacombs, which is probably one of the creepiest places on Earth. Picture hundreds of dead bodies in various states of preservation (some had skin, eyes and hair still attached, others were just skeletons) all dressed up in clothes and lining the walls staring at you when you walk through the hallways. There was also a dead baby room. They didn't allow pictures inside, which many of you are probably very thankful about.
- After Palermo we went to a small beach resort town called Brolo on the recommendation of a lady at the train station. Unfortunately the only place to stay was a 3 star hotel that included breakfast and dinner (a bit out of our price range). Having no other place to stay, we decided to stay for one night, which quickly turned into 2 nights when we discovered that they had free-flow taps with UNLIMITED red & white wine! Needless to say, we had a noise complaint the first night we stayed there...
- After Brolo we made our way to Acireale, which is a beautiful Sicilian city/town. From there we walked and drove around to various beautiful beaches, churches, eating places, etc. including Mt. Etna (PACKED with busloads of tourist monkeys...uggh!)

Rome:
- Incredible city...there are little bits of history everywhere you look, and the most fantastic food markets everywhere. The tomatoes that you got at the vegetable markets were like heaven...we would usually eat about 2kg of tomatoes per day between the 4 of us.
- We rented rooms at an apartment with a shared bathroom from a very entertaining character. It was called a "bed & breakfast" but should have been called a "bed & no breakfast"...our host was too hungover to make it to breakfast the first night, and then had to go to his brother's wedding for a few nights. He took a few euros off of the price though, so it was all good. While we were there, we met a very nice couple named Mette and Alberto who were from Daenmark and Spain, respectively.
- We met up with Galvin, Vin and David for a couple evenings and had some good food, saw a concert and discussed our respective travels. Galvin's travels are being documented on www.galvinclancey.blogspot.com ...check it out if you're addicted to reading travel blogs!
-We said goodbye to Karen after a wonderful 2 or 3 weeks (not sure...time flies when you're having fun) travelling with us.

Cinque Terre:
- Beautiful place! It is a national park just southeast of Genova in the Liguria region of Italy. We had an apartment with a kitchen, which we used to make delicious Italian feasts every night. We hiked every day for around 10 km or so...beautiful hikes amoung the vineyards that line the terrassed hills along the breathtakingly blue mediterranean...incredible! Andrew, you would be glad to have missed the death marches...
- The Cinque Terre consists of 5 main villages (all hiking distance from one another). We stayed in Corniglia, the center village (pop. 240) which is the least touristy of them (probably due to the 400 stairs that you have to climb to get to it).

Nice:
- After waking up at 5am or so, we tried to take a train direct from the Cinque Terre to Paris, but had to go to Nice to transfer. Our morning train ride included a dirty Italian couple performing disgusting activities on the seats in front of us...not a pleasant way to start a long day of travel! Upon our arrival in Nice, we discovered that only a small portion of the seats on trains are available for Eurail pass holders, and they were all booked except for an overnight train later that evening (on which there were only seats available...no couchettes). BOO Eurail! We were forced to have a day in Nice, which turned out to be very entertaining.
- After a delicious French lunch, we wandered down to the beach. It was probably the most packed beach in all of France, made even more so by the fact that they happened to be holding an Ironman triathalon there that day. 42.2 km run, 180 km bike ride, and some unknown amount of swimming....these guys (and the occasional girl) were unbelievably fit! It really made you feel like a pansy watching them.
- To escape the tourist crowds, we headed away from the beach to the acropolis of Nice. When we arrived, we discovered some awesome bands warming up, people playing soccer and rugby, French hippies juggling and playing with balls on chains (hippie clowns?) and all sorts of random activities. It was awesome! After wandering around and seeing various hammer & sickle logos, we gradually realized that it was some sort of festival being put on by the PCF (Partie Communiste Francais...or the French communist party for the linguistically challenged). There was awesome music though, and no guys with guns confronting protestors, so we decided to stick around for a bit and watch the bands play before catching our night train.
- Also while in Nice, we saw a car hit a very young child (the child seemed to be OK), and then the father of said child open up the door of the car and trying to pull out the old man who was driving it to beat him up. Numerous people came to break up the fight. Yet another exciting event to add to the day!
- On the night train we met a girl from Ireland and a girl from Texas, had some interesting conversations, and then tried (fairly unsuccessfully) to sleep.

Now we're in Paris, waiting to see what adventures lie in store for us! Some pictures are uploaded....check the picture link on the sidebar to our picasa page. Not all of the pictures are up, and they aren't yet captioned, but if you just can't wait to see them, feel free to have a look.

Eric