8 cities, 5 countries, 8 days.

Yep, you read the title right. 8 cities, 5 countries, 8 days. My fall break consisted of being in almost an entirely new city, culture, and way of life for 8 days in a row. An amazing experience to say the least!

A few other girls on my Paris program and I wanted to create our own adventure for our fall break. There were so many cities that we wanted to see so we decided taking the trains everywhere would be our best bet. We did a few overnight trains which made it possible to see everything we wanted to see.

Our first stop was Interlaken, Switzerland. What a breathtaking city! The town is beautiful itself because its surrounded by mountains and also in between two lakes. We took a tram up (literally straight up) the side of one of the mountains. Up at the top there was a restaurant, playground, trails, and an incredible view. We had so much fun just being kids and playing around for the day! The next morning, we took a 30 minute train ride up into the mountains to a little town called Grindelwald. It's where I competed when I was 12 for my Young International skating competition so it was great to see it again. I went back to the rink that I competed in and the hotel where we stayed and had a lot of our team dinners in. We ate lunch at a cafe that was right on the side of the mountain with an amazing view. After indulging in some chocolate fondue, we took the train to Zurich that night and explored the city with our gigantic backpacks looking like the ultimate backpackers, then hopped on our longest train to Budapest. It was a 12 hours, overnight train but it was surprisingly not bad at all! We paid a little extra for beds so we had a comfortable place to sleep for the night. We were sleeping within the first hour of being on the train and didn't wake up until we only had 2 hours left until Budapest. 

Playing in the Swiss Alps. 

View of Interlaken.

The rink in Grindelwald. 

Having lunch in Grindelwald. 

Once we got to Budapest we put our bags away and met up with one of my friends from DU studying there. She was so nice to show us around for the entire day! There was no way we would have been able to find all the sights on our own in only one day. We started out at the House of Terror Museum. It's a museum all about the communist era in Hungary and its in a building where they did a lot of their torturings. The museum definitely gave me chills as we walked through! After that, we ate some Lángos for lunch, walked around Heros Square, saw some beautiful government buildings situated along the Danube river. Everything in Budapest is incredibly cheap. We went out for a nice meal that night and it came out to not even $10. Quite the change from a normal meal at a cafe in Paris being around 12 euros. One of the things we heard we had to do in Budapest was go to a ruin bar. They are bars that were built around the leftover ruins after World War II. They were very cool because each one was completely different and had its own personality. The next morning we woke up a little earlier to go to Grand Market Hall since it wasn't open the day before. It's a huge food market where there are vendors that sell huge quantities of produce, pastries, breads, condiments, meats and seafoods and of course, paprika. On the top floor they were selling souvenirs and gift items. I wanted to bring so much back but I knew that whatever I bought, I would have to carry for the next 5 days! We had so much fun just looking around though. Everything was displayed so beautifully! 

The Chain Bridge

Heros Square

Grand Market Hall

Our next adventure was Vienna. I was really excited to see this city since my mom studied there when she was my age for an entire year. We only took a quick day trip there so we got in that morning and left that evening for our overnight train to Prague. My mom gave us a list of "must-see's" so that definitely kept us busy for the day! On the itinerary was Hofburg Palace, the poplar Kartnerstrasse shopping street, St. Stephans Cathedral, a Ringtram city tour, and last but definitely not least.....Demel's, one of the most beautiful pastry shops I have ever seen! The architecture of the city was gorgeous with the teal and gold accents on all the off-white buildings. Vienna seemed like a very old time, laid back city. We had some extra time that night before catching our train so we sat at the bar in Demel's and we all had a pastry. So yummy!! After grabbing some souvenir gifts for my mom, we headed back to the train station to continue our adventure.

Kartnerstrasse Street

View from St. Stephans Cathedral

Demel's! 

Hofburg Palace

We had a pretty early arrival into Prague the next morning (4 am) so we just hung out in the train station until at least the sun came up in. We should have been so tired because we all barley slept on the train but we were so excited to see Prague that we were running on copious amounts of caffeine and adrenaline. We began our Prague sight seeings with the beautiful Prague Castle. Its situated on a hill with some amazing views. The architecture of the city reminded me of a mix between Paris and Florence. There were small winding streets everywhere that led up to some picture perfect sights. Then we wandered through that area a little more and crossed the Charle's Bridge which only gave us more beautiful views of the city. We continued to explore more in Old Town where the apartment we rented for the night was. That's where the Astronomical Clock was and also a ton of cute shops and restaurants. Later that day we explored more into the Jewish Quarters called Josev. There were many old Synagogues including the Old New Synagogue which is Europe oldest active Synagogue. We also went to Europe's Oldest Jewish Cemetery. Everything in that area was packed together so closely that it was hard to get a good view of anything but the history was so rich. I loved Prague so much! I would have to say it was my favorite city we visited because it felt so charming. (Still no Paris though :) ) 

Old New Synagogue

Charles Bridge

Prague Castle

Old Town Square

Next stop....Germany! The first city in Germany we went to was Berlin. I was so excited to see it because I heard it was unlike most other European cities. It was very modern and chic to say the least. The train station we got into was so different than any train station we had been to in Europe. It was practically a shopping mall with one of the biggest food courts I had seen. After awing at everything in the train station, we took the metro to our hostel. Our hostel was very nice and in a good area but it was almost a 15 minute walk to and from the metro station. That night we saw the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag Dome and walked around the Mitte area of Berlin with a ton of very cute, high-end boutiques. The next day we sought out to do the majority of our touring. We started the morning out my stumbling upon some outdoor markets with multiple food stands that we then headed back to later that day to grab some bratwurst for lunch. We spent a good amount of the day at the Berlin Wall. Its amazing to think that this one wall was such a huge symbol for eastern Europe not too long ago. The part of the wall that was still standing had graffiti on one side and a gallery of paintings done by artists on the other side. After taking numerous "artsy" pictures, we went down to Checkpoint Charlie and got our passports stamped. Later that day we say the Holocaust Memorial for the European Jews. It was so beautiful! The outside of the memorial had stone blocks that, from the outside, looked like they were all the same height. As you walked through the middle, the blocks would be getting higher and higher and the city would get quieter. The inside of the memorial had some really neat parts to it. One room was filled with information on about 15 families from countries all over the world that went through the Holocaust. There was information on everyone in their family and what happened to them after the Holocaust. That was connected to a wide open room with someones name projected on each wall. On a loud speaker, there was a 30 second blurb about the person, like where they came from, how old they were, what their occupation was, etc. They recorded these for all 6 million Jews in the Holocaust. To listen to every single one of these bio's, it would take approximately 7 years. Berlin was such a cool city and I would have loved to explore more but our next stop was Munich.

I didn't get to stay in Munich too long because I was headed back to Paris the next day to meet my parents there. I toured some of the famous beer halls which was really cool to see! It seems like such a lively city but it had a much different feel than Berlin. It was a lot dirtier and not as modern.

The graffiti side of the Berlin Wall

On the gallery side of the wall. I didn't even notice it said Denver, Colorado on the bottom until I was looking back through my pictures! 

The Ampelmann pedestrian symbol in Berlin.

The tallest blocks in the middle of the Holocaust Memorial. 

My fall break was an amazing adventure.  The three of us shared so many great memories during the week that we will for sure never forget. So here is to some great friends and even better journeys! I'm happy to be at home in Paris for a little while but I cannot wait to travel to London soon!