Fall Break abroad is as glamorous at it sounds. Being located in Rome, Italy comes with the perk of cheap travel prices for basically anywhere in the EU. The downside is that when it came to planning out fall break was there were so many options! I was traveling with my friend, Nancy, so we made a list of places we wanted to go and worked out which places we could do in a 9 day period. We finally decided that we would go to Paris, Geneva, and Nice.
We started our fall break with a plane ride from Rome to Paris. We stayed in an Air BNB in Bagnolet, a town on the outskirts of Paris and it was not quite what we were expecting. It was in a good neighborhood and seemed very safe. The only downside was that there were 5 of us staying I the Air BNB and it only had a single queen bed, a child’s bed, and a couch that the owner said pulled out into a bed but didn’t. I was very frustrated when I realized that 2 of us would have to sleep on the couch but realizing there wasn’t anything we could do to fix it, we decided to focus on the brighter side and explore the city. Paris was not quite what I expected. Yes, it was just a dirty as people had told me. However, the people were very accommodating, something I had not expected as my assumption was that the French did not think highly of Americans. The monuments though, were amazing! The Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame Cathedral and the Louvre Museum were just as great as I imagined them to be. I especially liked the area surrounding the Notre-Dame. There is a small book shop called Shakespeare and Co. which housed an amazing collection of books, I could have spent hours in it. The art district was also a nice area to walk around and get a nice brunch.
Next, Nancy and I hoped on a train to Geneva. We arrived to perfect weather and the nicest hostel I had ever seen! It was very clean, and they had upgraded our room for no charge! In Geneva, Nancy and I hike a mountain, Saleve. It was a beautiful hike that took us back across the border into France. From the top of the mountain we could see the Jura mountains on one side and Mont Blac on the other. Nancy and I could have spent hours looking at the view, and nearly did! The only thing that made us begin our decent was that it started to rain. When we got back to the city, we went to the United Nations Office at Geneva for a tour. The tour was pretty amazing, we were given a little history lesson that help us contextualize the spaces we entered. One of the building that form the UN Office actually used to be where meetings of the League of Nations were held. The league was disbanded after it failed to stop another world war, but the building was then given to the UN.
Then, Nancy and I rounded out our week in Nice, France. Nice is where Nancy and I truly decided to relax. We would wake up, walk through the flower market which happened every morning. Then we’d walk along the beach up to Castle Hill. Castle Hill had tremendous views of the city and harbor. In the afternoon, we would pick a place on the beach and eat our lunch right there on the rocks, right next to the water. As the sun began to set, we’d make sure to have a view over the water and watch the sky change color until it was black. Then we made our way into old town for dinner, each night trying a different restaurant. One discovery that Nancy and I both made was a tasty dessert called profiteroles. They were made with puff pastry and inside was ice-cream and drizzled over it all was a super-rich chocolate syrup! We probably won’t be able to find them anywhere outside of France, but that just gives us an excuse to go back!