Ciao!

This past weekend I found myself in Lyon, Milan, and Switzerland for a quick train change. Every place was gorgeous and made the 9 hour train ride back to Lille well worth it.

First off, my travel buddy Marissa and I went to Lyon, France for the afternoon and night on Thursday. Our hostel was located on the side of a hill with an amazing view of the city. We explored the city for the day, stumbled across Lyon's own Notre Dame and a cemetary with graves from people born in the 1700s. Lyon's Notre Dame was far more impressive on the inside than the one in Paris. The ceiling is covered in thousands of sparkling tiles formed into mosaics depicting different icons and Biblical stories. Although smaller than the cathedral in Paris, the extreme details found inside were so enchanting, I probably could have sat inside all day just gazing at the ceiling. While in Lyon, we decided to go for Indian food that night for dinner. I've found that French food itself isn't all that great and have been avoiding it to an extent. The Indian food was a very satisfactory end to the day. When we got back to the hostel, we spent some time talking to one of our roommates, a girl from Wisconsin, then crashed pretty early.

We got up early the next morning to start our 4 hour train journey to Milan through the Alps which are probably the prettiest mountains I've ever seen. Once we got to Milan, we set off to the Santa Maria delle Grazie, which is the convent where "The Last Supper" is located. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see "The Last Supper" because tickets sell out months in advance, which was pretty disappointing. We did get to go inside the church though, and like every other church, it was lovely. We also found a Catholic University and walked around the campus a bit, it was exactly what I imagined European college campuses to be. It had very old buildings with awesome architecture and green lawns. Our school in Lille is very modern unfortunately, with very little character.

On Saturday, we spent a good part of the afternoon at the Duomo, whcih is Europe's 3rd largest cathedral. It doesn't have a belfry, so instead we climbed more narrow stairs up to the roof. The roof is covered in hundreds of spires, with different icons carved into the sides, it's almost like a forest up there! We also visited a castle and hung out in the surrounding park for awhile. Overall, there isn't a lot to see in Milan, but it was cool to experience a little bit of Italy. We went out for pasta that night and it was amazing. On Sunday, I had a 8 hour train ride back myself because Marissa got stuck on the overnight train that night. The train made a some stops in Switzerland in the middle of the Alps and the view from the window was awesome. I was so happy I got to go through Switzerland because I heard it was beautiful and people definitely aren't lying.

Next up, Amsterdam!