Kickin' It With Keri: Top 3 Thursday

This week's Top 3 is my favorite places that I have visited. I have been incredibly blessed and have had the opportunity to visit many, many places. Because of this, I had an incredibly hard time trying to decide which places were going to make the cut for this particular blog post. So, I couldn't just choose three. I had to pick four. Sorry. Also, despite the many places I have been, all four of my favorite spots for this post (partly because of the availability of pictures) came from my backpacking trip through Europe the summer after I finished college.

4. Santorini, Greece

This place is absolutely beautiful. It was the last stop on our almost two month long trip. We spent several days here and absolutely loved every bit of it. The island of Santorini is the place where they filmed scenes for the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants movie series. It is a great spot to visit because there is so much to do on the island. We spent quite a good deal of time at the beach (which by the way is open to nudity, as most European beaches are!).

We also got to take a boat ride and go on a tour of the entire island. We climbed an active volcano. This is a picture of our group on top of the volcano - talk about incredibly hot! Whoa! But, also incredibly cool.

We also rode donkeys (I didn't put those pictures up because they're a bit embarrassing!) up to the top of the island to watch the sunset. This was one of the memories that stand out most to me looking back on our trip. Sitting on top of the island in the village of Oia and watching the sunset was absolutely magnificent.

3. Prague, Czech Republic

Prague was my favorite city for most of the trip. There is so much undiscovered history in this city and it is absolutely beautiful. We spent a lot of times just exploring the different areas of the town: Old Towne Square, New Square, Prague Castle, and Jewish Quarter. We also just had a good time in Prague enjoying the food, culture, and people. The Czech Republic also does not yet use the euro, and Prague is so cheap! We have a picture of us all holding a 1000 Czech Crowne bill which was like $50.

This picture is of part of the Old Towne Square and was taken from the top of another building. While we were there, a couple came out of a church after their wedding and rode away in a horse drawn carriage. Absolutely beautiful!

This picture was taken from Crowne Plaza in front of the Prague Castle. We had to climb up this HUGE hill to get up there, but the view was absolutely breathtaking and totally worth the sweat.

This is part of the Prague Castle. There were several different buildings and the coolest different architectural rarities at the Castle. So cool.

One thing we LOVED about Prague was the delicious gelato, as seen here . . .

2. Rome, Italy

I am a history person plain and simple. I LOVE reading and learning about how things came to be and when we went to Rome, I got to visit SO many places I had read about my entire life. I LOVED it. I wish we had the opportunity to spend more time there so that we could do more things. Alyssa, Bart, and I visited the Vatican City, the Roman Forum, the Colosseum, and the Trevi Fountain. I just can't even describe the feelings I felt when I was in Rome and got to stand in the same places as popes and caesars and these people that other people have written about for centuries. Awesome. (I know, I am a bit of a dork. I accept it.)

This is from inside the Vatican City and is looking into the Pope's private gardens / the city.

This is also inside the Vatican City. Mesmerizing.

This is of St. Peter's Basillica. Please ignore me. Remember we were BACKPACKING. Also, think of Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons - parts were filmed here (along with TONS of other movies).

This is the Roman Forum. OH MY GOODNESS. The coolest thing of the trip (just about).

The Roman Colosseum. How cool is it to stand in a place like this where SO much history took place?

Finally, the Trevi Fountain (think Lizzie McGuire Movie - haha).

1. Lake Como, Italy

Lake Como, Italy is not actually a city. It's a lake. Ha. There are about five different towns that border the lake. You can take the ferry from town to town. It zig zags across the water and stops every few hours every day in each town. I loved Lake Como because it is so not a tourist spot (even though several celebrities, including George Clooney and Versaci, have homes here and it was named one of the top places for celebrity sitings).

There is actually only one hostel on the entire lake in the little village of Menaggio. I LOVED it. We had a beautiful view of the lake from our hostel and we had a balcony so we were able to spend our evenings on the balcony overlooking the lake.