On Tuesday the 29th, I checked out of my flat with Mr. Gervis and then he drove me to the train station. From there, I went to Paris where I am staying for a few days before returning to Canada on Friday.

Me and Mr. Gervis standing outside my flat entrance.

2 of my other 4 housemates have already checked out. It’s hard to believe that I’ve lived in Poitiers for 4.5 months, and now I have left. I wish I had more time to take one last walk through town or actually say goodbye to more people. Such is life.

I am way behind on my blogging. I haven’t had time yet to go through my photos from Versailles, Dublin, Salzburg, and Germany. I likely won’t be able to do much of this before I return to Canada, so wish me safe travels!

On the 19th, I will be traveling to Dublin along with Brian, Eric, Charles and Jennifer. We’ll be staying there until the 24th, and it should be good since I’ve heard plenty of good things about Dublin. After that, I will travel to Salzburg, Austria on a Thursday to see that city for a day, and then be picked up by family on Friday night who will take me to the village where my grandmother grew up in Germany. I was in Germany and Salzburg when I was 5, but I don’t remember much.

On the evening of the 28th, I will return back home in France. This will be my last evening in Poitiers, and I’m sure I will be sad to leave. On the 29th, I will catch a train to Paris where I will stay for a few days (which reminds me, I need to book that ticket!), and then catch my flight back to Canada on June 1st.

As expected, my time here in Europe has gone quickly, and I wish I would’ve seen more, but I supposed that is always the case. Some fellow students have already left, and others leave at different times. It turns out that the 28th is the last day in Poitiers for many people.

My second last day in Rome was the last Sunday of the month, so I set out for the famous Vatican museum which is free on that day. The line was too long, so I decided not to wait. But I did wander through St. Peter’s Square.

It was a bright sunny morning. It seemed as though mass was in progress somewhere inside, with video screens outside in the square. The music and the sound of the Pope’s voice were nice to listen to. Here you can see one of the beautiful fountains in St. Peter’s Square with the Basilica in the background.

The day after, I returned to the Vatican, hoping to get a tour with the same company that took me through the Coliseum. Unfortunately, the morning tour reservation was canceled which meant that I would not be able to skip the line when returning for the afternoon tour. I had no choice though because it was my last day.

I arrived the tour, where we began to wait in line for the Vatican Museum for about 1.5 hours. The tour company buys tickets on our behalf, so the whole group has to stay together. A lady got real mad when part of our group fell behind and moved up again. She followed us the whole way to the entrance, shouting at our tour guide. We made it into the museum just in time before closure, leaving hundreds of people behind us who would have waited hours for nothing. We got in okay, but I had to check my laptop with security and they wouldn’t let me take it through.

The famous statue. After getting in, we knew the place would close within just 1 hour, so everyone was rushing to get through everything. The rooms were packed wall to wall, so it was not very enjoyable. It was impossible to just stand and properly observe everything.

A funny looking statue. He has a big mouth.

A big fancy box of some sort.

This is the “Gallery of Maps”. As you can see, it’s literally wall to wall people. It would have taken a lot of effort to make the ceiling though. It’d be even worse to keep it clean.

Shortly after this, we proceeded into the Sistine Chapel. Signs warned that silence is expected and photography is prohibited. It was very crowded though, and security couldn’t stop people from taking photos. It was too dark, so I didn’t try to take any myself. Just seconds after getting in, there was an announcement that the Sistine Chapel (and the Vatican Museum) was closing, so everyone had to exit at that point.

Next was St. Peter’s Basillica.

Everything inside was beautifully decorated, perhaps like many of the ancient ruins once were.

Light shines into the Basilica. This place wasn’t quite as crowded. Our tour guide was struggling to give us explanation of everything, because security told her a few times she was not allowed to talk. She just kept doing it anyway. After all, she had paying customers to show around.

I mentioned that I had to check my laptop. Since the museum had closed by the time I was through, I could no longer return to the check-in point to retrieve it. I was worried for quite a while, until I was told I could get it back from the Gendarmie (Swiss Guard, Customs).

These were the guys I had to talk to first. I had to first catch their attention, and then tell them what I was looking for. It was a bit of an awkward process, but they let me through and sent me out back. There, I had to talk to another guard who made me wait with others for about 10 minutes, who were looking for items like umbrellas. After a while, he sent us further out back, past the Vatican gas station, into a secure building where another guard gave our stuff back. The other guards had a good sense of humour.

On the way out, the front guards had the gates open like above and they saluted me as I exited the secured area. There were many tourists all around with cameras who must have thought I was some VIP. Exiting the Vatican entirely was a major relief, because I finally had my laptop back, and I was tired of all the standing in lines.

This concludes my blog posting about my trip to Rome. Check out my gallery for the rest of my photos!

On Sunday, we set out to go canoing again at the same place that we went to before in St. Benoit (about an hour’s walk away). The canoe place turned out to be closed, so we had a picnic instead since it was a nice spot.

Beautiful along the river, eh?

After getting there, we ate our sandwiches that we bought from a Patisserie down the street from my house. After they were gone, Ben, Leanne, Brian and I got bored. So we walked around the area a bit. We saw this bridge and a path leading up it. There was some signs along the pathway that said “Danger”, but the rest was in French, so we assumed they only apply to French citizens. We proceed upwards along an old staircase in the woods with burned out candles along the way.

We reached the top just before the entrance to the bridge, which must have been for the railroad or something at some point. There were more of the signs blocking the way to the bridge. How annoying.

The fence beside the signs was just the right height for climbing, as demonstrated here.

We reached the other side safely. Danger must mean something different in French. The sign says “Danger – For safety reasons, viaduct access is prohibited to everyone”. Since there was two of these signs with two fences, I assumed it was just a joke.

We crossed the Danger bridge safely. It was still in good shape for the most part, and we stuck to walking along the rivets and holding onto the railings. Suddenly, in the centre of the bridge, we heard a train coming. We all kinda freaked out a bit, until we noticed there was no longer any train tracks on the bridge, and you know, two fences blocking the way.

We got out of the restricted area safely. Just before we came out, we encountered a local person approaching the bridge to cross it with a fishing rod, doing the same thing as we did. There was also houses under parts of the bridges (yes, there was actually two “dangerous” bridges closed off), so they must been in good enough condition to keep standing. We returned to the picnic area by the river.

Lazing by the river playing cards and catching sun.

After a few hours, we walked the long way back to Poitiers, returning to my house for spaghetti dinner. Check out my gallery for more photos, including various photos taken by Brian, Katy and others playing with the zoom on my camera.