after ha long bay, we headed to hanoi.  it was a few days before the lunar new year, so everything was draped in red, flowers, and oranges.  i loved the french influences downtown, and i think the cafes served some of the best croissants i have ever had outside of paris.

we stayed at the beautiful vin pearl ha long bay resort during our first stop in vietnam.  it was probably the closest i have ever felt to living out a james bond movie.  a small boat takes you to the resort, which occupies its own island in the bay.  for some reason, the resort was pretty unoccupied most of the time we were there, so we had the beach entirely to ourselves.  i was definitely too busy relaxing to take many pictures.

as i went through my asia photos, i realized that i had the most photos of chiang mai.  as a vegetarian, it was my favorite place to eat (my next post will be devoted to food photos) since there were so many vegetarian and vegan outdoor cafes.  the city was completely walkable, and there was so much to do and see nearby.

i spent an amazing 2.5 weeks at the end of january traveling through southeast asia.  as with my trip last year to italy and malta, i plan to devote each post to a different city.  we started the journey in bangkok, but since we were so jet lagged and only had a day, phuket was the first city i documented.

we stayed right on the beach, and took an amazing tour to the islands to see the sights.

i don’t know what it was about this trip, but i absolutely fell head over heels for rome.  i remember being unimpressed when i visited in college, and now i realize how completely wrong i was.  the city is unspeakably beautiful, and there was so much to do and see.  i could have easily spent the full 2 weeks here alone and been more than satisfied.

sorry this is such a picture heavy post.  i wanted to put all of these up just to remember what an amazing experience it was.

i think i pretty much just took pictures of canals.

as i mentioned earlier, i spent an amazing two weeks traveling through italy and malta.  i think i could take every vacation to italy.  the food, the people, the architecture…everything was amazing.  since i took about 349,098,237 pictures, i am going to break up the posts by city.

first up, milan.

i think i ate all the cheese.