The Rockports let me down BIG TIME!!
Here's what happened. Even at the beginning of the trip the ankle strap was being a pain. It was either too loose or if it was too tight it would come off when you walked.
Then we got to Gimmelwald (Swiss Alps) were we went hiking (not in the Rockports) and I twisted my ankle coming down a mountain. No biggie right? That's what I thought!
Our next stop was Florence and it's cobbled stone roads. OWWW! The sandals just weren't cutting it - they were providing me with no ankle support. And I couldn't wear running shoes 'cause my feet swet a tonne and it was the dead of summer.
By this point I was kicking myself for having bought the Rockports.
On our last day in Florence we day tripped out to Cinque Terre and that's when they really died. After that trip the leather that your foot went on top of just split apart. I Mean it tore (almost like burnt) and died.
Of course what was I supposed to do? I was stuck with the sandals - so I wore them and managed to keep on hurting my feet both because of the big wound they were inflicting (due to the torn and HARD!?!?) leather and the lack of ankle support.
Now what was the end result of all of this combined? Oh I had the lovely pleasure of waking up in the evenings with massive leg cramps. The calf of my formerly twisted ankle would be in knot and my leg would uncontrolably fly-up in the middle of the night.
INCREDIBLE amounts of pain - the poor BF had to sit there massaging me so I could get back to bed.
Our last stop was one week in Paris. Ayyyyaaa! By this point I was dying. The cramps were more infrequent at night but I had constant foot/leg/calf pain during the day. Meaning that the last couple of days in Paris were excruciating. And for God's sake don't even ask me about climbing the Eiffel under those conditions!!
After that week the boyfriend went back home and I stayed in Paris to study at the Sorbonne. After some ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE experiences trying to buy shoes in Paris (that's another saga all together) I called my mom and begged her to send me my Docs. Good old Docs - I couldn't have survived without them. It was only once I got them and could stop using the sandals that my feet pain went away.
As for the wound on the bottom of my feet -- that took about two months to go away.
I was dissappointed 'cause I was all excited about my Rockports. I used Baby Rockport when I was little in Latin America. And until last year (when Rockport opened a store in the Toronto Eaton Centre) you couldn't really get them. So I was all psyched about my fantastic shoes -- which turned out not to be fantastic.
So I payed over $100 for sandals that turned out to be nothing but a headache. I don't have the receipt anymore, I'm stuck with them, and now I have to fork out another $130 or whatever for new ones. But trust me they won't be Rockports!
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