• Home
• Wedding Party
• Honeymoon
• Italy

• ATL Airport
• Greetings from Italia
• End of day 1, Roma
• Roma, day 2
• Roma, day 3
• Friday in Rome
• Firenze, day 1
• Firenze, day 2

ATL Airport

We're at the airport, waiting on a plane. We were pretty excited because our gate was right next to the escalator for once.. and then they moved us to the end of the concourse. If the slideshow is working correctly, there should now be a shot of us ready to power snooze :)

Quick update: we landed in Newark, and ate some paninis. Perhaps we should have chosen something with a more American name, since I'm sure we'll have plenty of panini opportunities in the next 2 weeks. Our next plane leaves at 4:50, which is in 2 hrs. Note to self: timestamps on posts would have been smrt.

We've boarded the Alitalia plane, and it is swanky. Usb plugs and tvs everywhere, with foot room even shaq would love. Gotta turn off the cell. Arrivederci, America!

Greetings from Italia

We've made it to the hotel with all of our luggage intact. Can't check in til 1pm, so we're going to go for a stroll.

End of day 1, Roma

So, here's what happened on our first day in Rome. We arrived before our room was ready, so we decided to walk around our hotel. Right across the street from us is Santa Maria Maggiore. We were not prepared for the ornate carvings and decor that was inside. We have seen murals in churches before, but this was way beyond any of those. We made sure to check out every room in the church before heading to Roma Termini to buy our train tickets to Florence and Venice. Little did we know that this would take us over an hour! Good thing we didn't wait until the day of. However, at this point our room was ready! We took a "short" 2 hour nap, and then decided to walk around some more. We ended up at San Pietro in Vincoli which is another church, but, unbeknownst to us, contained a Michaelangelo of Moses. We both got chills when we realized what we were seeing. After spending way too much time oggling, we exited and continued our walk. We meant to walk to Domus Aurea which are the Roman baths, but we ended up at the Colosseum! We didn't do much exploring there since we mean to spend most of Thursday there. We walked by the Roman baths on the way back to the hotel. It is unbelievable to see the technology that went into the first public bathhouse. The baths were built in 109 ad...wow! We made our way back to the hotel, where we got cleaned up and then went to the roof top for dinner. We had the Colosseum special which included ravioli with ricotta and spinach, veal escalopini, and a parfait (which basically means ice cream cake here). We also drank a bottle of Chianti with dinner. Tomorrow we have no plans until our Vatican tour begins at 2:30. Arrivederci!

Roma, day 2

It is currently the morning of day 3, so we will be rehashing yesterday's events.
We started off the morning with breakfast on the rooftop of our hotel. This consisted of Italian coffee which is very strong, pastries, cheeses and meats, fruit, and little hotdogs. Yes- little hotdogs. Then we decided to do some more of our own exploring before our tour started at 2:30 for the Vatican.
We walked to the fountain of the Niaiad's in Piazza del Republica. This was the largest fountain we have seen so far with 5 different statues of sea creatures and ladies. On the other side of the square is Santa Maria degli Angeli, the oldest basilica we have seen so far, and the coolest. The floor of the church had a full map of the stars inspired by Galileo with pictures of the constellations. If it had been sunny, we could have seen how Galileo designed the map so that the sun shone in two windows to track the progress of the sun, and which stars were out during the day, even though they can't be seen.
From there we walked south to the Teatro deli Opera which we were expecting to be a relic, but no, it is a modern theater! So we continued south, and ended up at the Roman Forum! We walked into two smaller basilicas on the way (we don't remember their names). Then we turned the corner and saw the largest monument we have seen so far - the monument of Vittor Emmanuel. The monument and museum inside are a tribute to the Italian army. We were running a little late for our tour - we thought - so we headed back to our hotel. We stopped for lunch on the way, and then had time for a beer in our lobby before the tour.
When we got to the Vatican, our guide spent quite a while explaining the Sistine Chapel to us before we went in because you are not supposed to talk while inside. We then went through the three halls of the Vatican Museum which were the hall of candelabras, the hall of tapestries, and the hall of geographical maps. The last was Rachel's favorite hall. All of the maps were of territories of Italy that were all hand painted. From there, we finally entered the Sistine Chapel. Since there was no talking and no pictures but a ton of tourists, it sounded like school cafeteria and looked like a photo shoot. The guards tried to keep the picture taking and talking in check, but it was still disrespectful on many accounts. We still enjoyed the Chapel, and the experience was unforgettable. When it was time to head back to our bus, it, of course, was pouring rain. We made it back to the buses with a dry camera, but that was it.
After getting back to our hotel and changing into dry clothes, we made our way out to find dinner. We found a tiny trattoria, and we were the only Americans in it which turned out to be a good thing because the food was incredible. We had Italian meat and pickled artichokes to start. For our Primo course, we had gnocchi and risotto. Rachel claims she will never be able to eat gnocchi in the states ever again. For Secondi, we had chicken cachiatore and lamb cachiatore. Both were superb. We also had a bottle of house wine. With incredibly overstuffed stomachs, we made it back to the hotel where we promptly fell asleep.

Roma, day 3

Today we bought hop on/off passes for one of the open top buses that drive around Rome. However, we were two of about 200 that did the same thing. After the first bus was full, and another patron told us that she had already waited for two because they were full, we decided to walk to one of our destinations first and then hopefully catch a less full bus later. We walked past the Quattro Fontaine and the fountain of Barberini on our way to the Spanish Steps. We happened to come out at the top of the stairs, which was good because there were about 50 steps. We admired the view and then descend the steps and made our way to Popolo Square. This square had an enormous obelisk and several statues of ancient Roman soldiers. From here, we walked south to the Mausoleum of Augustus where we finally caught our first bus. We decided to ride the bus all the way around the city to get our money's worth. This ended up being a great idea because we were able to admire the city from the open top of the bus. We got off the bus at the Piazza Navona, a huge square with 3 huge fountains. From there we walked to the Pantheon. WOW! This was one of the coolest sites so far. The columns in front date back to 100 ad. We also saw the grave of Raphael inside. On our way back to the bus, we stopped at a tiny cafe and had paninis and cappuccinos.
From here we caught the bus to St. Peter's. We didn't get very far though because the wait to get inside was over 2 hours! So we entered the square and admired from afar. The statues of the popes and the columns are amazing.
After that we took the bus to the Trevi Fountain. Tourist note: it's not worth it. We had to climb a gigantic hill to get to it, and once up there, we realized it was no more special than the other fountains we had already seen. Worn out from traveling the length of the City, we caught our last bus back to our hotel where we cashed in on our complimentary gelato. How have we not had gelato yet? It is amazing! Now we are updating and then getting ready for dinner. I will write again tonight to tell you about our meal.
We went to a pizzeria about halfway between our hotel and the Colloseum. Even though it was a pizzeria, they had a full menu of pasta and entrees. We had lasagna and short penne with Gorgonzola sage and nutmeg. For secondi we both had beef. Matt had beefsteak and Rachel had beef with Rosemary. We also had a bottle of the house wine - red this time. Then we had tiramisu and cappuccino for dessert. Oh, and we tried sparkling water for the first time. Rachel was not a fan. After we got back to the hotel, we had cocktails on the roof before calling it a night. We are sorry we are not updating very often. The internet is unreliable. Tomorrow we are spending the day at the Forum. Ciao.

Friday in Rome

This morning was the first time we slept in since we got here. When we finally did get up, we enjoyed another delicious breakfast on the roof. Our first stop of sight seeing brought us to Giardini Piazza Vittorio, which was a garden full of ruins and cats. Apparently Rome did not have cats until Cleopatra brought them for Caesar, who turned out to be allergic.. so he set them free in the city, and they've been running about ever since. We then moved on to San Clemente, which is a church with quite a bit of history and excavation going on beneath the surface. We saw frescoes from the 9th century onward, and even a roman house with built-in spring water from the 1st century AD. It's all way underground, and way cool. No pictures, mi dispiace.
After San Clemente, we went for Colloseo round 2. That whole area is pretty popular with the tourists and vendors, but since it's so enormous it doesn't feel particularly crowded. We walked around the colloseum, the arch of Constantine, and peeked into the Forum, but didn't want to pay to walk around some more. At this point we were pretty worn out. We made our way back to our hotel, and stopped for some pizza and beer - Italian style. Once we got back to our hotel, we had some more gelato and then started packing up for our trip to Florence tomorrow. We took another pre-dinner nap, now part of our schedule, and then went to dinner. We knew it could happen eventually, and it finally did. We were disappointed with dinner. Rachel had spaghetti with gorganzola and Matt had boltichelli (hollow spaghetti) with tomato and panchetta. Then we split chicken alla diavolo, roast chicken with vegetables. It was...okay. We finally had a vino della casa served in a decanter instead of a bottle. It was also...okay. So since our meal wasn't that great, we came back to our hotel for pana cotta and capucchino which has quickly become our favorite coffee drink. Now we are packing up because we have to leave by 8:30 am to catch our train to Florence. Arrivederci Rome!

Firenze, day 1

Today we had a quick breakfast on the rooftop in Rome before checking out and heading for the train station. Our train ride was very comfortable and fast!
Once we arrived in Florence, we walked to our hotel and found that we are staying in a super swanky place, and they upgraded us to a suite because it's our anniversary trip!
We looked through the booklet of tours the hotel gave us and found that the Tuscany tour and wine tasting we wanted to do was only available today and left at 2! So we quickly booked it and decided to go look around before it was time to leave.
The tour was of the Tuscan area of Chianti which, as you can imagine, is where Chianti is produced. We toured a small town called San Brigidia and then went to the vineyard for a tour and tasting. The castle of the vineyard was built in the 12th century! We got to walk through most of the castle but not all of it since the owners actually live in it. Then they took us to a huge dining room and served us two types of Chianti, lots of appetizers, their own extra virgin olive oil on crustini, and a dessert wine with biscotti. WOW! Turns out, we both love Chianti. Luckily, the vineyard sells their wine in the US at total wine stores!
We got back from the tour and finally got to see our swanky room. We have a two story room with the bed on a balcony and a living room downstairs. It's pretty fantastic. After admiring our room and changing into fancy clothes, we set out to find a better dinner than our last night in Rome.
And boy did we succeed! Trebbio is a small trattoria just one street over from our hotel and it was fantastic. We had a limone pasta and a pesto pasta to start, and meatballs served with mashed potatoes. We also complimented the meal with a bottle of Montepulchiano wine, another specialty of Tuscany. Turns out, we both love it too! We finished the meal with crema catallana (which was basically creme brulee but with orange flavor) and cappuccinos.
Then we came back to our room, checked the game scores, and then went to bed.

Firenze, day 2

We once again started our day with a buffet breakfast. This one was not on the roof, but it was certainly on par with what we ate in Rome (with free cappuccinos!). We checked some more scores, which turned out to be a mistake.. maybe next time, Jackets.
After breakfast we walked around to do some shopping, and ran into the duomo.. holy moly! It is immense, especially in the setting of Florence. We took some pictures and continued on our way. We picked up some items in San Lorenzo market, and came back with a new leather jacket for Matt! We dropped off our goods and headed back out towards Santa Croce. We passed ponte vecchio, which means the old bridge. We toured Santa Croce's enormous basillica and museum, got some gelato, a new leather jacket for Rachel, and got in line for our 4 o'clock tour of the Uffizi. Basically, we learned that the Medicis made the Renaissance happen, they had unimaginable wealth, and Michaelangelo didn't take crap from anyone.
Then we walked back to our hotel and got ready for dinner. We loved the place we went last night so much, that we went back tonight. We had ravioli, risotto, the best pork ever, a piece of amazing chocolate cake, and, of course, cappuccinos. Tomorrow we are heading to Venice! While Rome was full of tons of sites, the character and ambiance of Florence makes it our favorite city so far.