ROMA: DAY OF ARRIVAL

I apologize for the delay in starting my postings of our honeymoon trip. Being back at work for the first week after having a month away was hectic and I had a lot of catching up to do.

Here is a little glimpse of our itinerary, which equals lots of photos and many blog posts. We started off in Roma for 4 days, then Venice for 3 days. Rented a car and drove to Verona for 2 days, next was Florence for 3 days, then off to the hills of Tuscany. We stayed in San Gimignano and visited Pisa, Volterra and Siena. We had a short stay for 1 day in Orvieto, which was followed by a 3 1/2 hours drive down to Pompeii. We finally stopped in Positano where we stayed for 2 days. Our last and final city which we visited was the Island of Capri.

I am starting off right from the very beginning of our trip, our stay in Roma. Since we were there for 4 days I will be splitting these posts up, as there is so much to share about Roma.

On the plane right before we landed

We had an early arrival in Roma at 8:30am after 13 hours of flying. Our first mission upon arrival was to purchase a pay as you go mobile phone. Since we were going to be in Italy for 3 weeks and our carrier Sprint does not have coverage in Italy. We both decided this purchase was a must. On our way to collect our luggage we stopped by a small mobile phone booth to purchase our phone. It ended up costing us a whooping 200 Euro for the phone and the minutes but it was well worth it as we ended up using it often throughout our trip. Another benefit to this purchase was the fact that we can use it on future trips anywhere outside of the US.

After collecting our luggage we headed out to the Taxi stand for our ride into the city. The taxi was fairly small so my husbands bag ended up in the front seat with a seat belt on. We both found this sight to be quite amusing. Here is a shot so you can get an idea of what I am talking about.

As we began to enter the city of Roma I was quite taken back by how much smog there is from all the scooters and cars. Apparently not every city follows the stringent smog regulations like we do here in California. Because of this I spent most of my time sneezing since I am allergic to many things. I was quite relieved to know that tucked away in my luggage was a 12 pack of travel size Kleenex tissue.

We stayed at Hotel Forum in the Ancient Rome neighborhood right across the street from the Forum of course. It was nice to be so close to the Forum, the Colosseum and Piazza Venezia. For those that want to save a buck I suggest you stay in the Pantheon neighborhood as that area was a lot more inexpensive compared to where we stayed.

Here is a shot of our hotel

The lobby of our hotel

Our hotel room and the view from our patio

Here we are on our little patio. Can you tell we are a bit tired after 13 hours of flying?

After checking in and taking a quick shower we headed out for a bite and then to see the Colosseum. Thanks to my handy Rick Steve's guide book we decided to purchase a Roma Day Pass. Which is a card that offers you transport and 2 museums free of charge as well as reductions for all other museums and major events. The price for one of these is 25 Euro's and it even came with a neat little map and list of exhibits and events around town. It was worth the price tag since we were staying in Roma for 4 days. We purchased our passes right across the street from the Colosseum at the metro station tabacchi that also served as a great spot for quick snacks, video games, vending machines and a bathrooms. It is called the Colosseo and it is marked by 3 big blue signs.

Here are some shots of the Colosseum and us

There was one portion of the Colosseum where they just opened up a new exhibit dedicated to Nero's Domus Aurea. For more information on this Golden House click here. These are some of the shots I took from that exhibit.

As much as we did not want to do this we ended up back in our hotel room to take a little nap before dinner. I woke up a bit refreshed and ready to do some more walking and picture taking and my hubby on the other hand was still tired and starting to feel the jetlag coming on. We got our things together grabbed some dinner across the street from our hotel, took a stroll down to the Colosseum, and Palantine Hill. We finished off the evening with a drink at the American Bar found on the very top of our hotel.

This is a photo from the hotels website of the bar and the bar tender.

Here are some shots of the street by our hotel, the Colosseum at night and the bar. I have to say the bar tender made quite a tasty Sidecar cocktail for me.