Our Final Day

Honeymoon Day 11 - Rome Day 2

Today is our last day on the honeymoon.  We are getting to the point where we are ready to go home and sleep in our own beds and see our puppy dog again.  But before we can do that, we have one last tour...the Vatican.

We headed out early this morning and even check at the front desk to make sure that our travel to the tour office was less than the amount of time we had allotted.  The front desk lady assured us that we would be fine.  So off we went.  Two metro stops and a 15 minute walk later we arrived at the address on our tour voucher...only to find that they moved their office.  Thankfully it was only around the block and down the street, but it was a bit stressful for a minute.  We finally arrived at the tour office, checked in and waited.  And waited some more.  Finally our bus arrived and we were off to the Vatican.

As we approached it became very clear that the "skip the line" part of the tour was more than worth the cost of the entire tour.  The line around the Vatican stretched forever.  We guessed that the people at the end of the line would wait a good 2-3 hours before they got in.  Our bus driver dropped us off at the end of the line, so we walked past everyone as we made our way to the tour entrance to the Vatican.  After much confusion (which became a theme for the tour) and about a half hour wait, we finally made our way into the Vatican museums behind our teeny tiny tour guide and her rolled up piece of paper (note: the top of the paper she held up was about at head height for most of our group, so it was a challenge to keep up with this little Italian lady). 

We slowly made our way into the Vatican and would stop from time to time for our guide to explain the history of the Vatican and that much of it is museums housing both very old pieces of art and even newer, more modern art.  Our guide also explained that just a few days ago, Pope Ameritas Benedict had moved back to the Vatican from his vacation home away.  So there were two Popes at the Vatican the day we were there.  Very rare.  We didn't see either of them, but it was pretty awesome to know that both of them were nearby.

We walked through many galleries on our way to the Sistine chapel filled with amazing tapestries and paintings and art work.  They were all beautiful, but due to time restrictions on our tour, we didn't have much time to stop and admire them.  Finally we made it to the Sistine Chapel.  Our guide informed us that pictures were not allowed and that no talked was allowed, not even by her.  So we were told we had 10 minutes inside and to meet her outside the exit doors.  The Chapel was much smaller than I had anticipated, but so magnificant.  The paintings on the ceiling and the wall behind the alter were stunning.  The room was packed, but everyone in it was walking around with their head tilted back admiring Michaelangelo's finest work.  The guards were constantly shushing the crowd and going after anyone that they saw take pictures.  I could have stayed in there all day, but we had to move on.

Next up was Saint Peter's Bascilica.  Again we waited for quite awhile to get in, but once we did, we were not disappointed.  Of all of the churches we saw in Paris and Italy, this was by far the most amazing one we saw.  It was so grand and stately.  Everything it in was magnificent from the floors to the ceilings.  There really is not way to explain this place with words other than you must go see it sometime in your life.  Again we were limited on time, so we had to move on.  Both of us would have loved to stay there and explore more. 

As our tour was wrapping up and we were tired of waiting, we handed off our headsets to our guide and went off on our own.  As we stepped out of Saint Peters we found ourselves in Saint Peter's Square.  It was pretty amazing to be in the middle of a place that just a few short months again we saw the new Pope emerge and greet the crowds on tv.  We grabbed a few sandwiches and sat down to enjoy the view. 

As we walked away from the Vatican we decided to hit up two more spots in Rome before calling it quits for the day.  Due to the lack of metro stations in Rome (mostly because the city is built on itself so much that they can't dig tunnels) we gave up and hailed a cab to the Trevi Fountain.  Trent had not heard of this fountain before, but he went along with it.  Our cab dropped us in the middle of a busy sidewalk (or so it seemed) and somehow managed to tell us in english that it was around the corner.  We both thought he was crazy, but paid our fare and sure enough as we stepped around the corner there it was.  It's so strange to find such an elaborate and beautiful foundation in the middle of a busy intersection in the middle of Rome.  It took us a little while to make our way to it, but we finally made it to the front and enjoyed the rushing sounds of the water and the amazing carvings. 

Once we had our fill, we wandered a few blocks to our final destination for the day, the Spanish Steps.  Again, Trent had never heard of them, but they were also a sight to see.  The flowers were in full bloom and lit up the stairs the church at the top of the hill.  We decided not to climb them, mostly due to the sheer number of people, but enjoyed the view and got a few pictures.  As we headed back to the metro to make our way back to the hotel, we enjoyed one last gelato. 

We took naps back at the hotel and then got a final recommendation for dinner from the front desk.  Again we were not disappointed with the food.  It was by far the best pizza and lasagna we had ever had. 

Our Final Stop - Rome

Honeymoon Day 10 - Rome Day 1

This morning was our final test of our travel adventure through Europe.  We had a 10am train to Rome from Florence.  Thankfully the Florence train station was both close to our hotel and much, much smaller than the train station in Rome (and much less crazy).  We opted for first class tickets on this train, which put us in a business coach, with larger, comfy seats, tables so I could work on the last two blogs and no screaming babies.  The ride was a short hour and a half and the scenery was beautiful, at least what I could see as I may have fallen asleep a few times.  We arrived at the train station, found the taxi stand and made it the short drive to our hotel without much incident.  It was our first experience with driving in Rome, which seems to have no rules.  The lines on the street don't matter, sometimes the lights do and people park wherever they find room (we saw numerous smart cars parked perpendicular to the sidewalk).  Our taxi driver parked on the sidewalk as he dropped of us at our hotel and we thankfully didn't pay an outrageous amount for our ride.  

This hotel is by far the best and they upgraded us for a reduced rate to a deluxe room.  They also sent up a bottle of chianti as a congratulations on our honeymoon (we gladly accepted that)!  And when arrived back from dinner tonight, they had turned down our beds for us and left mints on the pillows. 

Shortly after arriving at our hotel this afternoon, we packed up our tourist bags and headed out to find our meeting spot for our afternoon tour.  We asked at the front desk how to get to the Colosseum and the easiest way was of course the Metro.  We had already tackled the metro systems in London and Paris, so why not one more.  We are truly pros now at subways.  We got our tickets with no problems, got through the ticket gates and quickly joined the crowds on our way to the train.  And when I say crowds, I am not kidding.  We thought the Paris metro at rush hour was crazy.  This didn't hold a candle to Paris.  And it was ever busier on our way back (which I'll get to later).  We got to our stop and as soon as we saw sunlight, there it was, the massive Colosseum.  We grabbed a few sandwiches and popped a squat nearby to admire the view.  We walked around for a little while before our tour and of course found some gelato.  I found the most amazing combination...pineapple and coconut (pina colada in gelato form)...amazing!!  

We met up with tour and took a 3 hour walking tour of the Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palatine Hill.  It was all incredibly amazing and much of the history was very hard to comprehend.  After coming from places that worked so hard to preserve all of their history, it was very different to see a place that was pillaged and crumbed over the last hundreds of years and now stands in ruins.  But our guide was great, and offered up a lot of information surrounding the ruins and the history of Rome.  The theme of her tour was that the Romans were crazy people and by the end we were both convinced she was right.  On a side note, it got into the high 70's here today, which was by the far the warmest of any day of our trip and it was hot!  There were few clouds in the sky and the sun was very bright and very warm.  I have no idea how anyone comes here in the middle of the summer and survives.  Thankfully once we moved on from the Colosseum, we got a slight breeze which helped a little.  Tomorrow is supposed to be just as warm, but most of our tours tomorrow will be inside, so that's good.

After our tour, we jumped back on the metro.  Actually we shoved ourselves onto it.  There were so many people on the platform and in the train that we let the first one pass because we could see no way to get on.  3 people got off one of the cars on the next train, so Trent pushed us onto it (his rationale that 3 came off so 2 can easily fit on made logical sense, but holy cow was that car cramped).  To give you and idea, all of the windows and glass on the doors were completely fogged over because of the amount of body heat on the train.  It wasn't exactly comfortable and was a little smelly, but thankfully we only had two stops until we could get off and switch lines.  Of course the train jerked its way to the second stop and I was fearful it would stop and we would be stuck.  But we finally made it and switched to the second train, which was just as full, but had A/C, which the first train did not have.  

We stopped at the hotel to freshen up and get a dinner recommendation from the front desk.  We asked for something more relaxed and were pointed in the direction of what the lady described as a loud, fun place. We arrived and the place was empty but we had a seat and were greeted by a younger girl who sat down next to us and asked if we had any food allergies or restrictions. Then she suggested an appetizer that she explained in broken english. It sounded good so we said yes. A few minutes later we had a huge wooden plate set down in front of us filled with all kinds of meats, cheeses and bread. It was divine. In the meantime, they played some fun, upbeat italian music, and everyone that worked there danced and sang around. Then an older gentleman stopped by and sat down with us and asked if we wanted to share a pasta. He brought over a menu (kind of...it was a piece of paper with some pasta dishes written in market on it) and explained them to us. We picked the gnochi and were not disappointed. It was the Roman version, which was round and about the size of a popcan and had some cheese of some kind on/in it. So awesome. Then of course we had tiramisu, which was also amazing. Overall, Roman food is just as amazing as the other food we've had so far.

Tomorrow we visit the Vatican for a tour in the morning and then we'll see what we feel like after that. It's our last day and we're starting to slow down a bit so we'll see how it goes.

Love you all!
K&T

Tuscany

Honeymoon Day 9 - Florence Day 2

We were up early today as we had an 8:15am meeting time for our Best of Tuscany Tour.  We made our way to the train station meeting point and jumped on our massive bus along with 60 other people.  Our guide, Barbara, was really nice and talked to us on the 1 hour drive to Siena.  

Once in Siena we walked a bit to meet up with a local guide for a 1 hour walking tour of the city.  Our Siena guide was somewhat of a crazy fanatic when it came to Siena, but we soon learned that most of the people from the small towns in Tuscany were like that.  Trent and I equated it to college football fans, but instead of football teams, they are crazy about their towns.  Siena was amazingly beautiful and had a very interesting history, especially with their annual horse race in the main Piazza in town.  

After our tour we had an hour on our own so we did a little shopping and exploring.  After Siena, we headed to a farm for a tour and lunch.  This "farm" grew everything from wine grapes to olive trees to wheat to tomatoes (and then some).  They also raised cattle for beef, pigs and chickens.  After a tour, we all sat down to lunch and a wine tasting.  The food again was amazing and other than the cheese, everything came from the farm (bruschetta, pasta with meat sauce, salads, ham, salami and almond cookies).  Trent even got seconds on the pasta and cheese.  We then ordered a few bottles of wine to be shipped home, bought a couple of bottles of wine to take with us and headed back to the bus.

A quick 10 minute bus ride later, we were in San Giamanino.  We were given maps and told to find a certain gelateria in town as it won the best gelato in the world 4 years in a row and were given an hour to wander on our own.  We headed for the gelato and tried some of their more abstract flavors which they are known for.  Trent had saffron (not so great) and cherry and I had ricotta & blueberry (very good) and blackberry & lavender (good to start off with, but the lavender got a little strong after a while).  We enjoyed the amazing views of Tuscany from the this little town and marveled at how pictures of this place can't do it justice.  We decided that if we ever decided to leave Omaha, we would move here in a heartbeat (of course that will never happen, but we can dream, right?).  

Our next stop was Pisa and was over an hour drive.  After all of that food and wine, most of the bus fell asleep, including Trent and I.  It was a much needed nap and refreshed us for Pisa.  As buses are not allowed in the center of Pisa, we hopped of ours and jumped on a tiny little train-like shuttle.  From there we made our way slowly to the center of city, where the famous leaning tower is.  From where we entered the piazza, the tower looked normal, but the further you walked away from it, the more it leaned.  So amazing.  And odd.  We took the required photos and wandered around the piazza a bit.  We got tickets to go inside the church and learned that it is the 3rd largest in the world.  It was very pretty inside and had one of the most elaborate tabernacles I have seen.  It was a beautiful day and had cooled down a little from earlier, so we walked around the piazza until it was time to get back on our train to the bus.  

We arrived back in Florence at 8:30pm and had found out from our tour guide that our hotel had an amazing restaurant in it, so we headed back there for dinner.  We had already had some really amazing food so far in Florence, but this was by the best.  We both had amazing pasta and then a meat course.  And of course we had a bottle of Chianti (which is becoming one of our favorite red wines very quickly).  After a nice dinner we settled in the for the night, knowing we had a day of travel to Rome ahead of us.

Florence was an amazing city and we had already started planning to come back for our 10 year anniversary (we're thinking by then we can pull together enough money...maybe).  We would love to see some of the other towns in Tuscany and hit a few more farms/vineyards as well.

Love you all!
K&T

Italy :)

Honeymoon Day 8 -  Florence Day 1

The day started off a little early with our transfer to the Paris airport at 6:30am.  And then it got a little stressful as we could not find our flight to Florence on any of the monitors in the airport.  We found a couple of very nice Air France workers, who informed us that we were in the wrong terminal.  Awesome.  They told us where to go to get on a shuttle, and thankfully it wasn't too far of a drive to the correct terminal.  We arrived really early (thank you to our travel agent for booking our transfer so early) and had a nice long wait until our flight.  We were in a smaller terminal for smaller, regional planes and they had everyone wait in one giant area until 20 minutes before the flights at which time they assigned a gate and boarded everyone.  It was quite nice actually.  

We arrived in Florence and found our driver without any problems.  He was a cute little old Italian man, who was very nice.  He showed us where the main train station was as we passed it and thankfully it was only 2 blocks from our hotel as we knew we would be back there in just two days to catch our train to rome (I am writing this from our train to Rome).  We arrived at an amazing hotel and were greeted by very friendly staff who showed us to our room and then disappeared as quickly as they showed up.  Our room was more of a suite with a long hallway once you walked in the door, a sitting room with 2 wardrobes, a big room with a massive king sized bed and a nice sized bathroom (with both a shower head taller than both of us (not the case in Paris) and a full glass shower door).  We were thrilled.  Oh and the bed was by far the softest and largest so far.  Trent mentioned every time we were in the hotel that this was his favorite and he didn't want to leave.  Me either.  It was very nice.

We headed out to explore and find the meeting place for our private walking tour later that night.  Oh and to find food (we were starving at that point).  We found a nice piazza near the hotel and there were a couple of nice priced hotels so we picked one and went it.  Oh my goodness was it amazing.  We had bruschetta that was to die for and then I had gnocchi and Trent had risotto.  Both were beyond words.  Mine had these large chunks of fresh mozzarella in them.   I had no idea what fresh mozzarella tasted like.  So amazing.  After lunch we found a gelato place and walked around a bit.  We found our meeting place for our tour and decided to just enjoy the scenery.  Trent had an Italian beer and after a couple of hours we had another gelato.  

Our guide showed up and was about our age and from MA.  She married a Florentine and was doing her PhD in something to do with ancient things.  Neither of us was entirely sure what she was studying, but she knew a lot about Florence and was a great guide.  We walked around with her for 2 hours seeing the major sights in Florence and getting all of the history.  She then recommended a few places for dinner so we went off in search of those.  We walked down the river banks and were amazed at how quaint the city was.  Dinner was amazing (it was a little off the tourist track, but with Kristin & Dan's italian phrase book we were able to decipher the menu on our own without any trouble).  Dinner was very good and as it was late we strolled back to our room for the night.  

Overall, we had no idea we would be this impressed with Italy.  Everything is so different from Paris and London, but still beautiful and impressive in its own right.  I can't explain it, but Florence has this really cozy feel to it and the people are all so nice.  And the food makes me think of my Mom and Nona's cooking.  Oh the food.  :)

Love you all!

K&T

Late Posts from Italy

Sorry for the lack of posts the last two days.  Our first day in Italy was a whirlwind and by the time we got back to the hotel we didn't want to mess with the blog.  And the second day we learned the wireless wasn't free so we decided to wait until Rome and hope that it was (and it is).  So I'll be posting the last two days blogs shortly for you all (I wrote them on the train to Rome today).

Love you all!
K&T

Cafe View of Sacre Coeur

Last Day in Paris

Honeymoon Day 7 - Paris Day 4

For our last day in Paris we knew we wanted to visit Sacre Coeur and then we figured we would see how long that took and would go from there.

We slept in a little (until 7:45) and then headed out on the Metro North to the Montmarte area of Paris.  Just a few blocks from the Metro we were greeted with the sight of Sacre Coeur on the hill.  This chapel was built at the top of a hill so that it was visible to many from various places throughout Paris and to get to it you have to climb at least 225 stairs.  The chapel is amazing inside and has a beautiful ceiling above the altar.  Pictures were not allowed, but I highly recommend looking it up to see how amazing it is.  As we came out of the chapel and walked around it, rain started to fall and we decided to sit a nearby cafe with a full view of Sacre Coeur and enjoyed a few espressos.  It was quite peaceful.

We bought an umbrella (of course the one I packed was back in our hotel room) and headed out to try to find a nearby museum with works by Dali.  After making one too many wrong turns and the cross streets not being marked on our map, I got a little cranky and we decided to head back to the Metro station and gave up (I don't do well being cold and wet, let alone being lost, cold and wet).  We got back to the Metro station with no problems and decided to head to another museum that we knew how to find.  We skipped to the front of the line with our Paris pass and were amazed by Monet's Water Lily paintings.  There were 8 in total in two massive oval shaped rooms.  Neither of us had any idea there were that many of them or that they were that large and impressive.  He apparently worked on them for the 10 years leading up to his death and even designed the rooms for them to be displayed in.  Very impressive and beautiful.  The museum also had some works by Renoir, Picasso and other French artists that were very impressive as well.  After some lunch we headed back to our room for a nap.  The rain had stopped, but the morning was pretty draining and we were in need of a recharge.

After our nap, we decided that the 225 stairs to Sacre Couer were not enough for the day so we headed back to Notre Dame and got in line to climb to the top.  The line moved pretty quickly and soon we were climbing the 400 stairs to the top of one of the towers.  Keep in mind that there are only so many people allowed on each stairwell at a time and only 20 at a time allowed at the top 1/3 of the cathedral, so we booked it up those stairs (total time up, viewing and back down was less than 45 minutes).  Needless to say were exhausted by the time we got to the top but the view was amazing and well worth it.  And I never realized how tiring going down 400 stairs can be.  And of course every stair was on a spiral staircase that got skinnier and skinnier the closer you got to the top.  Side note, we have yet to see a normal staircase indoors here in Paris, they are all spiral.

We spent the evening sitting outside of Notre Dame, walking the sidewalk shops and enjoying our final meal in Paris (the final crepe count is 7 and creme brûlée count is 2).  We are definitely going to miss the bread, the escargots and the french cuisine, but we are so looking forward to Italy tomorrow.

Our honeymoon is more than half over and although we miss everyone, our puppy and a few other strange things (like ice and not having to wait in line for everything), we are still having a blast.

Love you all!
Kristen & Trent