Honeymoon Photos - Rome Italy Part I

Our Flight into Rome got in around 8pm... and the train ride from the airport to the city was at least 30 minutes... so by the time we got into the city it was already dark. The signs at the train station for the metro were very confusing and there was nothing that explained how to pay your bus fare so we ended up walking to our hotel from the train station... which, wasn't as close as we thought, and probably was not the best idea we've ever had... but we made it safe and sound - and found some tasty Italian pizza to eat along the way!

The next day we figured out the bus system and caught a ride to the Colosseum.

It was windy, and chilly, and very sunny... so we have lots of goofy-face photos to share! We had planned to pay the 30 euro fee to get into the Colosseum... but we were approached by some English speaking locals offering a group tour (in English) that allowed us to skip the lines and learn some stuff along the way for 50 euros... so we decided to do that... was it a scam? egh... debate-able.... but it was nice to have someone telling us the history behind what we were seeing - since neither of us had any time to brush up on our European history before we left!

I personally felt like the Colosseum was pretty sad... it was in complete ruins since the Catholic church and other scavengers took everything and anything that wasn't nailed down. Even the floor was gone. The historical people had built a partial floor on one end to give people an idea of what it would have been like back in the day... but I was pretty disappointed at just how much wasn't there.

After the tour was over, the leader offered a second 'free' tour of the Palentine Palace which was hosted by their company, but by an American tour guide.... We decided it wouldn't hurt to again have someone explain what we were looking at as we toured the area so we stayed with the group.

Behind us was one of the main 'entertainment arenas' in the Palace... well, again... whats left of it...

 There use to be huge outdoor water fountains in the Palace gardens... the Romans were really proud of their ability to control water... now again, just ruins and remains...

After the Palace tour we explored the Roman Forum...

Loads of really cool ruins...

And even some displays of a few mosaics that survived.

After leaving the forum we walked to the Piazza Venezia...

There was a pretty neat building with lots of statues... the horse in the center supposedly was large enough to have a crew of 10+ men eat dinner inside it before completing the statue...

By this time we were again:

Tired+Hungry = Cranky Mess

So for the sake of peace we found a cafe to eat lunch at pronto!!

After lunch we walked to the Pantheon... I was pretty pleased that we were able to find it so easily on our own.

We did not go inside... but instead kept walking to see if we could find the Trevi Fountain

There were lots of interesting ruins along the way...

 

We made it to the fountain... but the lighting was terrible and none of our photos with the fountain really turned out at all... it was pretty awesome to see it in real-life... but it was super crowded!

We kept walking towards the Spanish Steps... there were lots of upscale shops along the way...

 Stopped in the Hermes Store just to say we did (Love you Madre)... but the cheapest scarf was 310 euros or like $400!!! Yikes!

We made it to the Spanish Steps... walked up them... and then found our way to a metro stop to get back to the hotel... every single time we road the metro in Rome it was insanely packed! Not sure how the locals deal with it!

NEXT UP : DAY 2 VATICAN MUSEUM

Honeymoon Photos - Paris France

We left Salt Lake City on Friday May 11th at 9:15am, just after Andrew finished working a 12 hour shift!

Because we booked the trip with our Delta miles it was cheaper to transfer through Minneapolis ... so we had a quick stop there and were lucky enough to meet a couple who had traveled to Paris before and was willing to help us get from the Paris airport into the City (easily a 30 minute train ride through a complicated transit system).

We arrived in Paris on Saturday at 7am (or 11pm Utah time) and we were exhausted!! Our hotel check-in time wasn't until 1pm so as promised the couple we met in Minni helped us navigate our way through the Paris metro system and we ended up a few blocks from the Eiffel Tower.

(One of my favorite photos of the trip - MUCH larger than the one in Vegas!!) 

We snapped a few photos and wandered around looking for somewhere to grab a quick bite to eat... Nothing really seemed that exciting, and the line to ride to the top of the tower was insanely long...

Tired+Hungry = Cranky Mess

So we decided to try and find a metro stop near by to get back to our hotel. Since I was pretty busy planning the Wedding, I did not have a lot of time to research hotels for our honeymoon... so we did not stay nearby any major attractions, but luckily we were near the metro and that's pretty much all that really matters!

We headed back to the hotel, grabbed a quick 'lunch' at a nearby cafe and proceed to take a few hours long nap to adjust to the new schedule.

 When we got up we did not really have any set plans for what to do, or what to see... so we decided to head back to the Eiffel Tower and start there. The Eiffel Tower is right on the Seine River, so earlier that day we had seen quite a few boat tours and decided to hop on one of those.

 The tour was expensive... but it was pretty long too... it is meant to be an all day hop-on hop-off type of tour boat, so it would have been more economical if we had spent all day using it to tour the sites, but we had limited time and this helped us make the best use of it... We got to see quite a bit from the boat.

Notre Dame Cathedral was right on the river and it was amazing to see it all lit up a night...

The Louvre however was not right on the river so we had to get off the boat to be able to see it... since we were on the last boat tour loop of the night we caught the metro back to the area where our hotel was and had dinner at another street cafe/restaurant.

The next morning (Sunday) we had planned on getting up in time to catch the international mass at Notre Dame. Unfortunately we were still pretty exhausted and got a late start... plus we got lost along the way to the cathedral, so we were late to the mass.

 We were not allowed to join the mass late, however they constantly have people touring around the perimeter so we were allowed to go inside. The stained glass was unbelievable. There really is no way to capture the beauty without a professional camera... but it was great to see it in person...

 Our flight to Rome left a 6pm... and we were leaving out of a different airport than we arrived into originally, so we did spend some time wandering the streets outside the cathedral but we made sure to leave extra early since we weren't really sure what to expect flying between two foreign countries.

We had lunch at the airport and waited quite a while for our flight... We had over-estimated the level of difficulty and ended up with quite a long time to kill at the airport. It was fun to people watch there though... tons of families flying from Paris back to their homes in Europe who had traveled through the ORLY airport in Paris because it is easy to get to Disneyland Paris from that airport... lots of mickey ears, painted faces and Disney swag!

NEXT STOP : ROME!!

Welcome Wedding Guests!

Thanks for visiting our wedding website! Hopefully the links on the left hand side of the page will answer any questions you might have regarding the wedding! We cant wait to see you in Redding, CA on our Big Day!

~May 5th 2012~