Intro/Preface
Shi was kind of enough to suggest this group as a place to write/talk about my recent 8 day trip (not including flight travel days) to Italy with my boyfriend. We visited Rome, Florence and Venice. And we also visited Siena and a small town called Empoli while in Florence. Before too much time goes by (and before my memory fails me), I wanted to make sure I at least got started on this. So, I'm calling this Part 1 to help me feel better about the daunting task of trying to cover everything in just one blog. And so begins my story...

Day 1: When in Rome...do as the tourists do!
My boyfriend and I boarded an Alitalia flight (non-stop) to Rome from NYC. We were on a 4pm flight and would be arriving in Rome at 6am local time. So needless to say, he and I had to get acclimated to the new time zone pretty much immediately. Neither of us really slept on the flight. When we arrived in the Rome airport we looked around trying to find the area where we could get a taxi. I immediately felt the comfort of the nice 70 degree weather (as NYC at the time was still in the 50's and most likely raining!) It was nice to feel the warmth as we got in a cab on our way to our hotel. I remember reading that this hotel did provide a shuffle bus into the Rome city center area so I felt pretty good about this place. The hotel looked like what would be a 3 star hotel in the US. But from what I read about hotels in Italy, ratings aren't standardized and in their terms I believe this place was a 4 star. In any case, since we arrived so early we couldn't check into our room. We were both hoping they'd somehow allow us to, but we didn't ask and they didn't make the suggestion. Note to myself: book a flight allowing me to arrive at my destination in the afternoon (especially on an international flight). The shuttle bus was outside and guests were waiting to board. So we got on the next bus available and immediately headed toward Rome. Keep in mind that Tae (my boyfriend) and I are jet lagged and could use some food and rest! The bus happens to drop all guests off near Vatican City. I remembered from reading the travel book I had on me that visiting Vatican City should be at least the day after arriving. But I think we were pretty incoherent and we just wanted to do SOMETHING! We walked around and noticed that there were 2 main entrances into Vatican City. One was for St. Peter's Basilica and the second was for the Vatican Museum (where the Sistine Chapel is). The Vatican Museum was highly recommended by the travel book (which ended up being our Bible on this trip!) so we waited in what seemed like the most enormous queue I have ever seen. But I don't think we really quite realized what we were getting into when we stepped onto that line. It's May and what is probably just the beginning of Rome's busy touristy season, but we never expected that waiting in that line would include: 1) Tae having to go to the bathroom and us both realizing that if anything happened we'd have no way of getting in touch, 2) the sun beating in our face as we stand tightly snug with other people, and 3) the line actually wrapping around approximately 4-5 walls. I wish we would have walked all the way to the front of the line to see where it actually ended. But when we realized (at hour #2) that this was going to be even longer of a wait, we decided that if we've waited this long, we might as well stay on it until we finally get in. Can you image waiting on a line with so many people standing so close to you, for 4 hours! I can't believe we did it. So when we finally are allowed to get in, we are literally ushered into all the rooms that lead to the Sistine Chapel. The throngs of other tourists are still closely standing near one another. I took quite a few pictures here, we both loved the detail in the murals on the walls and the tapestries (Tae really liked the ones of maps). But with so many visitors around us we didn't really get to take anything in. Once in the Sistine Chapel (i.e. the famous ceiling done by Michelangelo) we immediately looked for the part of the ceiling that has the fingers that aren't quite touching. You're not allowed to take pictures and the guards repeatedly tell everyone to be quiet (as it is still treated like a sanctuary) and to keep moving. With so many people in this room and it being a bit dark, my boyfriend and I were about ready to leave this place! After getting out of this room we went through a couple of less popular areas and then headed out. We were looking forward to finally getting something to eat! At this point we're so hungry and aren't familiar at all with our surroundings that we take a walk across the street and see a few restaurants. The places are obviously geared toward tourists. The first place we passed by had waiters outside trying to get people to sit, the second place we passed did the same, but we ended up sitting. This was among the bad meals we had in this city! And needless to say, we were highly disappointed because of either our bad luck or the fact that a lot of the places in Rome were just not that great. We head back to the hotel, tired and a bit down trodden. We both can't wait to get into bed and sleep!

PART of the Line outside the Vatican Museum
Ceiling in Vatican Museum

Rome Day 2: The Saving Grace Day
We slept in a bit after not getting rest the day before, but once we got ready to tackle Rome again we were only hoping for a day better than Day 1 (this ended up being one of our favorite days here!) The handy dandy book (although wrong at times!) did give us a good tip about waiting in the line for The Palatine Hill/Ancient Ruins/Roman Forum because that ticket line is shorter than the Colosseum and gets you into both here and the Colosseum. My co-worker also mentioned this tip to me, so we definitely wanted to make sure we heeded that advice. The Colosseum line wrapped around in what looked like at least a 2 hour wait. Our little tip was just a 45 minute wait (compared to what we had to endure the day before). The weather was nice again and the line we waited in was actually under some shade (trees overhead). Once in the Palatine Hill, although still surrounded by tourists we had the leisure to walk about pretty freely. We held hands as we took in the Anciet Ruins surrounding us. See pictures below:
Roman Forum
Roman Forum 2
After going through the Roman Forum we were ready to get some lunch. This time around we looked to the guide book for a recommendation. We headed to the place and we found that it was closed. This would not be the last time where the siesta hours end up interfering with our lunch or dinner plans! Every place including museums have their own schedule and it's quite frustrating as a tourist. Since we couldn't go to the first place we had to pick another place nearby and we were both getting cranky. And needless to say, we ended up with yet another dud. After lunch we headed to the Colosseum. With our ticket from the previous site, we skipped the line and went straight in. As shown in the picture below, what you see inside the Colosseum isn't really a surprise. What helps is to try to image what this place looked like back in the day. To see that such a place is pretty well preserved over the years, makes this a site to see. You can see the outline of where the tiers of seating sections would have been. And you can see what was underneath the stage – various trap doors brought animals onto the stage. Since we had just eatteb not too long ago and we didn’t want to head back to the hotel quite yet we decided to hit the area near the Spanish Steps (as it is Rome’s main shopping district). We took the Metro (i.e. subway) there as it was not really in walking distance of where we were. Side note: Rome’s subway system only has 2 lines and you’ll notice pretty much everywhere you go in Italy that there’s quite a bit of graffiti. We actually got in a train that had graffiti completely all over its exterior. Once we got off the Spanish Steps we walked around. We of course saw the really high end luxury brands, but we also found some nice men’s shops where Tae could actually buy button downs that would fit him pretty well. Since it was Sunday afternoon and most stores were already closing, we told ourselves that we’d come back tomorrow and do some shopping. We tried going to a restaurant that my co-worker recommended but it was closed so we got pizza at a takeaway place and brought it back with us to the hotel.
Colosseum - interior
Colosseum - exterior
Rome Day 3: Final Day in Rome
Looking back at this trip, we both felt like we could have used this extra day in Rome and attached it as an extra day in Florence or Venice. I think after day 2 we were sorta over Rome with the tremendous amount of tourists around, and the bad food experiences. We started Day 3 back at the Spanish Steps. My little man found a store called Piquadro, as a US brand comparison it’s an Italian version of Tumi but I think a bit more stylish. He’s pretty selective when it comes to buying things in general (as I guess most guys are) so I was surprised when he saw a stylish Men’s backpack that he liked and decided to buy pretty quickly. I believe this was the first thing he bought for himself and it impressed me with how confidently he made the decision to. Moving along, we went into a few stores where he ended up getting a few button down shirts. We also went into this cute little jewelry shop and bought a necklace for his niece. It wasn't super expensive, but it looked like such a cute little girl necklace and it made us think of her. We went into a Puma store and I got myself a pair of pink shoes that look almost ballet like. I have never seen that sytle in stores that sell Puma in the US, so I got it. Lunch time again! We had probably our work food experiences at a place called Autogrill for lunch. It’s basically a glorified deli, with an area to get hot food, an area to get pizza style fast food, and an area to buy paninis and sandwiches. The thing about this place is no one spoke English. In the heart of a touristy area, and where English is the universal language not only for English speaking people like ourselves but also for those who have to use English because they don’t speak Italian. We went to the area that had the sandwiches and the lady said something about paying at the main register area first. All of this is sorta implied by body language, mind you. We spend the next 10-15 minutes trying to figure out what is going on in this place and hating the fact that they won’t help anyone who doesn’t speak Italian! It’s also raining a bit outside at this point so we decide to go to the pizza fast food section and have probably one of the worst pizzas ever! Trying to put this food experience behind us, we head toward the Trevi Fountain, and the Pantheon. The Trevi Fountain had way too many people in front of it, so I took a picture from a distance. We were quite impressed with the Pantheon as it was not only free admission, but it was pretty well preserved inside and out. We see the Vatican in the distance and we decide to just walk toward it and hopefully get to eat at the restaurant we tried to go to the night before. I knew since it came recommended I wanted to try to aim for at least one good food experience before leaving Rome and heading to Florence. We eventually get to the restaurant. We get there about 20 minutes before the dinner hours begin. We wait outside by the Gelato place around the corner (by the way Gelato and cappuccino ended up being the only things that were consistently good!) I don’t remember exactly what I had, I believe Tae got a pork dish. But we both loved it, and we were so happy to finally have a nice Italian meal in Italy!
Trevi FountainPantheon