"The Honeymoon Begins!!" a Rome Travel Page by fdrich29

It all went by so quickly. One minute I'm dancing my first dance with my new bride in front of Gloucester Harbor during our wedding reception and then seemingly the next sitting at the ALItalia gate at Logan Airport in Boston just as Italy defeats France for the World Cup, then finding ourselves in a BMW on the way to our hotel in Rome. It may have been 48 hours, but it felt more like 48 seconds. On the way to our hotel we passed what turned out to be St. Paolo's Basilica and I was instantly intrigued. Our plans for Rome include resting most of Monday, July 10th to recover from jet lag, then the free tour of Rome with Viatour that AAA gave us for booking three nights in Rome on July 11th. More sightseeing on the 12th and then leaving for Venice on th 13th.

Our hotel called Viatours for us and arranged for them to come get us at the hotel in the morning. We were dropped off a few blocks from Trevi Fountain and walked over to see it, followed by the Panthenon and Navonna. Between the Panthenon and Navonna our tourguide pointed down the street and said "That's the senate building, on those steps Caesar was killed." That's when it all hit me, the history and how ancient this place really was. We were then picked up by the bus and brought to the Vatican where we had less than two hours to look around. We decided to go back again on Wednesday to see more. That night we walked down to the "wedding cake" building and did some walking around until it became dark and then went back to the hotel.

In the morning we took a cab back to the Vatican and pretty much had St. Peter's Basilica to ourselves. We then got in the mile long line to the Vatican Museum. Definitely worth the wait, especially for the map room and Sistene Chapel. After lunch we took a cab to St. Paolo's Basilica. On Thursday morning we went to the Colosseum, Constantine Arch and Forum before taking the subway to Termini to pick up our rental car at Hertz and heading down the street to the hotel to pick up our things then left for Venice where we would spend the next two nights. Even with directions it took us forever to get out of Rome and the ride to Venice was much longer than the three hours I had mistakenly planned.