Saturday May 29, 2004

We woke up at 7:00 for the last full day of our honeymoon. The task: Do Rome in a day. No problem!

After scouring the city for a cafe, we grabbed a quick breakfast at the bar. As usual, it consisted of cappuccino and croissant. Yum! We then proceeded on our guide book's suggested walking tour. On the way to the first stop, Sarah found a store that sold guns, other weapons, and console video games. (Playstation, etc.) It was so bizarre that we had to take a picture for Sarah's Dad, Dale.

Unfortunately, the first stop, the Capuchian Crypt, was closed. Next. I took us off the course by accident and we ended up way off-target in a beautiful garden area. On the way, we passed by a five star hotel, Hotel Splendide Royal. Indeed it was! We asked the bell boy how much it cost to stay there. Rooms started at 1300 Euros a night. Ouch! That made our 70 euro place sound pretty nice to me!

We continued into the park where we managed to find more wild poppies! Sarah snagged a few and pressed them for Mom. I took a picture of one up close. I'm excited to see how it turns out.

We then started back to the tour to the Spanish Steps. These are large steps leading up to a church. For some reason, this is a big tourist attraction. We saw vendors and many fanny packs. It didn't seem like much to me, so we continued on the tour.

The next stop was a huge square cornered by four churches. The one church had works by Raphael and Caravaggio. You'll never guess, but it was in the process of being restored. Never fear, it was still a sight to behold. We spent quite a bit of time there and then left to find lunch. Lunch was pizza from a vendor down the street from the church. We ate in a park and then had gelato for dessert.

After dessert, we walked through the square on the way to Augustus' Garden and museum. Not only was it cornered by churches, it had lovely fountains and obelisks from Egypt in the middle. I must say, it was odd to see the mix of Egyptian, Roman and Christian structures and works of art throughout the city.

The garden was in a bit of a state of disrepair, but it was still a nice place to hang out and walk through. It was quite moving to be walking around the garden while thinking about it's history. Unfortunately, the museum was closed. At this point, we decided to ditch the walking tour and strike out on our own. Things got much better after this.

We walked to the Pantheon and stayed there for a while. This huge structure that had been a Roman centerpiece had been converted to a church. It was a bit of a tourist magnet, but it was worth putting up with the crowds anyway. We stayed in the Pantheon for a while, as it was a cool place with plenty to look at.

After the Pantheon, we made our way to the Roman Forum, a large area of Roman ruins near the Colosseum. On the way, we passed by more ruins that doubled as a cat sanctuary. We stayed there for a while and counted 53 cats! On the way to the Forum, we stumbled upon the Vittorio Emanuelle II Monument.

This caught me completely by surprise. The building was only a hundred years old and was erected in the honour of Emanuele II who united Italy. The building was positively massive, taking up an entire city block. We walked to the top of it and surveyed the city. The building was so detailed that one could easily spend a day just looking at it.

We then went to the Forum. It is a series of Roman ruins. I think that this was Sarah's favorite part of the trip. As interesting as the ruins were, it was equally interesting to watch Sarah light up as she walked through the ruins that she had studied about in school. Sarah especially wanted to stop at the Temple of Vestal Virgins and the ruins of a monument to Saturn.

While in the forum, we had our picture taken by a passer by. It's a very cool picture of us standing on two pillars.

After the forum, we went to the Colosseum. We lucked out, as it was free the day that we were there! It too was absolutely amazing. We spent an hour or two walking around and taking it in. We then stopped at the book store and purchased a few books to remember the city by.

We were both exhausted at this point, so we walked back to the hotel. I asked where to buy some good pastries, and the hotel owners sent me to an awesome pastry store across the street from another five star hotel. I purchased six canoli for us, my parents and my sister and Jamie to say thank you for picking us up at the airport and looking after things while we were away.

I returned to the hotel room and Sarah and I got dressed for our last dinner out. Sarah's cousin Juli and her husband Paul sent us an e-mail telling us that they were treating us to a large meal on our honeymoon as our wedding gift. We learned that the cheque was in the mail and that they wanted proof! Well, we got them their proof! We went back to Trattoria de Bruno. We had a salad, pasta and secondi! Sarah had calamari, I had lamb. Both were awesome. After secondi, I had a plate of stinky cheese and we each ordered dessert. We had a baked cream dessert called Panna Cotta as well as tiramizu. We took a picture of the restaurant and the waitress and left her a huge tip before leaving for our hotel.

When we got back we packed our things and went to bed. We were both really looking forward to heading home the next day.

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