Framed Florals Travels // Rome, Italy
Traveling to Italy for our honeymoon has been in the works for many.. many.. moons. We were engaged and planning a wedding nearly 3 years ago, dreaming of our special day and honeymoon to follow. That's when my husband got a letter in the mail saying his number had come up in the FDNY fire academy list, and he was on his way to becoming a firefighter. A scary and beautiful thing. The wedding still happened, albeit he was only able to take one day off for it, and we put the honeymoon on the back burner. An easy thing to add to the bottom of the To-Do list, considering his dream job just presented itself. I'll be forever grateful to the opportunities he's made for himself, and for me, and so a honeymoon was the least of my worries. That was until 2 years later, when his vacation time came up, and we were suddenly in the position to have over 2 weeks off together. Honeymoon time it was.
We flew from JFK to Rome and for the first few nights stayed outside the center of Rome, in Trastevere. It felt like the Brooklyn of Rome, a little quieter and calmer than Rome proper.
My favorite activity in Trastevere was visiting the Botanic Garden. It was off the beaten path, and was pretty much empty. There were a few older couples walking around, people reading in the grass, and a few tourists like us. The grounds were so beautifully maintained, and my husband and I couldn't get over the gigantic palm trees, collection of cacti, and historic greenhouses filled with succulents.
Trastevere was quaint, filled with tiny narrow streets, wild vines crawling up buildings, and the best little cafes and pizza shops. Wine was incredibly cheap, and accompanied every meal. Ice was impossible to come by, and I'm still wondering why Italians don't believe in freezing water.
After Trastevere we headed to our next Bed & Breakfast in Rome. That's when we took the bus for the first, and last time, upon learning they don't have air conditioning or windows that open. Yikes. We walked a crazy amount, went to an old Cloister where they had an incredible Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibit, and drank LOTS of espresso.
We did The Patheon, The Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum, Capucian Monk Tombs (literally thousands of Monk bones arranged in the creepiest way), saw so many ancient squares, fountains, and even when we weren't trying, kept stumbling on historic sights. We drank Aperol Spritzs before, with, and after dinner. We retreated to our hotel room to blast the air conditioning after all the crazy hot days. The most amazing gelato shop was next to out hotel, so needless to say, we ate a lot of gelato. We took a tour of a firehouse in Rome, and were treated to espresso by the nicest firefighter (theres a coffee bar IN the firehouse).
One of the highlights of our stay in Rome was the PASTA. So much pasta. All the pasta. How else do I say, we ate A LOT of pasta.
The last stop on our tour of Rome was The Colosseum. Walking around inside and outside added to the iconic feel of the day. It was so incredible to see, and was easily one of my favorite places we visited.
There were all these pretty pink flowers along the stairs down to the Colosseum, and I stood there taking pictures for wayyy too long.
Rome was so lovely, so hectic, so much fun!
We had some time before we met up with my husbands family at their house in the countryside, so we moved North to Orvieto. Ahh, Orvieto.
It deserves it's own blog post.
