Italy Part 1

We boarded our flight for Lufthansa from Portland to PDX. I was delighted to see consoles in the back of the seats. These provided much entertainment for my short attention span. My goal was to sleep once we reached nighttime and the sun going down. However, the flight flew above the night zone, which meant the sun never went down. I got about a half hour of sleep along the way. Beth fared a little better and slept about 2 hours. I did manage to watch 3 movies and some tv shows. The movies will remain nameless as they are definitely of the chic genra. The food was surprisingly good for airplane food. One drawback of the flight were the two families with small children seated next to us. Needless to say the kids cried a lot more then they slept. Plus, one mom felt the aisle way was part of their seat and continously bumped into Beth. Lucky me she likes the aisle.

Landing in Frankfurt was beutiful from the air. The massive amount of trees brought a small comfort of home. The airport was huge, but really cool. We did have to change terminals, but it was easy and we found our gate with ease. We had enough time for lunch and coffee. We were nearly falling asleep in the chairs at the gate. We were lucky to have no kids around us this flight to Rome. Beth slept most of the way. I was to busy identifying cities from the air. The landing was a bit rough. The was a lot of crosswind and the pilot landed at a very steep angle. Beth was not a fan.


We waited at baggage claim for what felt like an eternity. We were relieved to find our luggage show up. Heavy backpacks in tow we made our way to the train station. Tickets were easy to buy at a kiosk and we boarded a train headed for downtown Rome. We were able to see mostly apartments, but none of the visible major sights could be seen. We decided to walk with our backpacks from the train station to our hotel. This wasn't the wisest decision as it was 90 degrees and very muggy. The walk was about a mile and we found our hotel located on a very busy street near The Colosseum and The Roman Forum.


The check in was easy and we found our room to be excellent. Exactly what two jet legged travelers needed. We decided to take a walk and get our bearings. We walked out of our hotel and the very next street led to The Colosseum. We were met with a glorious view of it in all its glory. We walked around it and headed back towards our hotel. There are many outdoor restaraunts to choose. We sat down for a nice dinner of Pizza and Chianti. We were both quite tired and headed back to the room to sleep and sleep we did. 9 1/2 hours total.

We woke up feeling fresh and ready for adventure. Our hotel had an awesome breakfast that would rival any hotel on the way to Death Valley. Wanting to beat the heat we headed directly to the forum. However, we were approached by a person dressed as a Roman Soldier. He offered to take pictures with us. I should have paid more attention to the euros he was holding in his hand as he asked for 40 euro for taking two pictures with us. We continued into the forum and followed Rick Steve's Guide for The Forum. It was awe inspiring to be somewhere 2000 years old. To walk were Caesar walked, to see where the senate met, and to see where Caesar was killed and burned. There is such a great story behind The Forum and linking it with the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.

Next to and above The Forum is Palatine Hill. There are various remnants of Emperors Palaces' and gardens. It was really hot up there with no shade. There was a great view of what used to be Circus Maximus, not much left of it. We walked down hill out of Palatine Hill and went to The Colosseum. The pass we bought to get into The Forum really paid off here. We got to skip the line to buy tickets which was a 45 minute wait. We walked right in and headed up to the upper rim. We walked the whole thing and took a ton of pictures. We then looked at an exhibit there. Heading down stairs, we walked the lower level taking more pictures. It is an amazing piece of architecture and building, considering it was built by hand with no tools. It was sort of special for me, being it was the first man made wonder of the world I had ever seen.

We returned to our hotel room and dropped off all of our camera stuff. We walked through Capitol Hill, an area that overlooks The Forum. Through there we went to Piazza Venezia. It sits in front of this massive goverment building being built there. We had lunch at an outdoor cafe and headed back to our hotel to escape the heat. Later when it cooled down, we headed a different direction from our hotel and found a wonderful place to eat. They also had the best chianti I have ever had. After our meal, we walked back down to The Colosseum, to see it the way it should be. A lit up at night with no one walking on it. It was truly beautiful.

What I really love about Rome was that it was nothing like home. It is this major bustling city with more ethnicities than you could count. Oh and not a Starbucks in sight.

Yesterday, July 13, was a travel day. We had breakfast at our hotel and wisely took a cab from the hotel to the train station. We walked the station figuring out how to get our passes validated. We boared the train and found great seats sitting across from each other. The ride from Rome to Verona was 4 hours. It was beautiful seeing the countryside and passing through Florence. We arrived in Verona to even more heat. We took a crowded bus to our hotel and then walked around.

Verona is absolutely beautiful. Try to imagine Portland in Italy. It is easy to walk around, very dog friendly, lots of people on Bikes and tons of Riverside. The people are very friendly and everyone seems to know everyone else. We walked around some and then got settled into our hotel. We have a great restaraunt right out the front doors of our hotel. It was a wonderful dinner and inexpensive. We went to bed, but didn't sleep for long. We were awoken to the store across street's fire alarm going off at 130 am. It was quite a jolt. Thankfully we both fell back asleep quickly.

Stay Tuned for more

We are having a blast and wish everyone could join us!