Ok, so we technically didn't arrive in Rome until Day 2 of our honeymoon. Our flight out of Cleveland was cancelled due to inclement weather in Chicago (our layover city), and we were delayed by a day. We spent the first night of our honeymoon in my old room at my parents' house. It was uber romantic.
Our flight landed around 7:30 am, and we immediately grab a taxi to head to our hotel, the Relais dei Papi. We were due to meet our tour guide (a wedding gift!) at 10 am at the Colosseum, and since our hotel was on the other side of town, we were short on time.
Lucky for us, Italian cabbies are as crazy and fast as you've seen in the movies. Despite feeling completely terrorized, we made it to our hotel in no time, dropped our belongings off, and rushed to catch the Metro. We make it to the Colosseum just 5 minutes late, and met Terry from Hands On Travel, a tour guide company for those who use sign language.
Terry shows us around to all the great ancient sites: The Colosseum, Roman Forum, Torre Argentina cat sanctuary, the Pantheon, some obelisks and fountains, and so on. Of course, we grabbed real Italian pizza for lunch, sold by weight ('cause that's how the Romans do it).
We then set out on a quick tour of Vatican City (we only had our tour guide for a few hours, we had to make them count!). We walked through the Vatican Museum (it's free for deaf people!), and wound our way through hallway after hallway of ancient history. The sheer number of relics and artifacts is staggering! Finally, we made it to the creme de le crem, the Mecca for Catholic, artistically-inclined visitors... The Sistine Chapel.
Unfortunately, no photographs are permitted of the chapel ceiling or walls. You'll just have to take my word, it's simply incredible. I will admit it was smaller than I had expected, based on all the hype you hear, but the size was still impressive and the details were phenomenal.
We bid Terry adieu, and went to retrieve our tickets to the weekly Papal Audience for the following day. It was around 6 in the evening when we made our way back to the hotel, stopping for a gelato near Trevi Fountain along the way. After a brief freshening-up at our hotel, we we walked to a local bistro for dinner. Pasta, house vino, and chocolate torte make for a beautiful end to our first day in Italy. Buonanotte!
