Italy, Pt. V

Today's post concludes our honeymoon trip to Italy.  I hope you've enjoyed the posts, and I'm sorry if you were annoyed by the abundance of them!

We ended our amazing trip in Rome, which was beautiful, overwhelming and exhausting.  If I could do it all over again, I would definitely start out in Rome and end in the Cinque Terre but either way I'm thrilled to have visited Rome.

We rented this amazing self-catering apartment conveniently located downtown on a quiet street.  It was recently rehabbed and apparently they've only been renting it out for 2 months.  It was cheaper than a hotel and way more enjoyable.  I highly recommend vacationing this way!  Since we had a kitchen, Badger decided that we should make a meal.  So he made pasta (big surprise) with the weirdest noodles and it was absolutely delicious!  Later that night we went out to our private terrace (which had the nicest patio furniture), drank a bottle of wine and some grappa and just talked for hours.  It was one of my favorite nights even though we weren't out and about.  I love that we had that opportunity!

We did a LOT of walking in Rome.  We dropped our rental car off on the north east side of town and walked our way back to our hotel, stopping to see everything on the way.  Like this:

It really is a marvel, that Pantheon.

And this:

The ancient ruins are breathtaking.  They're several feet below modern street level, so cats really enjoy hanging out in them.  We passed by some ruins and saw HUNDREDS of kitties just hanging out, living the dream.  It was pretty hilarious!

On our last day, we ventured out again and walked across town to Vatican City.  I never expected to go there in my life.  I'm not the least bit Catholic and I knew that Badger didn't want to go but we ended up trusting Francesca, the owner of our apartment.  She was right, that place is something you have to see.  I'm glad we devoted our afternoon to it because it is so massive that you need a looooong time there.  We started out at St. Peter's Basilica and then headed over to the Vatican museum and the Sistene Chapel.  I can't get over the work by Michelangelo and Raphael.  It's so amazing how an artist can making something seem so real.  The colors in that place are incredibly vivid and realistic that it just blows your mind!  It really was a crazy experience that I'm glad to have had.  It might not have been the most romantic but it sure was impressive.

After visiting the Vatican, we did some shopping (our poor dogs were barking so loud at this point) and picked up some gourmet cooking supplies, like a 12-year balsamic, fine olive oil and some rather large pasta shells so I can try and recreate my grandmother's delicious mac-and-cheese that she used to make for me whenever I came over.  I ended our trip with some pistachio gelato because I hadn't had enough of it and we had a fabulous dinner that night at a random restaurant that included a guitarist and singer serenading the diners.  It was pretty awesome to say the least.

Now that we're back, neither one of us will be itching for a vacation for quite awhile.  In fact, flying to Kansas for the holidays sounds unappealing right now - the airplane part, that is.  I'm tempted to suggest we made the 12-hour drive just because I don't want to board a plane for a long time.  Two two-week vacations in two consecutive months is kind of draining, but definitely something I will never take for granted or ever forget.  If I was still at my old job, I wouldn't have been able to do this and for that I'm eternally grateful.

So now it's all over, no more wedding or honeymoon plans in the future.  But that's totally okay.  Now we just get to be married and enjoy being a family!  And I get to start looking for a job.