Thursday, December 10, 2009

Honeymoon Part I – Arrive and explore Roma

On Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009, I married Kim Allen at Moonstone Beach. The wedding was perfect. The sun came out and there were lots of happy, smiling friends and family members in attendance.

gameover

The next Wednesday we embarked on a three-week honeymoon in Italy. This is the first part of a lengthy series on this blog detailing our adventures.

We flew from Arcata to San Francisco, then to Chicago and on to Munich.

germannewspaper

In Munich I was "Shocked! Shocked! Shocked!" to discover that they put naked ladies on the front pages of newspapers.


alps

From Munich, we crossed the alps on our way to Rome.

durhamsign

We were already sleep deprived from the wedding festivities, and extremely tired after a 20-hour trip. So we were really glad that a taxi driver met us at the airport. At first I wondered why he didn't put both our names on the sign. Then I remembered. Duh!

honeymoonsuitesign

When we arrived at the hotel, we discovered that Kim's parents had booked us the honeymoon suite. It was a sweet suite!

windows

We flung open the shutters and listened to the chaos which is Rome. We wanted to go explore, but we were so sleepy. Perhaps just a little nap was in order. We closed closed our eyes and immediately zonked out.

fromhotelqwindowatnight

When we woke up, it was dark outside. I snapped photos from the window. We rubbed our eyes and went outside.

colosseumatnight

We walked down the street and admired the colosseum at night. This 2,000-year-old entertainment complex is where gladiator battles were held and Christians were fed to lions.

archnearcolosseum

Nearby there were lots of neat things to look at, like the Arco di Costantino from the 4th Century AD.

streetatnight

Everything seemed so foreign and exotic, even the streets. Were returned to the hotel to get a good night's rest so we could see even more the next day.

rookieshot

I call this our "rookie photo" because the fact that it was even taken shows how naive we were about Rome. I saw this building and thought it was so interesting that I made Kim take my photo in front of it. After a day or two, I realized that this building didn't compare at all to the other architectural marvels, most of which aren't included in any guidebooks.

oldforum

We walked down to Trajan's Forum, above. Pretty amazing stuff. In the middle is Trajan's column from AD 113. It has intricately carved reliefs from bottom to top depicting a battle.

kimstateuerear

We then paid to get into the Roman Forum.

Jacksideone

Here I am thinking really deep thoughts.

jackwithgladiators

I did battle with some gladiators. The hard part came after the photos were taken and it was time to negotiate the fee.

weddingrings

We stopped often to smooch.

chestnuts

When we got hungry, we purchased roasted chestnuts from a street vendor.

Kimoutsidecolosseum



We checked out the colosseum. Here's my wife!

kimwithhatatcolosseum

Here's my wife on a different day with a fancy hat.

colosseumarches

The inside of the colosseum was extremely interesting. This was a sophisticated, albeit brutal, operation.

Unknownsoldier

Later we checked out this monument, which was described in one of the guidebooks as Roman architecture on steroids. (Note: Photo above was taken in the evening on a different day.)

monumenthorse

The statues were huge.

protest

We checked out a nearby protest.

Toasttolovers

Later that night we celebrated a wonderful start to our marriage.



accordianman

Before going to sleep, I heard a familiar song from The Godfather. I looked out the window and heard this guy performing.

2 Comments:

Blogger Jennifer Savage said...

Jack! Fabulous! I'm so happy for you and Kim. Thanks for bringing us along on your honeymoon.

9:15 PM  
Blogger Indie said...

This is wonderful!

The photos are so beautiful. I love the one of the night streets and the one of the wall of windows and shutters.

I'm so glad you had a great time!!!!

11:10 AM  

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