It’s been a while since I’ve done any form of travel post
(or post at all for that matter -oops!) so I thought I would share some of the
highlights from our recent Honeymoon to Rome. Neither of us had been to Italy
before and we were both excited to explore. We got married in December and
originally I wanted our honeymoon to be a ‘lay on a beach and do nothing’ kind
of holiday, however my husband is better suited to having things to do. Looking
at anywhere warm in December was proving difficult, most places across the
equator were lovely and hot but either cost an absolute fortune or there was a
risk of the Zika virus, no good for travelling when pregnant.
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| Photo by Dan Sunderland |
Eventually we decided to go a few months later, to give
ourselves something to look forward to. We chose Rome as we knew there would be
plenty to do, on what is probably our last ever child free holiday together for
a long time! I anticipated it would be cold, but it’s not the type of
sunbathing holiday anyway so none of that mattered. As it happens, the weather
was pretty good most days, lovely and sunny in the afternoons.
Our flight was on a Monday, so to save us time and stress I
booked us in to a hotel at Gatwick for the Sunday night where we had a picnic
in the room and got a nice early night. Breakfast was included the next day and
after that we headed to our Purple Parking carpark and got a shuttle bus to the
airport.
Our flight was lunch time, so we got some snacks/drinks for
the flight and off we went! We arrived in Rome around 4pm. I hadn’t booked any
transport to the hotel so hoped we would find a reputable taxi rank but being flustered when we got there with no clue where to go, we got in a taxi with a company that ended up costing nearly 3x the price it should have done. Lesson learned, we arrived safely at the apartment and to be fair to the taxi driver he did give us a tour and explain what we were seeing for the 45 minute journey.
Our apartment was one that I found on Airbnb and very
reasonably priced. The location was near to Vatican City and also close to
Metro and bus routes. When we arrived we got settled in before deciding to head
to a nearby supermarket to get a few bits for the room. The good thing about
having an Airbnb was that we had a kitchen area so we knew we could prepare
some food at home which was a bonus, and a money saver. We stocked up on snacks
and breakfast foods and then came back to the apartment to rest ahead of our
first full day.
Day 2 we woke up early and got ourselves ready. I booked us
in for a free tour at 9:20am and it was about a half an hour journey to the start point. I am pleased
I booked this as it gave us a chance to familiarise ourselves with the location
and we also got to learn a bit about the history of Rome. The tour was really good and lasted a good 2-3 hours. There was no obligation to tip at the end however we did because we thought it was fantastic and really well organised. We
visited Spanish Square and Spanish Steps, Immaculate Conception Column, The
house of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Saint Andrew Church, Bernini’s Angels, The famous
“Galleria”, Column of Marcus Aurelius, Prime Ministers House, Temple of Hadrian,
Pantheon, The Tomb of the Kings, Tomb of Raphael, Saint Ignatius Church, Andrea
Pozzo’s Tromp l’oeil and finally the Trevi Fountain.
After the tour we decided to find somewhere for lunch. We ended up at McDonalds as the area we finished the tour in was a little bit busy and it was harder than we thought just to find somewhere for lunch. It's all very well finding a nice place for a slice of pizza but these places don't have any seating so it was sometimes easier to pop into a McDonalds just for a sit down.
After lunch we headed towards Castel Sant'Angelo. I had
planned both bus routes and walking routes so we could play it by ear and see
how I felt. Castel Sant'Angelo was right near to our
apartment, so luckily for us afterwards it was easy to stagger back home and
freshen up.
For dinner, we tried to find somewhere nearby on Tripadvisor. The 3 places we picked out we couldn't actually find - we found this a lot, the names had changed on some of them. We walked around and finally found a little pizza restaurant and sat outside under giant patio heaters. I really felt like I was on holiday and the pizza was great - first full day was a success.
