The Honeymoon

Day 1 - Travelling to Venice
Mike and I set off on our honeymoon today - he's been picking confetti out the back of his shirt for most of the day! I was my usual disorganised self, so Mike was running around trying to work out what we were taking with us. It was also Dad's birthday today, so it was nice having breakfast as a family before Mike and I set off. The car that took us to the airport was nice, and the chauffeur was very friendly. We liked the airport lounge - free food! :) The seats on the plane were a little disappointing, as they weren't quite as swish as we were expecting, but the food was good (salmon, yum!), and there was plenty of leg space, so it was fine.

The flight was less than two hours, which was ace, and we were met at the airport so there was no chance of getting lost. We had a private water taxi which took us to our hotel, and it was fantastic! Mike and I chose to stand all the way there, and got seriously wind swept. It was great fun, as being dropped off outside your hotel by a boat is definitely an unusual experience. We are staying at the Hotel al Mori d'Oriente and it is a fabulous mix of Venetian and Byzantine decor. They gave us a bottle of champagne when we arrived. Yum! We're going to collapse now - weddings are seriously tiring!

Day 2 - Ambling Around, and our first Gondola ride
Mike's having great fun saying 'my wife' at the moment! He also managed to get fairly drunk today - we tried a Venetian drink called spritz, and one glass finished him off! We went walking this morning, and took loads of pictures. Venice is incredibly beautiful, and it is quite quiet in the area we are staying. We had our very first gondola ride, and it was perfect. The gondolier even sang! Then we had lunch, where Mike got drunk, and was damned funny. Although I have to admit that when I stood up I was definitely a little unsteady too. Complete pair of lightweights!

Day 3 - The trip to Murano
Mike doing the write up this time! Headed off to Murano on the Vaporetto this morning, Wow! The ride on the "water bus" was impressive enough, with some stunning scenery, but Murano itself was absolutely stunning. Didn't get to see any glass blowing, but we didn't mind, it was great just to walk around the place.

We went to Laura's (for anyone who doesn't know, an Italian friend of mine from work who is ace) recommended restaurant for lunch, something buso, and it was absolutely superb! I had my first ever genuine Italian lasagne (mmm!), and Rhian ate Gnocchi with Smoked Salmon, which from the look on her face was probably the best thing she has ever eaten!

Day 3 - The Venice Ghost Walk
We went on an organised tour this evening, which walked around the Rialto area sharing a few stories/legends of some of the buildings. I have to admit that the ghost bits didn't interest us too much, but the facts which lead up to the ghost parts were really interesting - religion, betrayal, and all that other interesting stuff!

It was also nice to have someone leading us around for a little while, knowing that we could concentrate on taking everything in without worrying about finding our way back to the starting point afterwards!

Day 4 - Piazza San Marco
We were up early this morning, because Mike and I decided to visit St Mark's Square. Mike actually played in a brass quartet in the Basilica when he was 15, so this was his second visit. We arranged a guided tour, which wasn't that great - the guide wasn't very clear. However, St Mark's more than made up for that, as it was incredibly beautiful. There were also more pigeons than in Llanelli town centre, which is definitely impressive! The Basilica's ceilings were gold, with different saints painted on every part,and the whole effect was magnificent. Unfortunately we were not permitted to take photos inside the Basilica, so we got lots of shots of the outside instead, and managed to get some images that were painted on the exterior which give a good indication of the interior.

One of my favourite parts was the clock tower, which has a clock face that is covered in signs of the Zodiac. The bell tower was also beautiful, but is currently undergoing renovation, so a lot of the photos of it include scaffolding. There is tonnes of stuff to say about the Piazza, but to say everything would take far too long, so suffice to say - everything was totally awesome! We then went to Harry's Bar for lunch, which was great fun. Mike and I tried the Bellini, and being the lightweights that we are, were slightly sozzled afterwards! We had hamburgers, which doesn't really go with the whole Venetian ethos, but I think we were suffering from an abundance of pasta.

Day 4 - Dinner under the Rialto Bridge
In the evening we went to a really pretty restaurant in Rialto, and ate even more pasta. Not as delicious as the restaurant in Murano, but still extremely nice. Awesome Tiramisu! We were seated right by the Grand Canal, and the view was spectacular. We then caught a water taxi back to the hotel, which has to be one of the most fun methods of transportation ever.

Day 5 - Travelling to Rome
Not much to report today. Had yet another great taxi ride from the hotel to the train station to hop aboard the Eurostar to Rome. Oh, we did see the Venice Simplon Orient Express in the train station though!

We were sorry to be saying goodbye to Venice, but are looking forward to what Rome will have to offer.

Day 6 - Visiting the Ara Pacis
Ha - more champagne when we arrived at our Rome hotel, which is called the Hotel Mozart. This is a theme I could get used to. We were quite tired today - lots of trundling about this holiday! We decided to visit the Ara Pacis, as it is really close to our hotel. The detail in the monument was fantastic, and Mike was particularly impressed with the drainage system :)

Mike wasn't actually sure what the Ara Pacis was, but he was suitably impressed when he saw it. So, just in case... The Ara Pacis is the monument created to honour the peace brought by Augustus, the first emperor of Rome. It was completed in about 9 BC, and is very cool - I got to touch it!

Day 6 - Change of plans for the evening
Rhian and I were hoping to visit the Pantheon this evening, but she's not feeling too great at the moment - exploding tummy attack. But, she has lasted five days in Italy without one, and has eaten some fantastic food, so I think she feels it's worth it.

It's some kind of holiday here tomorrow, the Feast of the Assumption - I'll write more about it when I find out what it is, but it means that pretty much everything will be closed. That said, the guide book says that the Pantheon is open on public holidays until 1pm so we're hoping it'll be open and relatively quiet.

For this evening, I think we're going to have a nice relaxing evening in our hotel room, with maybe a bit of a stroll later when both her tummy and the very enthusiastic sun calm down a bit! We're together and having an awesome time, so it's all good!!!

Day 7 - The Pantheon, The Piazza Venezia, The Forums, and The Colosseum
So, despite being told that everything would be closed today, it turns out that everything that Mike and I want to see is open. The first place we went was the Pantheon, and we decided to walk there, as it wasn't too far from the hotel. It is the best preserved ancient buiding in Rome - I suspect it was saved mainly because it was converted from a temple to the Roman gods to a Catholic church. The doors of the building are the original bronze ones installed by the ancient Romans, but the majority of the building is now decorated with Catholic symbolism. It is still used as a church today. It is an amazing building, and Mike seemed very impressed with the acoustics. I wouldn't know, being tone deaf :)

The Piazza Venezia is a really busy square which we walked through to go the Forums. It has a huge building called the Il Vittoriano which is rather noticeable. A man we spoke to there said that the idea of the buiding was to replicate the style of the ancient Romans, and it is in honour of the five kings of Italy. Apparently Mussolini was rather fond of it. It is definitely eye-catching!

Mike and I then arrived at the Forums, which are one of the main reasons I have always wanted to visit Rome. They were the hub of Imperial Rome, and the scope of them is incredible. Some of the things they included were markets, temples, law courts, and rostra, which were used for making public speeches. Amongst the architecture that was preserved is Trajan's Column, which has reliefs carved on it to depict Trajan's campaign againt Dacia. It also has a statue of St Peter on top - the original one of Trajan was lost. Sorry if I'm going on a bit, but it was soooo amazing!!!

Most of the fora have been decimated, as they were picked apart for building materials from about the sixth century AD, after the fall of the Roman Empire. However, some of the columns have survived, and in some cases you can clearly see the outlines of different fora, as there were a variety of them, such as Caesar's Forum, Augustus' Forum, Trajan's Forum, etc. You can also see evidence of some of the temples that were built there.

Mike's favourite part was definitely the Colosseum, so I'll let him write about that. Oh, and we saw the Arch of Constantine. Also very cool!

Wow, I'm afraid after Rhian's impressive description of everything else, my description of the Colosseum is probably going to be a bit on the basic side, but hey, here we go...

So, you know that film Gladiator where some guy named Maximus kicks the pants out of everyone? Well, this is where that kind of thing would have happened! A significant portion of the building is missing, and some of what you can see isn't the original, but was rebuilt by Pope Benedict XIV in the mid-18th century to help the rest of it stay up. It's a good thing he did too, because without the extra work a lot of the original parts would not be visible today. Interestingly, they've also only done restoration work on some of the stone, which gives you both an idea of roughly what it should look like and what time has done to it.

I say roughly what it should look like because it looks like stone, whereas when it was built it would have looked much more like marble. The Colosseum, not it's original name by the way, it was originally called the Flavian Amphitheatre, is actually made from travetine stone, which looks like marble when new but loses its lustre much more significantly with age... Sorry, I find the boring stuff about stone really interesting!

I've always had an interest in Roman architecture, but for completely different reasons to Rhian. Rhian likes to look at the people aspects of things, where I'm all about the engineering. Amongst a plethora of other stuff that I don't know about, Romans gave us roads, plumbing, and under-floor heating! It now also turns out that the Colosseum had lifts! Imagine that, lifts in the first century AD! Okay, so the lifts weren't for handicapped people to get upstairs, but were actually to take the gladiators, tigers, porcupines (yep, that's right) and such not from the tunnels beneath the arena up to face each other and probably certain death, but a lot of today's useful things have some fairly bad origins! Oh, apparently the life expectancy of a gladiator was around 23!

I basically spent most of my time there in awe of the place, especially where they had re-created part of the arena floor to show you what it really would have looked like and how it was put together. Amazing! I have to admit though, being a bit of a heathen with a poor imagination, that the Gladiator movie did help to bring life to the place! Don't tell anyone I said that though!;-)

Day 8 - The Vatican
I suspect that for most people two words spring to mind when you mention the Vatican, probably "Sistine Chapel" and "Pope". Okay, technically that's three words but you get the idea! For anyone who has visited the place, there's almost certainly an additional word - "Queues"!

Thus far, our strategy of get up early and walk to places seemed to be going well, so we tried the same thing. We arrived at the Vatican a little shy of 10am (okay, not that early in general, but early for a honeymoon) to find a queue that was three hours long! So, we decided to shell out an extra 40 Euros for a tour, cutting the queue down to 10 minutes! Woohoo! Our guide was a Catholic, and a historian, and was hilarious! She seemed to have managed to strike an excellent balance between her religious beliefs and her historical education, and really seemed to know what she was talking about. She talked us through the Sistine Chapel ceiling, before we went in because you're not allowed to talk inside, including some of the history behind how Michelangelo came to be the one painting it and the little jokes and digs at the Pope hidden within. In fact, we were really enjoying the stuff she was telling us until a starship came by, in a moment when our backs were turned, and transported her and the rest of the tour group completely out of comms range! Pants!

But, we'd gotten inside, so we just trundled around on our own from there! The art in the place is incredible, and I thought that the map room was superb! Amongst the maps was one of Venice, four hundred or so years old, and apparently Venice has changed so little in that time that you could actually still use it! Cool!

The only frustrating thing was that it seemed to take an eternity to reach the actual chapel, and by the time we'd gotten there, we'd been bumped, shoved, and generally disregarded by so many people that it somewhat took the shine off the place! That said, still one of the most incredible sights I have seen! The guide, before she was transported away, explained why we weren't allowed to take photos while we inside. I'd already guessed the first reason - Flash photography damaging the artwork, but I have to admit I was a little surprised at the second reason. Apparently, in the 1980s, a Japanese company paid for the restoration of all of the artwork, and as part of the deal they got to hold the copyright for all of the images! Bloody hell, how can anyway hold the copyright for the Sistine Chapel?? We were amazed!

Oh, just in case you were wondering what the funky copper ball is, it's a "sculpture" in a courtyard of the Vatican. If you're into such things, the outer ball is meant to represent the earth (duh), and the inner ball is meant to represent Christianity at the centre of it. Hmm.

Day 9 - Travelling to Positano
Left Rome today, and headed to Positano. We caught the train from Rome to Naples, and then a driver took us to Positano, which has to have some of the most spectacular views ever. The journey only took just over an hour, and we were on the EuroStar again. Very nice train! The driver who picked us up was lovely, and took us to a spot where we could get some fantastic photos of Positano. He was from Sorrento and recommended that we pay Sorrento a visit too. The hotel is gorgeous! We are staying in the Hotel Poseidon, and our room is really lovely, with it's own terrace. We also had champagne upon arrival (again!), so I feel thoroughly spoilt and relaxed. We had dinner in the hotel, as Positano is basically a vertical village, and we didn't feel like exploring for a restaurant today. The food was delicious, and we were given a free dessert 'to sample' in addition to the two we actually ordered, so we are loving Positano so far!

Day 10 - Having a rest
I seem to have done something to my shins - probably all the walking (I've never done so much exercise!) so Mike and I have had a do nothing day. We had breakfast out on our terrace, I read my book, and Mike took lots of pictures, particularly of a little lizard on the terrace. Mike also went on a bit of a wander of Positano, but I'm staying off my feet today, because my left shin is being a pain (literally), and it's got to get better - we're going to Pompeii tomorrow!

Pompeii

The most amazing day! Mike and I were picked up at about 9.30 and taken to Pompeii, where we met our personal guide. I felt very spoilt (again!). Pompeii was absolutely fantastic - the level of preservation is incredible, so you can really see how the people lived.

Pompeii isn't really that close to Mount Vesuvius (Sorry, being a geek again - Vesuvius is volcano that destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum). When the eruption occured, the wind was blowing in the direction of Pompeii, which meant that the tonnes of volcanic ash created by the eruption burried the town. There are still skeletons in Pompeii, with the outline of the bodies preserved because the ash formed a cast around them. The archeologists responsible for the restoration have used the casts to create impressions of the bodies as they were when they died, and you can see several of them as you walk around the site. There aren't any pictures of them here though, because we didn't take any - it didn't feel right somehow.

Mike was particularly impressed with the brothel system in Pompeii! Pompeii was a port town, and so it regularly had sailors arriving from various parts of the world. To allow for the different languages of the visitors, the sign directing you to the local brothel was pretty unmistakable (see the small image on the right)!
The brothel then had paintings above each bedroom depicting what service was available in each room, so I think Mike was a bit taken aback by the efficiency of the ancient Romans. And I've spent years telling him that Classics was an interesting subject!

Herculaneum

After we had been around Pompeii we went to Herculaneum, which is much closer to Mount Vesuvius and was essentially filled with lava when the eruption happened. It has been much more difficult to uncover than Pompeii, especially as a new town was built on top of it, but it is much better preserved. A large section of Herculaneum may never be discovered because of the modern buildings that were built on top of the solidified lava.

Many of the buildings are almost perfectly preserved in Herculaneum, as the town was not looted the way Pompeii was, so you can see the original mosaic flooring, and some of the gorgeous colours that were used to decorate the homes. Herculaneum was really the rich people's town, whereas Pompeii was more for the everyday types, so everything in Herculaneum is more colourful, more richly designed, and usually bigger.


The people who run the museum have made a lot of effort to replicate the foliage that would have been present when the eruption happened, so there is an actual lemon grove in one of the villa's gardens.

One of the things that fascinated Mike the most was the fast food places in both Pompeii and Herculaneum. The majority of Romans did not seem to cook very much, so these fast food places were very popular. You could stop, pick what you wanted from one of the large urns that were in the counter, pay for it and go. When the urns became too worn to keep, the shop owner would actually destroy the counter to remove the old urn and replace it. The whole day was so brilliant, and we had a fantastic time!

Days 12 & 13 - Recovering!

Day 12 - Major tummy explosion! Okay, so I definitely overdid the food, but it was worth it. Italian food is fantastic! So yes, some fairly large tummy swelling, so I curled up in the room for the day, and Mike kept me company. Although he did go for a bit of a wander during the afternoon.

Day 13 - Mike's turn to feel rough, as he had a migraine today. My turn for a bit of a wander, as I went down to the local pharmacy to get him some painkillers. Other than that, reading, enjoying the sun, and some serious relaxing.

We decided to just enjoy the day, so we relaxed and wandered down into Positano. Mike's lizard came out again, so yet more pictures were taken of him!

On our last day, Mike and I went down to the beach in Positano, and had lunch down there. Our flight wasn't until the evening, so we enjoyed our time by strolling around, playing cards, and Mike thrashed me at Scrabble. How exciting are we? We flew home from Naples (not an airport I would recommend!) and although the honeymoon was definitely fantastic, it was nice to get home. Plus, the wedding photos have arrived!