The Italy Wedding Experience. Chapter 2

The Italy Wedding Experience

Sunday

A Day by Day Account

Soooo, now that we had had a restful night sleep, in separate rooms mind you, and after the prior days craziness, we decide to go out and visit Rome.  And wow is there so much to visit. 

We started out the morning first off with breakfast.  Now let me tell you that if you like Prosciutto, then Italy is the place for you.  If you like free prosciutto, then the hotel breakfast buffet is defiantly a must.  They serve it like its bagels, and as much as you can fit in to your pie hole.  I love that stuff and ate it like it was my last breakfast.  

What defiantly caught my eye is the orange juice, or at least that’s what I thought it was.  It was a strange kind of juice and I am not sure what it was, but it was good. 

Carrie could not wait to get herself a cappuccino and she LOVED it.  I also tried it and it was amazing.  Just like in the movie, “Hudson Hawk”, she finally got her cup of joe.  

Now fully stuffed from breakfast, we headed out into Rome.  I decided to take my Nikon D300 and a few lenses.  The equipment, which was lent to me by my good friends Mary Waldrop and Brandie Williams, was perfect for this trip.   I did not have the money to rent this equipment and they graciously let me borrow it.  All in all I say I had around $10,000 in camera stuff which made me a little nervous, but thought that I might should put it to good use while I was here.   I took the  12-24mm, the 85mm 1.4 and the 80-200mm f2.8.   I soon learned in the days that followed, all I would end up taking out with me was the 12-24mm as it gave the best results.  I wanted to be able to show my friends and family, exactly what I saw and that lens did the job.  It’s a wide-angle lens but with no real fish eye effect.  It was perfect.  It also made my backpack light, as I was not taking all those other lenses around with me. 

So back to Rome… we were off to see the sights. One of the most important things that I wanted to see was the Roman Colosseum.  I remember seeing it on the History channel and in books and I could not wait to see it in person.  I was so excited.  So off we went and let me explain something.  When you see the Colosseum in person, it is an amazing site.   There you are standing in front of one of the oldest structures created by man.   What’s more amazing is that it is still standing.  Man the Roman’s can build.

Here are some pictures.

 This is a panoramic that I made out of 6 or so images.

 This is an archway just outside the Colosseum.  You can see the Colosseum in the background to the right.

After that we headed to the Imperial Fora which is across the street.  We had paid for a guided tour (might have been a rip off but we were American tourist and know no better).  That was so neat to see those old structures.  The Fora construction was started by Julius Caesar.  (check this Wikipedia site for more info:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_fora )

Here is the Fora.

 This is a picture of some of the many fountains were you can fill your water bottle.  You can't just get a glass of water in a restaurant, you have to buy it in bottles.  You keep the bottle and fill them up all around the city.  The water is very clean and I never got sick from it. 

 Here is where one of the Caesar would hold private games and such in the Imperial Fora.  I can't remember the name of the particular Caesar but he was a private man and did not like to be in public, so he had this built to have private displays.

 Check out the trees.  So cool

 This was a market place.   Look how tall the ceilings are.

During the day we visited some museums and stuff (can’t remember their names) and ate lunch atop a hill overlooking the fora.  After lunch, we needed to use the restroom.  Quick note…there are no public “free” restrooms in Italy.  There are these bathrooms that are unisex and it works like this.  You go in, use the restroom then pay some guy at the door.  Basically you give him a tip.  So we did and man he was not happy with the tip.  He rattled off some insult in Italian and of course, being Spanish, I fired back in Spanish.  I think he understood what I said cause he did not say much after that. 

Anyway back to the beauty of Rome.  We walked the streets and found ourselves at the Trevi Fountain.  WOW.  How does someone go about building something like this.  Where do you even start.   Anyway, it was crowded but we managed to get a couple of photos.

The Fountain Photos.

At this point we are a bit tired but we needed to see one more thing.  The Spanish Steps.  Not really sure what they are about but I know of them and was not leaving without seeing them.  We got there and got some photos.   Really cool.  Its just a thing in Italy to just relax and hang out.  There were so many people just sitting and eating lunch and being mellow. 

Here is a photo of it.

We passed by a wine shop during the day to get a bottle of “Vino” for my in laws who were kind enough to watch my two kids while we were off “globe trotting”.  It was a quaint shop with lots of wine.  All sorts of wine, local wine that you can’t get here in the states.  I’m not sure if I mentioned this or not but you cant the wine in Italy does not contain sulfates.  Sulfate is an additive to preserve the wine.  So a lot of local wines that you by, that do not contain sulfates, are meant to be consumed in 12 months.  It also makes the wine taste different if it does not contain sulfates.  It taste better. 

After a long day of being out on the road pounding the pavement, we headed back to the hotel.  Since they had messed up our rooms and had put us in two separate rooms, they made up for it by giving us a free dinner at their hotel restaurant.  The food was to die for. 

We ate, and then we crashed.  Our first full day in Rome was through and we were tired.  We went to our separate rooms (I know, romantic right?) and went to sleep. 

Alex Aleman
"capturing life perfectly"

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*All Photos Copyright by Alex Aleman*