Renee and I muscled up and took an eight nighter to the boot.  In summary, it was an amazing country, very relaxing vacation, and great time for her and I to just hang.  The trip consisted of four stops - Rome (2 nights), Florence (1 night), Cinque Terre (3 nights), Venice (2 nights). 

 

Rome - this was my favorite.  I am a history nut and love seeing "sites"; Rome is the most historic place I've ever seen and loaded my camera up with many amazing things to see.  My favorite spot was the Colliseum and the Forum.  It is hard to describe the feeling of walking around those places knowing the Casear himself did the exact same.   The food was incredible, in fact, every food we had the entire trip was legendary.  The first night in Rome was my favorite dinner - partially due to the food and partially due to the atmosphere (wine).  Renee and I tried hitting a club that night, but ended up at some strange Nazi recruit bar - so, needless to say, we left after one beer.  I wish I could find that taxi driver who dropped us off there in the middle of nowhere, so I could kick his head in.  We had to pay some citizen $40 to drive us home because no taxi we called was willing to drive in this area (btw - there was an Albanian rap concert going on in the streets).  Rome for us was the part where we did tons of walking and site seeing.

 

Florence - we hadn't planned on seeing Florence, but after seeing so much of Rome we did a day in a half; I'm very glad we did.  This was a nice city; much smaller than Rome.  We took it easy and toured the city, shopped, and had great food.  We spent the evening drinking a bottle of wine on the steps of Michaelangelo's plazza. The next morning, we woke up early to wait 1.5 hours in line to see Michaelangelo's David.  This was a spectacular piece of art - probably the most amazing I've seen (duh).  I was surprised, as I'm not much on Art, at how impressed I was.

 

Cinque Terre - basically five fishing villages tucked into mountains and in a National Park along the Italian Riviera, this was a beautiful experience.  We took this time very easy and relaxed (even enjoyed long massages on our room's terrece looking over the Mediteranian Sea.  This is where we splurged on the hotel and had a 15 ft long private deck/terrece hanging over the sea.  The place was insanely beautiful and we found ourselves constantly comparing it to Hawaii (the most beautiful place on earth).  We did some hiking, lots of beaching, lots of food, and a ton of wine.  These three days were very relaxing and a great transition from Rome/Florence to Venice.

 

Venice - prior to the trip, I didn't see myself enjoying this place much and assumed it was a quick stay; I found out quickly, however, that I was far from on target with my assumption.  Venice was Renee's favorite spot and, in my eyes, is so unique and lovely that it is a must stop for anyone in Italy.  We enjoyed every second in Venice and was simply amazed by the coolness of the layout and structure of the canal infected city.  It was a great end to the trip as we simply relaxed by walking around, shopping for art and Venetian glass jewelry, and eating/drinking wine.  We spent both nights pouring ourselves bottles of Champagne in St. Marc's square and dancing in the plazza (similar to the lame Jewelry commercials) to the dualing battles of the bands.

 

I am extremely happy that we made the move to do this trip and couldn't think of anywhere else I would have rather been.  We loved every single minute and did the trip "right".  I encourage everyone to visit and ask us or others for their thoughts.

 

Check out my photo gallery for more pictures on the trip!