Tue Oct 7, 2014

OK…just for disclosure purposes I have to get this bit of information out of the way right up front:

• We went to Italy for nine days.
• We ate everything in sight.  If it looked like Italian food, it got ingested.  If it had been Halloween, and small children were dressed like pizza, they would have been at risk.
• And we LOST weight.  Yes...I said LOST.  Muahahahaha!

I just wanted to say that now so that any hatred you may harbor towards us *may* possibly fade by the end of this trip report.

Of course we fretted non-stop over preparations.  One of these was to get sleep masks.  I kind of figured they would hand some out on the flight, but we bought our own just in case.  But they were boring, so I tricked mine out with some Homer Simpson eyes to give the flight attendants even more stuff to talk about:

As our flight didn’t leave until 8:45 at night, we stopped in South Beach for lunch (sounds so freakin’ cosmopolitan, doesn’t it?).  Note the wine…that would definitely be a common theme on this trip!

There’s our plane!!!  (OK sorry…I won’t add too many useless pics like this. But it was EXCITING!)

We tried our best to learn some Italian before the trip, which included common hand gestures and facial expressions:

Oh my…that’s a lotta miles…

Wed Oct 8, 2014 (flying TO Europe, you skip across time zones…we left US Tue night but landed in Italy after noon time the next day)

But hey…at least on the way THERE you pretty much just eat, then sleep, and after about ten hours you wake to this:

Not 100% sure but I think this is Corsica:

WizzAir.  Just sayin’…”When you gotta go, fly WizzAir”:

OK so the plan was to spend four nights in Rome, the train it south to Positano for four more nights, then hop the train back to Rome for the final night:

ROME!!!  Trastevere is on the west side of Rome, across the river Tiber.  This is the entrance to the first place we stayed, Hotel Santa Maria.  And yes, those are genuine copper pipes on the left.  You know…the same kind that would be stolen in a heartbeat in most places in the States. The little tray things attached to the wall are candles: