Hotel Sant'Angelo Review

We stayed at Hotel Sant'Angelo for two nights.  We actually booked through Hotels.com.  It was in a great location near Vatican City but not too far away from the Colosseum/Forum area.  The staff was incredibly helpful and friendly.  The room was clean and actually really nice.  It was decorated with antiques and had kind of a castle vibe.  They had free breakfast but we had to leave really early both days we were there so I can't say how that is.  

There is honestly actually only one bad thing I can say about this hotel.  The shower in our bathroom was tiny.  I'm only 5'3 and 110 pounds.  I could barely move in the shower.  I had to do some impressive acrobatics just to be able to shave my legs.  And some SUPER impressive acrobatics when I accidentally dropped my razor!  I have no idea how Philip was even able to wash himself in that shower (he's 6'0 and 175 pounds).

Pros: Clean, Great Location, Friendly Staff, Good Vibe, Free Breakfast

Cons: Tiny Shower

Even though showering in the morning was a hassle, I still give this hotel a 4 out of 5.  I'd definitely recommend it.  Just keep that tiny shower in mind if you're a large person! 

Hotel H2C Review

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We stayed at the H2C Hotel Napoli for two nights.  It was probably one of my favorite parts of Naples!  The hotel was CLEAN, unlike the rest of the city.  It's actually a four star hotel, but I'm not really sure why.  Yes, it was clean and modern, but it was the same size or even smaller than some of the rooms we stayed in.  

One issue I had was with the cleaning lady walking in on us at about 5:00pm.  No knocking or anything.  She just walked in like it was her room.  She got a good look at Philip's bare bottom.  We had checked in hours earlier, so I don't know what she thought she was doing.  It irritated me a bit.  

Pros:  Clean, Modern, Good Breakfast, Nice Restaurant

Cons:  It's in Naples, Security?

I'd give the hotel a 3.5 out of 5.  It was clean and relatively comfortable.  The staff was mediocre at best.  The food was good.  If you absolutely have to stay overnight in Naples, I'd recommend this hotel.  However, I really recommend that you choose a different city to stay in!

Hotel San Salvador Review

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We stayed at Hotel San Salvador for one night.  It was really easy to find (down an alleyway by the Disney store right behind the Rialto Bridge).  The people were incredibly friendly and helpful.  And, for the most part, they spoke excellent English.  

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The room was just okay.  It was seriously outdated and barely had room for a person to walk around the bed.  The bathroom was tiny.  There was mold in the room and in the bathroom.  So, it definitely wasn't as clean as I would have preferred.  The bed was actually two twin beds put together on a king size frame.  It wasn't very comfortable because I kept sliding into the crack or the edge of the bed would protrude and end up being an uncomfortable lump.

Pros: Friendly Staff, Great Location

Cons: Mold/Unclean, Small, Uncomfortable

Honestly, we didn't spend that much time in this hotel room.  There's so much to do and see in Venice that I don't think you really need a super nice hotel.  So, I still recommend this hotel.  I give it a 3 out of 5.  It's easy to find and in a great location.  That's really what I wanted out of our Venice hotel.  

Hotel Merlini Review

We stayed at Hotel Merlini for one night.  It is only a one star hotel, but it had excellent reviews on Trip Advisor, so we booked it anyway.  

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Upon arriving, I was seriously disappointed.  We had to go up to the fourth floor with all of our luggage but there was no elevator.  So, this hotel is not for the disabled.  

When we were able to check in, I was a bit annoyed.  We were on our honeymoon but the room that we were given had just 3 twin beds.  I felt like I was in a college dorm again.  However, the room was very clean and spacious.  The bathroom looked like it had recently been renovated.  It was beautiful and was large by Italian standards.  The staff was incredibly helpful and very friendly.  And, the hotel actually had very good wifi.  

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Overall, I was okay with the hotel.  That is, until that night.  There is no air conditioning in the hotel.  That seemed okay because it was a relatively cool night.  We opened the window and it let in a nice breeze.  However, it let in all of the noise from the street below as well.  During the day, the street was so quiet.  Apparently it really comes alive at night.  I don't think I slept more than 2 hours that night.  And I'm not a light sleeper at all!  It was absolutely awful.  

Pros: Clean, Large Room, Nice Bathroom, Friendly Staff, Good WiFi

Cons: No Elevator, No Air Conditioning, NOISE, No Breakfast

Honestly, I don't really know what to give this hotel.  It's very clean and nice, but we were mostly using the hotel for sleeping and "honeymooning" and it wasn't really very good for either of those things.  

If it hadn't been for the noise, I probably would have given this hotel a 3.75 out of 5.  With the noise, it goes down to a 1 or 2.  So, if you're staying in the summer, don't stay here.  If you're staying in the winter, it's worth a shot.  However, if you're staying with a partner that you'd like to actually sleep in the same bed with, make sure you say so explicitly!

Arrivederci, Roma! On to Firenze!

[I took a ton of photos.  I'm not going to post them all here.  If you'd like to see the rest of the photos, please see my whole album HERE.]

The following morning, we had breakfast at our hotel and then headed off to the train station to catch our train to Florence.  Unfortunately, we had a ton of difficulty finding a taxi.  This wasn't the only time that this was a problem.  We ended up having to walk all the way to Stazione Termini.  It was a 20-25 minute walk on cobblestone sidewalks with each of us dragging a large suitcase and a small suitcase.  And, it was over 80 degrees outside.  It was not pleasant.  

But, we eventually arrived.  And then we had to figure out how the system worked.  It took a bit of time, but we finally found our train and boarded.  Our train was fantastic.  Italy has these super fast, really nice trains that I highly recommend.  They're the Freccia trains.  I'd advise staying away from the other trains (the intercity especially).  

Anyway, our train ride wasn't very long -- I think about an hour.  It was actually relaxing after all the walking we'd been doing.  I spent the time reading and resting.  

When we arrived in Florence, we had to drag our luggage to our hotel.  It was supposed to be only about a block away.  Well, we asked directions from an Italian woman and she said she knew exactly where it was and then proceeded to give us the wrong directions.  So, we spent half an hour dragging our heavy luggage all over Florence.  We finally found the hotel and realized that it was on the 4th floor.  With no elevator.  I was exhausted and my foot was killing me.  I had stubbed my toe pretty bad the day before and it was screaming at me.  

We dragged our luggage upstairs but our room wasn't ready yet.  They let us store our luggage there while we did some sightseeing in the city.  We grabbed some lunch and then toured the Uffizi.  It was actually pretty boring. There are really only so many paintings of the Virgin Mary that I can look at.  Also, no pictures allowed.  :(

After that, we mostly wandered around and then checked into our hotel.  We rested for a little while and then went out to dinner.  

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We went to Trattoria Nerone.  It was the best restaurant that Philip and I went to the entire time we were in Italy.  The atmosphere was wonderful.  The service was fantastic.  The decor was definitely unique.  And the food was incredible.  It gets a 5 out of 5 from me.  

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We started off with delicious bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  Then we had a caesar salad.  It was the most delicious caesar salad that I've ever tasted.  Philip agrees with me.  It was that fantastic.  Then I had gnocchi in a creamy sauce and Philip had fettucini alfredo.  Both delicious.  And for the second course (which I wasn't up to with my queasy tummy), Philip had balsamic chicken.  I had a bit of that and it was fantastic, too.  Everything that I put in my mouth at this restaurant was just awesome.  

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Unfortunately, I couldn't enjoy it completely.  The sandwich I had eaten earlier made me sick.  I was only a little queasy by the time we went to dinner, but later I was pretty ill.  Of course, Philip wanted to try the Gelateria in Florence that was supposed to be the best in all of Italy.  We found it on our map and started walking that direction.  

It was Gelateria Vivoli.  Philip got chocolate, strawberry, and banana.  It tasted like a banana split.  It was very good.  Philip stands by his opinion that it's the best gelato that he had while in Italy.  And believe me, he tried a LOT of gelato while we were there!  

The view from our hotel room.

Then we walked back to the hotel.  I was feeling pretty bad by that point so I tried to go to sleep.  Unfortunately, there was no air conditioning in our hotel, so we had to keep the windows open.  The breeze made the room comfortable, but it was SO noisy outside that I didn't sleep much at all.  I swear, there were trash trucks picking up trash at 2am.  No joke.  And there were loud drunks yelling down the streets all hours of the night.  It was impossible to sleep.  Not good when you're already not feeling well.  Philip gave up on sleep and started watching the baseball game on his phone (the hotel had great wifi service).  

I knew that it was going to be a long tomorrow!  But, at least we had Venice to look forward to!  :)

Hotel Fori Imperiali Cavalieri Review

We stayed at Hotel Fori Imperiali Cavalieri for two nights.  The room and the bathroom were very clean.  The bedroom was really small, but to be expected in Rome.  The bathroom was actually really big by Italian standards.  

Pros: Clean, quiet, decent breakfast, great location

Cons: Uncomfortable bed, somewhat difficult to find, terrible wifi

On the whole, I'd say I give this hotel a 4 out of 5.  The bed wasn't great, but we weren't spending a whole lot of time in the hotel anyway.  My only real irritation was the wifi access.  It was terrible.  You have to basically stand on your head and wiggle your toes just right in order to get even a bar of service.  And that was with the wifi adapter thing right outside our door!  But, it wasn't a huge dealbreaker for us.  I just wanted to be able to tell my family that I was still alive.  :)  

This was taken from the roof of the hotel (they have a dining area up there).  The stone building you see with the arch windows -- that's the Colosseum.  

If you stay here, make sure you pay attention to where the hotel is before you wander off.  It can be tricky to get back to (it's a series of alleyways).  But, you can actually see the Colosseum from the roof of the hotel and it takes only a few minutes to walk there.  I'd definitely stay here again.  

Leaving on a Jet Plane!

I wasn't really sure how to start of, so I'm just going to pick up on the morning after the wedding (I can't wait to get the pro photos back so that I can do the recaps!).  

Anywho, we stayed at the Comfort Inn & Suites on our wedding night.  We thought we'd wake up with plenty of time for breakfast (it is served from 7 to 10am), but we were wrong.  We went to bed around midnight but we didn't wake up until 10:45am -- only 15 minutes before check out!  We quickly got our stuff together and checked out.  Then we drove back to Dave & Melisa's house (our reception site) to gather all of our luggage for the trip.  We also took showers and printed our boarding passes.  

Then, we headed over to Philip's Nanny & Pappy's house so that they could drive us to the airport.  However, because of the flooding in recent weeks, the route that our GPS was trying to take us was out of the question (there were bridges out).  So, we had to drive around in Amish country until our GPS figured out a new way to get there.  We arrived at their house a wee bit late, but it was okay in the end.  It took less time to get to the Philadelphia airport than we had thought it would.  

Philadelphia Airport  (Source)

We drove right up to the international terminal and found the U.S. Airways entrance.  Easy peasy.  Then we hugged Nanny and Pappy goodbye and dragged our luggage into the airport. We dropped our luggage off at one of the self-check-in booths and then headed up the stairs to security.  Security there was very simple.  The line was fairly long (it started even before the stairs started), but it took less than 20 minutes to get through.  

Then we made our way to our gate to wait almost two hours for our plane to take off.  We checked email and, of course, Facebook.  I read for a while and Philip checked on baseball stuff.  Soon, it was time to board.  The boarding process took forever and, of course, we did not take off on time (I can't tell you the last time I was on a plane that actually took off on time).  

Then, we spent over 8 hours in the air.  I read for a little while and tried to get as much sleep as possible (we were arriving in Italy at 8:30am).  I wanted to be rested.  Well, that's impossible on a plane, but I tried my darndest and managed a few hours of rest.  We also watched Something Borrowed -- I don't recommend it.  

Soon, we were being fed breakfast and then it was time to land.  The landing was smooth.  We exited the plane and were herded through the airport.  Apparently they no longer stamp your passport in Italy.  Total bummer.  

We paid to have our hotel pick us up from the airport.  Well, our driver wasn't waiting for us when we arrived at the baggage claim.  We wandered around for probably 20 minutes before we finally found him.  I think he was late and just pretended he was there the whole time.  He drove us out of the airport and I got my first taste of just how dangerous riding in a car in Rome can be (it's terrifying!).  

He dropped us off at our hotel and then we checked in.  Our hotel room was already ready, so we took our luggage upstairs and cleaned up a bit before wandering out to see the beautiful city that is ROMA!