The FREE $25,000 Vacation Part 5

Our bags still did not show up before we left Venice for Rome which was horrible, so we had to coordinate our plans in Rome to attempt to get our bags from the Rome airport. This was especially time sensitive considering we were leaving on a two week cruise in 72 hours, and considering how poorly US Airways had handled the bags up until this point we were extremely nervous!! However, this gave us a chance to do some more shopping (courtesy of US Airways, or at least it will be when they pay us back). Once we landed in Rome Maria encouraged us to take the train to our hotel, which I will NEVER do again, the Wes Melcher approach would have been to take a cab. Dragging all of Jeff’s and Maria’s bags were bad enough going through the subway, and then walking 3 miles it seemed like to our hotel was absolutely AWESOME (NOT)! I just listened to Maria because she is from a town just outside of Rome, and I figured “When in Rome” we stayed at the Westin Excelsior in Rome, which once again was an amazing hotel. This is one of the reasons I love the Starwood Brand. They always have great service, and they have GREAT beds!! Rome was the typical tourist adventure for us, although we all did a TON of shopping because of the great high end Italian designer stores. We started off with the Spanish Steps, and the Trevi Fountain which are two of the can’t miss stops on the Rome checklist. Jeff actually got into the Trevi Fountain, and I am not sure that is legal so I of course acted like I didn’t know him. This is something you have to be prepared to do sometimes with Jeff! We went to an AWESOME restaurant that night which became my favorite of the trip. The had the absolute BEST LASAGNA in the history of Italian food ever!! I proceeded to eat it three more times on the trip, which probably wasn’t the most adventurous of an eating experience, but why try something you don’t know if you will like, when you have already found your favorite!!!

Watch out for more photos and crazy stories,
Wes Melcher