FYI, I’m planning to come back and add in pictures to these posts next week when we get home–we didn’t bring our computer here so we could travel light. We’ve taken over 200 already, so we have a LOT to download! I’m not keeping a journal, so this is my attempt to remember everything. So if dry travel recounting without pictures is not your cup of tea, come back next week.
We actually slept well last night. This morning a neighbor checking out of his room awakened us at 6:30. The walls are thin here.
We’re staying at Hotel Piemonte, where the Haneys stayed their last time in Rome. It’s a decent hotel, not fancy (we couldn’t afford more than two feet of floor space around the bed in this city!), but clean and convenient. The breakfast buffet was decent, too. I had nutella on a croissant and a salami sandwich; Derek had coffee yogurt.
We hit the streets early, riding bus 40 down to the Pantheon. Because it’s now a church, it was actually free to go in. I really liked it. After listening to the Rick Steves audio tour (downloaded for free to my ipod), we wandered down the block to a church with a Michaelangelo statue in it. It might be famous, but I didn’t know. I love that this city is so rich with culture that I can cluelessly wander into a church and see a Michaelangelo.
We were planning on morning things taking more time, but we strolled easily across the Tiber and arrived at Vatican City before 11–way earlier than we had expected! The line to get into St Peters was WAY long, and our tickets for the Vatican Museums were for 2pm, so we hung out the outside, got some so-so gelato, moseyed through a market north of the Vatican, and stopped for lunch at a restaurant Rick recommended. I had the best eggplant parmesan of my life.
We got into the Vatican museums at 1 (the lines had disappeared!), so we got our tickets early and started in. Laura S had told me that it’s incredibly big, but I hadn’t realized how big. I mean, I’ve been to most of the top museums in America, the Louvre, etc, but wow, there’s nothing like it. We just had to skim through things because there is SO MUCH and we were warned by several friends to save our energy for the Sistene Chapel. Unfortunately, there were about 500 tourist groups going through at the same time, so we were continually jostled, and the Raffael room with the School of Athens was so jam-packed that I just took a quick picture and escaped to breathe again.=( The Sistene Chapel is more amazing than you expect. We spent about half an hour in there, with the Rick Steves lecture, then craining our necks to get a glimpse of everything. I’m not exaggerating that there were 100s of people in there.
We took the “secret” side exit straight over to St Peter’s, which was still pretty full, but you hardly notice once you’re inside. We had a good, long look around and climbed 320 steps to the top of the dome. My legs will be screaming tomorrow, but the view was worth it! I hope our pictures sortof turn out. The view of Rome was amazing.
By this time it was about 5, and our feet were pretty tired. My Keens are amazing (thank you, Laura, for talking them up so I’d buy them), but still…I’m not usually on my feet like this! We got better gelato on the way back to the metro and came home for a little break before we head out to do a night walk across Rome, have pizza, and visit the Trevi fountain. If I have any energy left, I might blog about it tonight. Tomorrow we’re going to finish up Rome and head to Alvito!
you guys are really doing a lot! Can’t wait to see the pictures! And I don’t think the Sistene Chapel EVER has less than hundreds of people. But I hear you, we spent so little time in the Vatican museums b/c of claustrophobia instead of time! haha.
I am glad to hear that you are enjoying your trip!!
…and that your keens are serving you well. You definitely need a good pair of shoes to walk around Rome and to climb the 320 steps to the top of the dome. I actually did that 3 months after my first hip surgery (not recommended), but I wanted to say that I had done it.