JoshnAngHadKatAndFisch: Italy

Thursday morning, we headed to the Vatican. Once again, we had unexpected traffic issues, but this time we were late for our reservation. By then we figured out Roman traffic slows everything down. We decided to just get in line which we had heard can be very, very long wait...a 2 hour wait was not unheard of. Well we ended up only being in line for about 20 minutes, I guess we didn't need the reservations anyway and it didn't cost us money so it ended up OK.

Heading to Vatican City

Angela in front of the Vatican City Wall

The Vatican Museum is HUGE! You could probably spend weeks in there before you saw everything. They have mandated a one way flow so that the crowds are somewhat controlled. So, like sheep, we walked through the various rooms at our own pace and saw everything. Even more so than Borghese Gallery, art was everywhere. It was all very impressive There were intricate painting on all of the ceilings, plenty of statues, and paintings. One room had large tapestries of Christian stories and another had large maps. Those were the most interesting to me. The last room you enter in the tour/maze is the famous Sistine Chapel. You were not allowed to take pictures in this room. It was cool to see in person the ceilings and learn more about what was involved in the process.

Vatican Museum

Tapestry in the Vatican

Ceiling in Maps room

Ancient Map

From there, we had lunch at Duecentogradi. They have delicious sandwiches! Probably the best sandwich I've ever had. We ordered the Monty sandwich with basil spread, sun-dried tomatos, mozarella and Proscuitto (italian raw ham) then had to wait for our number to be called. Angela, having taken a couple years of Italian at BYU, was able to understand when our number was called then answer the question he asked us after!

Next we headed to St. Peter's Basilica. When we saw the security line in the morning, it wrapped around St. Peter's square. I guess everyone else was taking a lunch break because we were able to walk right up to the security check and walk right in! St. Peter's is the largest church in the world! I don't know what else to say except it is big and ornate! Visiting the Vatican was a lot of fun and we got to see some great artwork.

Can you tell how huge it is?

Altar in St Peter's

Famous statue of Mary holding the crucified body of Christ. (It's behind bullet-proof glass)

We got through the things we wanted to see in Vatican City faster than we expected so we rode the metro to the National Museum of Rome. It also has a lot of sculptures like the Borghese Gallery, but most of them had pieces broken off. We were also able to see some of the tile floors and walls that were found during excavations in Rome. It was truly amazing the amount of artwork and detail Romans had just on their floors. I feel like this was our best day in Rome!

Vatican Guard

Discus statue

Side of a Roman bath

excavated tile floor

After the National Museum, we went gallivanting around some back streets on our own and ended up at the Spanish Steps. It was fun to just see what Rome was all about. Next, we explored more back areas and found a place for dinner. This was our favorite dinner in Rome. Angela got a pasta dish that included a herb sauce and fresh zucchini and I got Lasagna. Probably, the best Lasagna I have ever had. Dinners in Rome are interesting and very relaxing. First, they don't start until 7 pm. Once you sit down, they are pretty fast at getting you drinks and taking your order. From there, it takes a bit to get your food, which is good because it is home made. Once the food is delivered, they leave you a lone for quite a while. After dinner, they expect you to stay for wine/coffee/cappucino. Well, we weren't interested in the latter, so we usually had to flag a server down to get our bill. They always seemed a little surprised that we were leaving so soon.