*sniff sniff* Last Day in Rome

Today was St. Peter's Day! We visited the Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basillica and it was phenomenal. Again, we had a gorgeous day to walk around and take it all in. I had such good intentions of getting up early and running this morning before breakfast, but knowing we'd have to walk the whole way across the city to the Vatican and also the creaking my knees did when I got out of bed this morning told me it was not to be. Eh well... Good call Jamie on packing the Alieve!

So, we started out kind of wandering in the general direction of the Vatican. It was far, and it took us about an hour to get there.
On the walk over... St. Peter's and the Tiber River.

We stood in awe of St. Peter's Square for a while and tried to figure out the weird lines. They don't let you book tickets ahead of time so you have to sometimes stand in super long lines that last up to 3 hours or so.


We'd heard if you enter the museum around 1 you don't usually have to wait in any lines (which was sooo true, but I'll get to that then...) We started with St. Peter's Basilica, the largest church in the world (which is free to enter and gawk at) It was amazing.


Impressive... and we loved the marble everywhere in Italy, though St Pete's takes the cake.


Stained glass window and ridiculous gold adornment - at the very back of the church. The dove is 7 ft tall...wow.

It's built overtop of the remains of Peter, who was the first Pope, appointed by Jesus. Michelangelo did some work on it and it is literally stuffed full of beautiful marble, statues, frescoes and TOURISTS! :) Despite its size, it seems small and cozy, because they've built it to feel small and intimate. For instance, the main altar is covered with a little thinger (I don't know what it'd be called.) It's 7 stories tall. I can't fathom this fact from looking at it - it seemed no taller than like 25 feet.


Again, the Rick Steve's audio tour was totally helpful. We also saw the statue of St. Peter, one of the few remaining original statues from "Old St Peter's" church (which "new" and gigantic St. Peter's was built overtop of.) All of the paintings are actually tiles because you can see the designs better that way.

Michelangelo's Pieta - which means Pity, shows Mary holding Jesus off the cross and is really famous (behind bullet proof glass, and with a ton of ppl hording around it, that's how you know!) It was really beautiful and moving...


After standing in awe of the Basillica for a while, we headed back out to the Square to eat our lunch (obv mozzarella and tomato sammies) and learn more about the square itself.


Then we hit the Vatican Museum at 1pm, and...NO line! It was fabulous, esp bc it was about a 15 min walk from the square and it apparently extends the *whole way* some days. No thank you!

The Museum was overwhelming, and part of me still wishes we'd either bought the audio guide or done a guided tour bc there's *so much* stuff that it's impossible not to miss something important. Eh well, it was still very impressive and interesting. Lots of statues (with the important parts covered w/ fig leaves, bc of one pope somewhere along the way being offended by Rennaisance um...exposure.)


The best part in our opinion, and the part that was worth the $$ to enter the museum was the Sistine Chapel. It was absolutely as good as you think it'd be. It took him 4 years to paint the ceiling, and he did it on scaffolding *standing* and looking up. After doing that for a half hour to appreciate the Chapel, I can see what a toll that'd take on you...Though you weren't supposed to take pics, we sure did!!



We leisurely strolled back to Rome and to kill time before meeting Amy and Chad for dinner, we grabbed a bottle of wine and hung out by the Pantheon. So cool!

We met Chad & Amy by the Trevi Fountain (with tons of ppl, shocking) and threw our penny in so that we'd one day return to Rome.



IDK what's up w/ my face...


And...Scott had to "hike" it football style, I think it was the wine talking though!


We grabbed dinner at this place called Profano e Sacro (like profane and sacred) which was in an old church - it was a really neat ambiance and fun to "double date" in Italy! The food was very different from the other places we'd eaten (unforch no Caprese salad..)


Then...gelato! Duh.



We ended up sharing a taxi with them to the airport the following morning as well. Though, that's a story for another day!!

(sigh) We had such a fabulous trip, we so did not want to leave. There is so much to see and do in Rome and I feel like we could have used another 3 days. And we most definitely want to return and do the southern part of the country like Napoli, Capri and the Amalfi Coast, etc. It's such a beautiful and fun country to visit.