We practically run there because yes we are running late and thought it would be a quick walk, it's just down the street from the Castel d' Angelo which is across the street from us. How ever not such a short hike with coffee and milk sloshing in your belly. We make it there right at 9:15am as they are getting ready to start..YES! Our tour guide is Andre who is an italian. He really knows his stuff. We start the tour on the outside of the walls of the vatican. He explained that the Vatican is a country on it's own with it's own government, police and fire department, and laws. So we technically are crossing the border to another country.
St. Peter's Basilica
Mary Holding Jesus's body after he was taken off of the cross
The inside and up in the dome of St. Peters Basilica
The Holy Door
The Outside of St. Peters Basilica
St. Peter's Square
Adam's Octopus Salad
This was our restaurant
As we are all standing there, in our group, getting ready to cross the street to the entrance in, some guy with a tour company comes up to me and says if your looking for a tour group we have an english one leaving in a few minutes. I look in front of me and behind me and then say" Dude...I'm in a tour group right now!" Adam is laughing hysterically by now because I always have this lost, confused, and enthralled look on my face in this city. Adam then tells me it's a wonder I even made it home while out and about by myself. I really need to invest in a hat or dye my hair brown again! But I digress...we enter and get started on the tour. We see the basic layout of the vatican and then go to see some gardens and go down to where they store all the horse drawn carriages and some of the retired pope mobiles.
Then we head through the museums and see a lot of Fresco's and statues. Some made by Raphael, Bernini, and Michelangelo. Other statues were very significant because they are original greek statues that both Michelangelo and Raphael used as they were learning to paint people in 3D. They were amazing, the detail work 2000 years ago is awesome!
We are getting close to the sistine chapel and inside there are no pictures or talking allowed. So they have pictures on large post boards outside that discuss everything so your tour guide can explain it all before you go in.
The chapel is unbelievable!! The detail and color is gorgeous. One funny story is that Biagio da Cesena, the Pope's master of ceremonies, was complaining about the nudity of all the men and women so Michelangelo got even by painting his face on Mino's body in the damned area, gave him donkey ears and has a snake wrapped around him biting his ummm.. manly parts.
Next we moved onto St. Peter's Basillica. This church was gorgeous on the inside. The ceiling was amazing and enormous. There is so much history and I know we only got a tidbit of it. There were lots of statues in it along with more fresco's. we got to see what we would call the pulpit where the pope gives his sermons. we also got to go down into the tomb area and see many of the popes's tombs. St. Peter is also buried underground as well. He is right under a picture of Jesus. No pictures were allowed in there also. When we finally finished it was almost 2pm and we were starving.
St. Peter's Basilica
Our breakfast at 8am was far gone at this point. We walked back towards our B&B and went up a side street to find an awesome little restaurant tucked back away from pretty much everything. I got another melon and pruscuitto salad and adam got an octopus salad which he really really liked. Their homemade pasta was also amazing. Adam got a swordfish pasta and I stuck to a traditional red sauce with eggplant.
The Melon and Pruscuitto salad
After sitting for awhile we decided to go shopping together. We both had our hearts set on getting one leather item from italy that we would be able to keep forever. We walked up Via Del Corso in and out of shops. I was showing Adam a lot of the side streets as well. Finally close to Piazza del Popolo I found a great shoe store and purchased some really awesome...half-off, grey Italian leather boots. Ummm of course I would get shoes =) we crossed the piazza and walked over to what we thought was a market...it was like the stolen stuff/ crap market but adam and I were able to get adam some, possibly stolen, Ray Ban sunglasses for a mexican price. Adam didn't find anything yet, but we still had a day and a half to look.
We walked back, cleaned up, and headed out to dinner. Tonight was supposed to be something recommended, but we were so tired from our day that I wanted something close, so we did a very touristy thing. We found a restaurant right in front of the Pantheon. We had a light dinner with salads and shared a pizza. We weren't as impressed with the food as other places off the beaten path but the view was outstanding. The pantheon lit up at night is a huge wow factor. We ate and relaxed as people played music for tips till probably 12:30 and then headed home for bed.
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