Tuesday, Apr. 25 (week 14 / day 93) Vatican City

Vatican City Tour

Mmmm, how to describe this... Do you remember the Grand Palace in Bangkok? The Vatican Tour wasn't the hot, sweaty, intense, pushing-through-the-entrance crowd experience, but more of a longer (2 hour), low-grade intensity, waddle-through-the-halls crowd experience. More sophisticated I guess but I can't decide which was worse. Well, The Vatican does offer must-see Renaissance art & architecture that somewhat compensates for the mass-tourist effect.

In the Vatican, they take you through a maze of the museum's many rooms, hallways, staircases & bottleneck doorways. I think we walked about a mile before we got to the Sistine Chapel! Our guide's English was mediocre & with her thick Italian accent she was difficult to understand. By the end of the tour I pulled the audio bud from my ear & just planned to google it later.

On the other hand, Cannon didn't get lost in the Thailand crowd experience! Yes, we had to stop our Vatican guide so we could swim upstream to find Cannon. He lost us in the crowded room with Rafeal's The School of Athens. He was composed enough to just stay where he was & had thought about asking a worker but didn't know if he spoke English. When we got to him he burst with emotion & held Stacia tight for several minutes.

Back with the tour group, we moved forward into the Sistine Chapel & were given 10 minutes to look around (push through the hordes) & meet her on the other side of the room. We worked our way to the center platform, stood for 5 minutes trying to admire Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam on the ceiling, The Last Judgment on the wall behind the altar & the dozen biblical paintings along the side walls. They don't allow any photos or videos in the Sistine Chapel but Sydney took a few from waist high pointing up at the ceiling.

Part of the crowd problem was apparently due to it being a national holiday, their independence day of sorts I think. We finally got out & headed to the Basilica...

Stacia explaining that we already have tickets

the prepaid tour at least got us out of waiting in this line!

just about to enter the Vatican

our not-so-English-fluent Italian tour guide

Cannon & the "Death Star" sculpture in the Vatican Museum courtyard

Rafael's The School of Athens

the front entrance to St. Peter's Basilica 

looking out onto the cathedral's plaza

Cannon pulled off this smile pretty well

Sydney, Carley & Kyra in front of Bernini's...



waiting outside St. Peter's Basilica



the famous Swiss Guards



one last pic with St. Peter's Basilica, Cannon somewhat reluctant

Lost in Rome

After getting freed from our tour group we leisurely walked across the plaza & found a cafeteria style café & had a variety of pasta dishes. We didn't have a specific plan for seeing other sites in Rome but we wanted to locate the meeting point for the night tour...

sweet gelato

Kyra: "My new favorite thing is eating gelato on the steps of some old cathedral."

Time to go Home (Rome Home)

Ok, to jump ahead a little for those waiting. After 2 hours of walking from the Vatican through central Rome, we were finally approaching the Colosseum, not to go in, but to get on the metro to home! Cannon was struggling with his smiles & evidently his steps as we turned around when he yelped & found him flat on his belly. He didn't even try to get up. He just laid there & wimpered until we helped him up. He was exhausted! A rough day for a 7-year-old from the Vatican to the Colosseum! We took turns carrying him to the metro. We have a kids tour booked at the Colosseum on Thursday morning...

right after Cannon's splat on the ground (Colosseum in backround)