Rome - The Vatican - Day 2

Day 2 in Rome was spent at the Vatican. It was a very full day! We got up around 9am and headed over to the Vatican on th subway. There are only 2 subway lines in Rome. One is N-S and the other E-W. They need more! After you get off at the Vatican subway stop, you still have a good 5-10 minute walk to St Peters Squre. We got there, looked around and then waited for our tour with Angel Tours to start. In the meantime I went and chached some. I was 1 for 2.

Our Irish tour guide took us through the Vatican Museum. Our first site was a courtyard lined with the same 3 pictures of the paintings in the Sistine Chapel. They do this so guides can explain what everthing is since once you get in the chapel, there is no talking (except the loud guards saying "shhhh..... quiet please". After our 20 minute description of all the awesome paintings by Michaelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, we saw a Globe that we were told represents the damage technology does to the world. There are apparently 7 of these things around the world. I translate that as the damage technology does to the authority of the stubborn Vatican. I need to look into this more when I have the time.

After the courtyard we were off to look at a bunch of sculptures, tapesties, old but accurate map paintings of Italy and finaly the Sistine Chapel. The Sistine Chapel was beautiful but I was a little ticked that Nikkon paid to have the paintings cleaned in the 90s and now owns the copyright to them. Rediculous!

St. Peters Basillica was next. It was nice and HUGE! They even have a partition in the middle to show the next largest church in the world. Show offs! There we saw 3 dead Popes (1 in bronze and the other 2 in wax) and even more paintings and sculptures. My favorite was the sculpture done for some pope by a protestant sculture. The vatican didn't find this out until he was almost done but when they did they said they would not pay him or give him credit. He got the last laugh though as he carved HIS face instead of the dead Popes in the statue. They said the storage area is used as broom closet now. I have a feeling that story was BS but it sure is a good one if not.

After the basillica, I headed up to the top of the dome. It was quite a climb but I had the time as Laura and Teresa accidentally left the secure area and have to go through security again. The view from the top was great, especially inside the dome and then the view of Rome from the top. Next we went to the catabombs below the church. They were not that great but we saw a lot of old dead popes tombs and some newer ones like the 33 day pope from the 70s and John Paul II. There were 2 guards as his in fact. Next we sent a few postcards from the Vatican state post office.

After that we left the Vatican heading for the Pantheon. We got off the subway as close as we could and ended up at the Spanish Steps. Not much exciting there. Had dinner at McD's (I know, lame, but it is supposed to one of the the biggest and7or nicest McDs ever). I had a Grecko sanwhich which was really a Greek pita but in hanburger form. It was decent. Love some cucumber sauce!

After dinner we made our way to Trevi Fountain. We stopped in for groceries on the way so we could have toast and jam for breakfast. The sun was setting by then too so we took some pictures and has some gelato to wait for the sun to set to see it at night. I took some good night pictures (I think at least). We then headed to the Pantheon which was closed at this point but still lit up.

After all that we walked the almost 1.5 miles home. Long day!