We Saw the Pope!

JUST KIDDING!

Today our plan was to visit the Vatican City. We purchased a 3-hour guided walking tour online this morning and hopped on an open-top tour bus to get to our destination (we sat on the top level and enjoyed the cool wind in the hot humidity). The tour buses are really cool because you can get off them at most any major site and get back on whenever.

Our bus tour with the lovely Electra up top

On top!

We got off the tour bus at St. Peter’s Basilica and found the tourism office that was the meeting point for the tour. When we arrived they asked us if we were students and we said yes (Electra was smart enough to warn me to bring my student ID just in case) because there was an additional price to get into the Vatican museums. This saved us 5 euros! So we had to pretend to be students all afternoon. They told us we had twenty minutes to spare before the tour started so we ended up walking around the block and found a quaint little bar. We ordered a liter of white wine that totally hit the spot, but turns out this is nearly six glasses total. Needless to say, with 15 mins to drink it all, we showed up at the tour feeling pretty good. We felt a little guilty walking into the Vatican slightly tipsy.

Our tour guide was from Florida and was quite the character – she was very informative and friendly and we really learned a lot. In order to enter the Vatican City you have to have your knees and shoulders covered which we knew beforehand so this wasn’t a problem. First we went to the Vatican museum and then the Sistine Chapel and finally St. Peter’s Basilica. The Vatican museum has so many rooms and artwork that if you were to look at each piece for 60 seconds, it would take 12 years to look at everything. Honestly, we barely saw everything it has to offer.

Janette our awesome tour guide at the start of the tour with St. Peter's Basilica behind her

Inside part of the museum

These floors endure about 26,000 visitors a day!

These look 3 dimensional but they are actually just 2 dimensional paintings

Everything that looks gold is actually real gold!

The Sistine Chapel was very very crowded but truly amazing and incredible. It was mind blowing. You have to be quiet in the room and the guards are constantly shushing people. This was one of the only rooms in the Vatican that had air conditioning. Apparently the Italians are not bothered by the heat, even indoors. Sadly you can’t take any pictures while this room but I promise we were actually there.

Lastly, we visited St. Peter’s Basilica, which is freaking ginormeous. There are Latin phrases at the top of the walls bordering the dome that are 6 feet tall but they do not look like it. Michelangelo was truly a genius.

Try to find the letters up high. Those are the ones that are 6 feet tall!

In order for a church to be a Basilica there needs to be some sort of remains of a saint. St. Peter is supposedly buried below this alter.

When the tour was over we found a place to get some gelato. We’ve only been here for two days and have had gelato every day and the plan is to continue doing this. So far we’ve tried tiramisu, pistachio, coffee, mint, and nutella. Pistachio is definitely been my favorite so far and I wish I could bring some back for you all. Then we hopped back on the tour bus to continue the tour.

Just after the tour, exhausted and ready for some gelato

We got off the bus at the Trevi Fountain station. After a short walk there we ran into quite the crowd, all visiting the fountain. It was SO busy that we decided to snap a few pics and then head back to the hostel (partly because we were so exhausted from walking all day). The fountain was the largest one we’ve seen so far but we didn’t get a chance to walk down to the water and throw a coin in. It was very beautiful though.

Trevi Fountain

This evening we bought a bottle of wine and drank a glass in the room with one of the girls sharing our hostel room. She’s studying abroad in London but she’s from New Hampshire and is super awesome. The three of us went out for pizza for dinner to a place recommended by the hostel front-desk guy. We ordered and split another liter of wine (this time red) bruschetta, proscuitto and mozzarella pizza, and a 4 formaggio pizza. Everything was incredibly delicious.

The restaurant: Disco Volante

Dinner with our new friend!

We’re now back at the hostel, sitting in the hallway typing this up because the other two girls are sleeping in the room. We considered taking a day trip to Florence tomorrow however it’s quite expensive plus there’s still so much more to see here. Tomorrow we plan on having a more relaxing day in Rome. Ciao!