July 1: Rome, The Vatican museum, Sistine chapel, & St. Peter's Basillica

We packed up and left our room this morning, stopping at the BeeHive reception to leave our bags while we went to explore, and to have some breakfast in their little underground cafe. 

 

Good bye, teeny tiny room.

Waiting for the little elevator which we entirely filled with our bags and ourselves.

 

 

 

After breakfast we took the metro to Vatican city (the third country we visited on this trip 😉), where we took a guided tour of the Vatican Museum, the Sistene Chapel and St. Peter's Basillica. The lines to get into the Vatican museum stretched far down the street and it would have taken hours to get in without a tour. Even with the tour we had to wait a half hour to get to the door an another half an hour for security and to collect our audio headsets to listen to our guide. 

In all of our trip so far this is where we have seen the most amount of people crammed into one space. 

Apparently the Pope has declared a special year of Jubilee so there are countless numbers of pilgrims visiting Vatican city now, above and beyond the normal rush of summer travelers. 

The museum sights were breathtaking. I feel like you could spend all day in each hallway and still not get enough. 

The floors, walls, and ceilings are works of art in and of themselves, covered with mosaics, frescos, and tapestries. 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

This is a modern art sculpture in the courtyard garden. It is a sphere within a sphere. It symbolizes our soul within our body. With a slight push our guide started it slowly spinning. It was beautiful. 

The Sistene chapel was amazing. I wanted to lie on the floor for a full day to take it all in. We weren't allowed to take pictures though. 

Next we walked through St. Peter's Basilica. Wow! It is the largest basillica in the world and more inpressive than most museums. It was like a dozen beautiful cathedrals in one. 

 

 

 

So many people!

 

In front of the basillica. 

 

The famous swiss guards. Body guards of the pope. 

After leaving the Vatican we took the metro back to the hostel and collected our bags and then had a quick bite to eat at the train station before leaving for Florence. 

We took the high speed Italo train which got there in an hour and 20 minutes at a speed of over 160 mph. 

We took a bus a short ways to find our air b&b. It is a nice apartment with 3 guest rooms. We have one room and a private bathroom; there is a living room and kitchen that are shared by all guests. 

After a rest and a shower we headed out to a nearby trattoria to get dinner and watch the Euro Cup game between Wales and Belgium. Burt enjoyed the game. Wales won. ⚽️

 

It gets dark so late here. I am still getting used to it. We got back to the apartment and it was almost midnight!

June 29: We are in Rome!

Yesterday we left Bassano and took the train to Rome. First we took a regional commuter train into Venice where we connected with a high speed train to Rome. The train travels at speeds over 300 kilometers per hour so it is much faster than driving. 

 

Our route

 

 

I found the train grafitti especially interesting

 

The view of the tuscan countryside from the train was just as I had imagined. 

 

The train barista making me a cafe macchiato. 

We made some friends on the train....

 

These girls are studdying abroad in Tuscany with a group through their college in North Carolina. 

They made me jealous with stories of the food chemistry and artisan bread baking courses they have been taking in Italy. 

 

These are the two Melissas. They are from San Diego. They are spending a couple of weeks together traveling through France, Italy, and Greece. Melissa(on the left) just graduated from UCSD, and Melissa (on the right) attends a college nearby in San Diego. They told us all about their visit to the Paris Disneyland which has an extra elaborate Cinderella's castle with a very realistic smoke breathing dragon beneath it. 

We expect to be welcoming all of our new train friends in Santa Barbara in the near future 😎

We arrived in Rome and found our hostel/hotel just a few blocks away. 

We are staying at "The Beehive", an urban hipster hostel owned by an american couple. I had heard about it on "the iceberg probect", an Italian language learning website and podcast. 

 

 

The room is clean and pleasant, but it is tiny, and the bathroom is smaller than I thought possible. The area around the hostel is very sketchy.  I would be nervous about walking alone. I guess that is what comes with a central location near the train station. Lucky for me I have a big burly husband to walk next to 😉

After checking in we went to explore. We took a metro to the area near the Colloseum to find a late lunch. We found this little hole in the wall place serving pizza by the kg. The family running it was very interesting to watch; the girl at the counter totally reminded me of an '80s Madonna 

 

 

Good pizza😋 and a super afforable lunch. 

 

 

 

Then we walked about 2 blocks over to the Colosseum and looked around. 

 

 

It is pretty amazing to be standing right next to such an iconic historical monument. 

We decided to book tickets for a hop-on/hop-off bus that goes all around Rome. 

 

We rode the bus all around the city for the next 2 hours, listening to the audio commentary of the city's sights. 

 

Vatican City is across the bridge

 

 

 

 

 

Then we got off of the bus and explored more by foot, walking through narrow stone streets, and we made our way to the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain. 

 

 

It looks so inviting. And it is so very hot out.   It took every ounce of self control I have not to jump in and go for a swim.  

 

We were ready for dinner so we found a restaurant recommended by my guidebook: "Miscelanea". It was very good and affordable and the portions were generous. We ordered way too much food. The whole dinner with wine was only 40€

 

 

 

They have a house specialty wine that they serve to guests as an after dinner treat. It is called "Sexy Wine". I thought it tasted like a black cherry wine cooler. 

We walked back through the streets which were all lit up and full of people. There was a lot going on and the energy was high. Rome is an active place at night. 

 

Then back to our hotel after a long day.  

We had a fun first day in Rome!