The Vatican

 

  

 

 

 We woke up to a beautiful sunny morning! We had our tickets for the Vatican tour and Maura was going to be our tour guide. We all decided that we should probably have a good breakfast since the other day we failed to do that and we all felt the effects of it. After eating breakfast at Goody’s, we decided to take our cabs to the Vatican to meet Maura and Alfredo. 

We had the skip the line tickets which really don’t mean skip the line. You’re in a line that goes way faster than the other line. It is fast. 

There is so much information about the Vatican and all about the different museum hallways. There is a tapestry hallway there’s a room of maps. There’s a room of animals. It just goes on and on. 

St. Peter’s dome is the symbol of Rome.

Here’s a fun fact to know the Vatican office is run by a woman. It’s the first time in 500 years that the Vatican office has been run by a woman.

Did you know the Vatican is its own state, it’s not part of Italy?

                 The pinecone is a symbol of the wealth and the peacocks on either side were a symbol of eternity 

                     Gardens at the Vatican 

Did you know the Romans invented the arch?

One of the most famous statues in the Vatican is the Trojan horse.

Did you know there was 1 million people living in Rome when Christ was born?

                                         Hercules

                         Animals in the animal room 

Sphere within a sphere representing the world. That is Maura. Only tour guides are allowed to push it around.

       Group photo ( pay attention to what we are wearing including our shoes) story to follow in a bit. 

Me refilling my water bottle from the fountain. They have a lot of water filling stations around which is great since it’s so hot.

 

                      Pictures from St. Peter’s 

As you can see there are no photos from the Sistine chapel because you are not allowed to do so. 

Next we entered the St. Peter’s Cathedral. It took 120 years to complete this church. It’s so hard to capture the beauty of everything in it, the floors, ceilings, alters, paintings and the statues. Unbelievable beauty! Bellissimo! 

Next we exited the cathedral to St. Peter’s Square, the fountains, the Columns, the Popes window and all the ancient brick pavers. 

Hmmm…looks a little overcast, wait a minute was that thunder and as Kylie would say “was that a  F____ing lighting bolt?” Yes it was and it was extremely large! And then wait, were those rain drops we felt, yes they were.

Oh Dio! The skies have opened up! Thunder, lightning, pelting rain and now wind, more lightning and thunder. Thousands of people running for cover, guess what there really wasn’t much cover for thousands of people. 

Pelting rain ….. Maura called out Bomba ad acqua (WATER BOMB)!We were all running, to where you may ask. Saw some pillars with an overhang, that should do it says thousands of other people! 

The wind is blowing so hard and the rain is pelting us, then the wind changes direction. More thunder and that lightning! Dang!

                  See that cloud in the picture below

I’m going to stop here for a second, I felt like the big guy up above was trying to tell thousands of people that we better toe the line and remember he’s still in charge. Get your shit together people or else!

This is not our photo,  I found it online, no way we could get our cameras out.

So we’re all trying to get under cover. Nick and Alfredo jump over this railing and they are kinda of under cover then I decided to go over the railing. As Nick says you’re 70 you’re not going to make it. Well I got close, my shoe gets caught and as Nick and Alfredo are helping me a gutter breaks and dumps and I mean dumps an incredible amount of water over Nick. So Janet, Lial and I are just standing there getting pelted. We were just soaked to the bone and more. We have no idea where Alexis and Kylie are or Maura. Finally we see them under cover , with the thousands of other people. So the three of us run down the side and find an opening to get under cover. The wind continues to blow every which way. Flooding water down by our feet. We were under cover for approximately 40 minutes. We decided we couldn’t stay there any longer and decided to go for it and look for taxis. All I can say is shit show, shit show , shit show. Remember when I told you to pay attention to our clothes, well the dress I was wearing was down to my calves instead of above my knee. We were all saturated. Finally hailed down 1 taxi for the girls and off we went soaking wet. 

Nick and Lial finally got a taxi after trying being turned down by 7 ! We didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye or thank you to Maura and Alfredo. All showered, clothes changed and finally resting! ( by the way, I had to throw my dress away because for some reason the blue stripe ran all over my dress) 

Fun Fact: We feel like  we are part of history because on that day the Constantine arch was struck by lightning and fragments fell to the ground. We had been there 2 days earlier. They did find all of the fragments so they can make repairs.

After resting for awhile Nick was getting restless so I asked him if he wanted to walk to the piazza and do a little shopping. We decided to go and Alexis and Kylie said they would go with us. Off we went to go shopping. We were shopping around the different stores and then what was that….couldn’t be rain drops, yes it was. The four of us looked at each and said no way. We looked for the closest store and in we went. Yes, another water bomb. If you can believe it we were in that store for one hour. I had my good sandals on so I had to buy a pair of flip flops in that store. Alexis was adamant that she was not going to wash her hair again and I didn’t want to take another shower! 

Finally the rain let up, guys selling umbrellas everywhere so we decided to buy one . Alexis and I walked back to the apartment under the umbrella. Nick and Kylie ruffed it out! 

We ended our last evening in Rome with a great dinner at Saint Ana and finally saying thank you and good by to our cousins Alfredo and Maura. Sad to be leaving them .

Stay tuned we’re headed to Florence on the train!