Rome Day 2

Woke up early and had breakfast.  Then it was off to the Vatican museum.  We got there before it opened so we had to wait outside awhile but that was going to happen no matter what because there is always a line.  And it’s way better to get there early.  So we walked through and saw most of what there is to see, not pausing to long to look at anything in particular since we had other things to do.  But we got to the Sistine chapel and then I knew that there were things that we had missed and we were just hoping that there was still a way to get back to the rest of the museum.  There was and we got to go through the hall of statues and I got to see the lovely bronze pinecone.

When we were done with the museum we walked over to a little church that has a relic of the heart of st faustina which is pretty cool.  It also had a relic of JPII which was also pretty cool.  It was like closing though so we didn’t spend much time there and the nun that was closing things up had to let us out because she had already locked the door.  Oops. 

After that we moved on to the Roman forum and walked through it in fast forward.  We still saw a lot of it but we were kind of tired and hungry and weren’t too interested in walking around roman ruins.  Though there was this one part that had really pretty purple flowers around it that I liked a lot.  But we soon left and got some gelato for lunch.  Just from one of the little stands around the forum and colosseum though so it wasn’t anything too exciting.  And then we went into the colosseum which was new for me because last time I just saw it from the outside.

Once we had our fill of the colosseum we walked over to st peter in chains and I was proud of being able to get back to it from the colosseum from the memory I have of the last time I visited it two years ago.  Then it was back on the metro and out to St. Paul outside the wall which I really like.  And this time it was light out so I got to see the courtyard area which is really pretty.  The next church was mary major and then we had been to all of the major basilicas. 

It had been a busy day with lots of walking around so we spent the night relaxing a bit.  I got a big slice of pizza and we picked up some cookies at this tiny and sort of sketch super market and then it was back to the hotel where we watched an episode of downton abbey on my computer.  We also stopped at this internet café before getting the food so that we could print out a confirmation thing for a tour we would be doing in England. 

Another later than hoped for night and we had to get up even earlier to get to the Vatican for the audience in the morning.  But seeing the pope is worth it, no matter how early you have to get up.