Rome, Day 1

April 16, 2012 - Rome, Day 1

Our mission in Rome on our first real day of exploring was to go to the Vatican, see the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica.  Mission accomplished!  We left our hostel bright and early to get in line for Vatican City.  We arrived around 8am and there was already a big line...we settled in to wait and took turns going to the cafe across the street to get food and drinks before we entered.

Our first views of Vatican City, the giant wall the surrounds the outside.

The entrance to Vatican City.  Upon entering, it is like going through airport security.  We did enter another country so we did have to show our passports and go through metal detectors and our bags had to be screened but we did finally make it inside.

We paid for our tickets and then had to find our way through the Vatican Museum.

The view outside was incredible and we haven't even gone inside the museum or anything yet!

Inside the Vatican Museum, there was first a display of Egyptian artifacts.

Katie showing us how she could fit against the mummy display.

This statue was so funny to me because I can just see my son doing this exact thing to some poor goose!

So cool!!!

Fun with statues!

The ceilings took my breath away over and over.

Had to get a closeup of the Great Castration!  Fig leaves for EVERYONE!

The biggest bathtub I have ever seen ... Alyshia could have easily disappeared inside of it!

RAWR!

View of the City

Domed ceilings

Alyshia's giant bowl for cereal

This was a beautifully carved stone box, there were two of them ... I wonder what was kept in there.

Getting closer!

Everything was beautiful ... even the doors.

I am really surprised we did not get into any trouble while going through the Vatican Museum. 

We had a lot of fun!

I was good and did not take any pictures inside of the Sistine Chapel but it was one of my favorite moments of my trip.  Just sitting below the amazing work was awing.  I did have an audio tour I had downloaded from iTunes from Rick Steves.  I would highly recommend this because he walked us through the entire room, imagine by image and talked about the history and how Michelangelo painted the ceiling standing up and not laying on his back, how the ceiling changed as he worked and why each piece was done.

More views of Vatican City

Outside the Dome of St. Peter's

The Dome

Each letter is supposed to be about 6 feet high

Mosaics along the inside of the Dome.

View of the inside of St. Peters from above.

We chose to climb to the top of the dome of St. Peters.  I am not claustrophobic but I was a bit shaky during this climb.  Lots of stairs, 320 in all, narrow and very steep at some points... finally holding onto a rope and going up a spiral set of stairs to get to the top.  It was so worth it, the view of Rome was amazing!

The Dome of St. Peter's

Inside of St. Peter's Basilica

Yep, we are actually here ... in Rome...in St. Peter's!!!

The biggest bowl of holy water I have ever seen!

The Vatican Guard ... love the uniforms!

Seating for the masses when the Pope makes his appearances.

DaVinci Code anyone???

So beautiful, even on a cloudy day.

That night after we explored the city and had dinner, we did a night walk of the city per Ann's Rick Steves book.  It was great!  Gave us a guided tour with commentary and places to grab gelato and history of the places we went.

Four Rivers Fountain

Our favorite two things in Italy!  Ice Cream & Pizza!

Ice Cream Break!

Trevi Fountain

View from the Spanish Steps

Katie and the Spanish Steps.

I really do love Rome!  I could explore this city for a week and never feel like I have come close to seeing everything.  It is expensive, so one must save their pennies but there are plenty of places that are free ... like our night tour, did not have to pay for anything (except gelato and drinks), we just walked the city!