Rome day 2

Thursday morning we woke up and headed out to The Vatican stopping for pastries along the way. When we got there the line seemed long, so we headed to the end, hearing tour guides all the way offering a tour. Get a tour, skip the line. No wait, no line. It would have been like 40 euros a person for a tour. We decided not to and were so glad we did. We only stood in like for like 15-20 minutes. When we got in we walked through all the museum to the Sistine Chapel. I guess I expected it to be huge like all the other churches we had seen, but it was pretty little. We again had Rick Steve's guide of the Chapel which was much needed for me. I am not really an artsy person and have a hard time seeing things unless they are laid out for me. So he explained all the paintings on the ceiling, which were pretty amazing.

 From the Vatican we headed to St. Peter's Basilica. You walk through St. Peter's Square to get there. It is a huge open area with fountains surrounded by columns. This is where the Pope speaks to people. We didn't go on a day when we could hear him, but the chairs were set up for it.

 I gave up trying to take pictures inside the amazing churches. They just made it seem so much less of an amazing thing. There is now way I can get in the camera what I could see with my eyes. It was so much to take in all at once and the camera just couldn't get it all in.

We grabbed some lunch on our way to the subway. Pizza, yum, yum. 

and of course more gelato.

We rode the subway outside of town and found St. Paul's Basilica. It was outside of the city walls because Paul was a Roman citizen and could not be killed within the confines of Rome. There was a very different feel here. It wasn't so much of a touristy place and felt more sacred. One of the sayings carved on the wall said “Exaltata est ad Caelestia Regna” which translates as Exaltation is in the Celestial Kingdom. Very interesting.

 After this we found a grassy area and took a little nap. It was relaxing and the weather was nice and warm. Then we headed back in to town for some dinner and the night walk.

 This dinner was good, but not as good as the first place.

looks better than it tasted.

We all got dessert with our meal. We split them each in 3rds so we could try each. Definitely not as good as Gelato. After dinner we headed out to enjoy the night life. We saw some of the main plazas fountains and the spanish steps. Its kinda funny everywhere you go there are people trying to sell you things. So when we go to the Spanish Steps and were walking down them there was this man who walked up to me and gave me some roses. Of course my first reaction is to take them, then He turned to Blake asking for money. The little stinker. He wouldn't let me give them back or even put them down. I  eventually got him to take 2 of them back, but we paid for one of them. We enjoyed the steps for a while and took some pictures, then realized it was 11:00pm and the Subway had already stopped running. We only had 1 hour to find a bus that would take us back to the hotel, and we were a long way from the hotel.

So we ran, and ran, and stopped for Gelato and ran some more. I think we ran until 11:30 when we finally found a bus that would connect with a bus that would get us to our hotel. We got to our bus at 11:55 and they stop running at midnight. We were there just in time! My rose didn't make it though. The stem kept getting shorter and shorter as we were running. We were just glad we made it without having to pay for a cab.

Trevi fountain at night

Spanish Steps