We made a quick stop at St. Peter’s Basilica, checking my backpack and trying to use the toilets. They were busy sloooooowly mopping the floor and couldn’t be rushed. Or wouldn’t. We decided to just leave and find another bathroom. What we should have done was go stand in the museum line, but some wanted to see inside the Basilica.
As we left the Basilica, Misha and I had to walk all the way around the square to go back for the backpack. Not only that, we had to stand in line to get through the metal detectors again. Our first time through there was no line. On our return trip, the line was about twenty minutes long.
Chris and Kristen went to stand in the museum line. It was so much longer. And there were so many hawkers trying to get people to skip the line and pay extra money to jump to the front. Chris stumped one guy by saying, “I love lines. I could wait in lines all day. I’m offended you want me to get out of this line!” He just looked at Chris, had no response, and walked on. We got to "love" standing in that line for over an hour.
The end in sight. Hallelujah! (Seriously, get tickets in advance).
And once we got in to the museum it was wall to wall people in some places. Literally. And you felt herded through a doorway half the size of the room.
Amazing floor mosaics
We enjoyed the museum, though my recommendation if you ever plan to go is to decide on a date and buy your tickets well in advance. You can be one of the cool kids who gets to skip the line (and you won't have to pay extra). Wish we had made the decision sooner so we could have had tickets.
One of the gardens
The Sistine Chapel was simply awesomeness. Need I say more than Michaelangelo painted the ceiling. There were signs asking people to be quiet, but as we sat and listened to our audio tour through our headphones, every couple of minutes a voice would sound over the loud speaker and yell, “SILENCE!” Seemed so funny to us that it was so loud. We were fortunate to have some bench seating along the wall as we listened to our audio tour. I didn’t take a single picture. I wanted to. I didn’t. Kristen was indignant that I even gave it a thought.
We stopped for lunch in the cafeteria—more pizza.
Making use of the restrooms in the museum twice during our visit and both times I saw this dad in the women's restroom changing a child's diaper.
We had one last stop that wasn’t included on our audio tour in the Egyptian Collection before exiting the museum. Our exit included this awesome spiral staircase. Try to imagine them without all the people...except, of course, my people.
We left and headed to Tresteverre (pronounced Trest-avery) for another audio tour. It was a cool place across from the old Jewish ghetto. We started on one side of the Fabricio Bridge and I thought we needed to be on the other side. As we got there and started the audio tour, none of it made sense. We crossed back over and continued. That's why you don't let Mom handle the directions.
After completing the tour, we crossed back over the Fabricio Bridge to the old Jewish Ghetto. Chris had some work phone calls to make, and I just decided to wander the Apollo ruins. Misha and Kristen weren’t thrilled, since we decided not to take the tram and then the bus for 45 minutes back to the hotel for a short rest break. Short. Like maybe 30 minutes. We would have then had to pull a one-hour return trip back to a restaurant where we meeting one of Chris’ coworkers and his family for dinner. If we stayed put by Tresteverre, we would only be a short 15-minute bus ride from the restaurant.
Before leaving for the restaurant, we sat in the Jewish neighborhood. I just sat and watched, mesmerized. I watched as the neighbors joined friends in the piazza to talk and laugh and connect. It had probably been happening this way for hundreds of years. Men dressed up for the evening sitting on one side of the piazza to talk and their wives claiming a bench on the other side, kind of like a Mormon youth dance, and every so often a man would be caught in conversation with the women.
My girls were resting on part of the women's bench, and when we stood to leave, their spots were quickly reclaimed.
As we left for dinner, and began to wait at the bus stop, we noticed that there were roads blocked off left and right and a humongous traffic jam. So...we decided to walk to the restaurant. And that’s when you find that the best laid plans don’t always work out quite right. Misha, for one, was not pleased. It wasn't our plan to walk. Chris and I weren't thrilled either, but the traffic just wasn't moving. It was about a half hour walk as we passed cars and buses that had passed us before we left the bus stop. So much walking.
We finally reached the restaurant and met up with Thomaso, Pia, and their kids Emma and Vincente.
The kids were young and a little bit crazy. Emma loved Kristen and by the end of the night was comfortably playing with Kristen's hair.
Our pasta came in giant bowls. We probably could have shared and had enough.
