Up early today as we had tickets to see the popes pad.
Had a decent breakfast in the hotel, with hot dogs and burnt Pancetta with odd bread and non salted butter, and red orange juice.
Walked to the station and used the machine to get two single journey tickets 1.5E, nd got very confused as to which platform we should stand on. Sign’s in Italy are very confusing. Anyway after a little mucking about we were on the metro for a couple of stops to Cipro. Cipro is the nearest station to the Vatican Museum, but the metro tells you to get off a stop before, because that is where the start of the queue line is!
Anyway, no queuing for us – we walked straight in and up and up and got a talky tour and set off to look at some old stuff. There was quite a lot of that. I liked the map corridor best. After walking for some time we got to the main event – the Sistine Chapel… I didn’t really like it, its a big box with pictures on the walls.
We walked from there out and around to the famous place where the pope comes out, and there was a massive queue there, so I took Sian through the non scenic route all the way over to the Piazza del Popolo. We sat and had a little drink here and it started to rain a bit.
From here we walked down the road to the Spanish Steps, walked up them and into a church with a singing “security guard” then back down the other steps and back to the fountains for a big pork baguette.
Sufficiently sated we headed back down the alleyways to the Pantheon and went in this time – it’s free, and very cool – would be brilliant if it rained properly as the rain just pours in from the hole. From here we spent a while just wondering around, until we came to anther Piazza which had a statue of the guy from Assasins Creed on, where wefound a decent bar and sat out watching the people and football for a couple of hours.
More mooching from here an across the river to the Trastevere area and along the river to where the Mouth of Truth is. From here up the road to the views at the Basilica di Santa Maria and then down to have a look at the Colosseum. We got a bit lost here and ended up in the Druids Den, which was an Irish pub where we had a couple of real pints.
A little bit more of a walk and then some food in Amedeo Ristorante where I had a not as nice as last nights seafood pasta thing again, and we were entertained for a while by a very enthusiastic young American.
I think we just went home to bed after that. Long day, we walked about 10 miles I think…