Day 20 - Vatican City

We slept pretty well in our weird parking lot. More campers joined us today but we didn’t see anyone. I’m sure they’re like us, just using this place to sleep and enjoying all of Rome during the day. We could have ridden the bus into town but since we’re saving so much money staying there, we decided to splurge and do an Uber there and back each day. That was so much simpler and got us to a prime location in about 15 minutes. 

Today’s prime location was Vatican City. The boys count it as our 9th country to visit on this trip! We took our time at a coffee shop in that area and then walked to St. Peter’s Square. It was so impressive. We had 2:30 tickets for the Vatican museum and Sistine Chapel so we wandered around that part of Rome, enjoying gelato, shops, and a unique stuffed pizza pocket for lunch that what was described as Roman street food. We didn’t see many street food vendors, this one was at a restaurant, but it was delicious all the same! We’ll definitely be trying to replicate it at home! The restaurant also specialized in local craft beer so, being good Fort Collins citizens, we checked that out too! Afterwards we wandered some more and came across a busy open air market full of booths offering fresh produce, meat, fish, general groceries, and even clothes. It was a lot like the Seattle fish market that we visited last summer. We wished we could have bought a bunch of things, but opted to not carry food arrived all day. 

Next stop gelato before getting our “skip the line” Vatican tickets through a tour company. We didn’t book a tour guide but since I couldn’t get tickets for the Vatican in advance any other way, we just used the tour company to get our tickets. It really was an easy way to go! Then we used the Rick Steves free audio guide that I downloaded from his website. The audio guide was much more enjoyable (especially for the boys) than just looking and reading signs. Once again the Vatican taught the boys what opulence means. We’re mesmerized by ceilings everywhere we go. Maybe we should have more interesting ceilings in our homes? Ours are super boring. The Vatican museum had beautiful artwork and lots of history. 

The Sistine chapel was a stunning end to the tour. We were lucky to get seats on the side so we could listen to our audio guide about it and soak it all in. Josiah was disappointed to not be able to take pictures. After taking pictures of so many other beautiful ceilings, this seemed like the ultimate ceiling picture he needed. I may or may not have snuck in an illegal photo though. 

Upon finishing the Sistine chapel, we were disappointed to not be able to go into St. Peter’s Basilica. The event happening in the square meant that the basilica was closed for the rest of the evening. We made our way back to the square instead, just in time to hear a beautiful choir singing. The pope was expected to speak about an hour later but I stead of waiting there, we went to dinner. After we finished , we came back and we’re able to hear the pope speaking. We were hopeful that the pope-mobile would drive by us when he finished but it didn’t. When it was over, we walked away from the Vatican with the crowds and ordered an Uber, thankful for another great day!