Roma

As stated before, we arrived in Rome Tuesday morning and was able to see the Vatican Museum as well as St. Peter's Basillica. It was absolutely beautiful. The Vatacan was neat and we were able to walk right in, no lines or anything. We were able to be there for about 3 hours. Even though there were no lines, it was very crowded inside. Tons of people, which made it very hot during most of our visit. The sistine chapel was amazing. We were trying to read about things as we went along, but decided to just look and enjoy, and read about it later. It will be fun to do that since now we have seen certain things. I do have some notes from my last trip here, which was neat to read through. On the last trip, about 9 years ago, I was required to keep notes on the things we saw while my professor was talking about it. It was interesting to read through these notes again and remember what I learned in the art history class I took.

At the Basillica, we were able to sit and have mass, which was very nice. Even though I couldn't understand a word he said except for "christ" "God" and "thank you" maybe, it was still a good time to pray and also grieve the loss of Grandpa while in such a beautiful place, and think about how he is in a very beautiful place too now.

After visiting the church, we spend some time at the Vatacan post office! It was neat to send some post cards from Vatacan City, which is a totally separate country from the rest of Italy, so many tourists were doing the same thing as us.

We then took a very very looooong walk to all the touristy sights, which was a lot of fun, but then ended up being very tiring! We walked to the Spanish Steps and sat there for quite a while with some very yummy gelato just people watching with everyone else. We walked to trevie fountain (sp?), ate dinner outside at a small bar/restaurant, then walked down Via De Corso and saw a couple famous monuments up to Piazza de Popolo. From there it was about 10:30 or 11 and very dark and we had to figure out a way to get back to our hotel. Finally after more than an hour of walking, we made it. Tiring night, but the hotel was very good, so we had a pretty good rest!

The next day we took a tour for a little bit more money, but we skipped the lines for the colloseum, Roman Forum, and Palatine Hill. We really loved this tour because it gave us good information, and allowed us to not worry about knowing what to see or the lines to get in. The second tour guide for Palatine Hill and the Forum was very entertaining and funny. We especially enjoyed this tour! After the tour, we quickly headed to the train station and bought our tickets to Montepulciano. After our train was delayed for about 45 min. we finally were on our way.