Standing around in Rome / a four gelato day

Well, today was Rome. The ship was supposed to dock at 7:00 and we were ready to get right off to take a train to Rome. The train is about an 1:10 to Rome and the 7:35 would get us there before the Vatican Museum opened and avoid the lines. Well, we didn't get off the ship because they hadn't cleared customs till after 7:30. We got on a train at 8:00. The line for the Vatican was over 2 hours by that point! My patience wears a little thin in lines.

However, the wait is worth it. The museum is incredible. It was, however, packed today. So many tour groups, so many people. I really don't like crowds.......

I found out some valuable information today. Rachael really can't stand the little disembodied heads floating arounf in many renassaince paintings. We made a little song up about it and sing it every time we see them in paintings. Angela, I can see some new, annoying artwork in Rachael's future!

The highlights are always the papal palace rooms and the Sistine Chapel. We could spend quite a bit of time in the Sistine alone. The chapel "police" are so funny. They keep shushing people and they do it so often and so loudly, it is more irreverent, in my mind, than the noise from the admirers.

You also can't take pictures in the chapel. You can't take flash pictures anywhere in the Vatican (for fear or exposing the precious works of art to light), but no pictures at all in the chapel. You always have some boneheads who use their flash in the museum and get yelled at to not use a flash, but the ones that kill me are the ones that use their flash in the chapel.

The reason you can't take any pix in the chapel is because it was restored a few years ago (that brightened it up considerably) and the company that worked on the restoration negotiated for the picture rights, meaning they are the ones who get all the money from any pix sold. So naturally, Rach was able to surreptitiously snap a few pix (without flash of course). She is so sneaky! However, there was one snotty comment by a girl behind Rach something to the effect of "I guess the rules don't apply to all of us". She is such a lawbreaker.....

From the vatican, we went straight into St Peters Cathedral. Truly a stunning building. Apart from the sheer size of the cathedral, the art work and artistry is great as well.

We left St Peters and ate our lunch. On the way to the Castel Sant Angelo, we had our first gelato of the day (chocolate). Gelato is Italian ice cream. For those that haven't had it, it is the best and smoothest ice cream you will find.

We then walked to the Castel. It was originally the tomb for Hadrian and then turned into a fortress. It was very interesting. We had not seen it before. As an added bonus, it was free today! Not sure why, but I certainly wasn't complaining.

We then tried to catch a taxi to go to our last spot, the Borghese Museum. We couldn't find one and saw an express bus to the main subway station, so we took that. One very bumpy (and not very express) ride later, we caught the subway to the stop closest to the museum.

Well, the maps I have do say "not to scale" and they are not! We had quite a little walk through a great park. The only challenge was that the museum is small (and popular) and you must have reservations. We had them for 3:00. I hurried there and got there just a little after 3. Luckily, they still gave them to us (and for whatever reason, only charged 1/4 of the price) and we went in. The museum has some of our favorite statues, mainly by Bernini. They are almost lifelike. A great last place to visit.

We then took a much more leisurely walk through the beautiful park and had our second gelato (chcolate chip). We caught the subway and had our third gelato (strawberry). This one was actually the smoothest of all three.

We got to the train station and saw that one was leaving for the port (Civitavecchia) in about 5 minutes. Wow, we thought, what great timing. Well, it was on track 25 and we followed the directions to tracks 25 to 29. It took FOREVER to get there. We commented that if we don't make this train we had better hope that the next one is near track 25 because we are kind of committed at this point!

Well, we just missed that train and the next one was about 25 minutes later. It was on the next track over at 26, so no problems. The train got to Civitavecchia on time. On our way back to the shuttle bus to the ship, we got, you guessed it, our last gelato of the day. It was the best-it was a Nutella and coconut combination. Very unique and tasty - kind of like a Mounds bar.

A very full but a great day!
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