Blog ≫ 2022 ≫ Midlife Eurotour part nine - Vatican City
Day two in Rome, our first full day actually, and we're off to the Vatican. But first breakfast!
Breakfast is up on the top floor of the Hotel Diana, and it was busy already. I would say it's a continental-plus breakfast. Cheeses and cold meats and fruit, though also some bacon and sausage for the boys. Mostly I had lots of juice and fruit. Was there baked beans at this one? I don't remember. I don't remember using the toaster, so I think probably no. We headed out on to the proper roof level to eat, the roof garden itself.
We got the tube to the Vatican museums. They're in Vatican City which is of course another country, sort of. It counts as another country for the boys and the flags they can stick on their backpacks anyway, and I will be buying Italy and Vatican City flags for them now we're back. It's a shame they're outgrowing the little rucksacks that the existing ones are stuck on to. At some point I am going to have to transfer them all, or maybe buy some new ones. But not yet.
Anyway, the tube, to another country, imagine. We sort of found out where we were going, and bought our tickets from a fairly unhelpful ticket seller. I used my best Italian to say how many tickets and where we wanted to go and he did his best not to understand me. Seems you just ask for "normal ticket" and it'll take you more or less anywhere for the next hour.
We had pre-booked "skip the line" tickets for the Vatican museums, and as I'd bought them in the UK online I was a bit wary that I'd bought the wrong things. But showing our A4 printouts was enough to get is waved through. When we get inside, it's very very busy but things are moving quite quickly. We take our printouts to the desk and get them swapped for tickets, then the tickets get us through the barrier and we're on the conveyor belt. Not an actual conveyor belt, but it feels a bit like it. You're following a flow through the museums, it's more or less one way, and there's not much chance of stopping or going back.
The boys were wowed as soon as we got in there, this is amazing, look at all this ancient Egyptian stuff! Thing one took loads of pictures on his phone. Then we went through another hundred rooms full of treasures like this, and it started to wear a little. I tried to keep it light by aiming for the "Vatican's 100 top treasures" greatest hits exhibits, but there's so much to see it's impossible to take it all in.
The main feature is really the Cistine Chapel, though the map room right before that is really good. In fact a lot of it is really good... We got into the Cistine Chapel and the "no talking, no pictures, no videos", and we talked, and we snuck some pictures, and some video. Of course you have to. Why they want no pictures? Because they want to sell you a souvenir when you get to the other side of it. I don't need a Michaelangelo tea towel mate, I've got my selfie that I took!
I nearly skipped a day here, thinking, after this I waved them off in a taxi and walked back... that was the next day after the Colosseum!
After this we walked to St Peter's Basillica. I think Jim really wanted to go in, but we pointed out the queues, and then we pointed again, and he said well let's just go and stand nearer, and we said "what you mean in that queue, queueing to go in?" and he said no, well yes, well no, and we voted to go find a cafe / bar nearby instead.
We found a REALLY BAD bar, very overpriced, very very bad service, very nearby. We did not stay. We walked on further, past places that sounded alright but were closed, until I found a great place called Biblio Bar. It was part of a little market in the shadow of Castel Sant'Angelo. It was book themed, with only outside seating, but they did wine and beer and cocktails and crisps and fizzy drinks for the boys and everyone was happy. Clare bought an amusing calendar for her friend with pictures of priests on it at some point, might have been here. There were stalls here selling this sort of thing. We sat here for a couple of rounds and it was the most relaxing part of Rome.
I think we got a bus back to near our hotel, and we ate somewhere nearby that looked a bit fancy but sounded like it had something for everyone. It was nice, but they had very little for everyone, and it was quite expensive. I think Jim said he was paying for this one but I still couldn't order a bottle of wine there as it was just too much. We went with more or less the same simple food we had enjoyed in other places, but the bill came in a bit higher. I knew I would start losing detail as the trip progressed...