Vatican City

We went to the Westin for coffee again in the morning, and then took the bus to the Jewish ghetto to go to the same bakery we went to yesterday, this time for the ricotta cake. They were out of chocolate, so we got cherry and ricotta, cherry and almond, and a croissant. All were good. I liked the cherry and almond the best. We then got back on the bus and got off at Vatican City. We still had time before our scheduled tour, so we stopped at a nearby supermarket to get some chocolate, and then walked to an outdoor market to look around and get some coffee. At 12 we walked back to the Vatican Museum, got in line, and turned in our vouchers for tickets. At 12:30 we joined the guided tour. This consisted of a woman with an Italian accent explaining a lot of the art in the museum as we struggled to keep up. The museum was super super crowded. Way too many people in a tight space, and lots of bottle neck hallways. We only got to look at a lot of the art briefly, because we were soon swept away by crowds. Very pretty place, but it's probably a lot easier to appreciate after closing time.

Me on the bus with some ricotta cake.

The Vatican City Game Stop.

Our coffee at the outdoor market. Hot chocolate and a cappuccino!

It was some good stuff.

Near the Vatican Museum. The sign behind us says "gelato" in a bunch of languages.

In line to get into the Vatican Museum.

You can see St. Peter's Basilica in the background here.

SO MANY PEOPLE

The view from the Vatican cafe terrace.

Mommy posing in the museum. SO MANY PEOPLE HERE.

More Vatican Museum.

Me, a sarcophagus, and SO MANY PEOPLE.

Nice fresco.

Mommy in front of the School of Athens fresco.

This little fat cardinal is cute.

After the tour, we backtracked a little to look at the modern art, stopped in the coffee shop to have some ricotta cherry cake, and then braced ourselves and entered the Sistine Chapel. The chapel is massive, but also stuffed with people and guards yelling at everyone to be quiet and stop taking pictures.We hung out for a while (we managed to find a place to sit), and then moved on to enter St. Peter's Basilica, which has Michelangelo's Pieta, some Raphael and Leonardo paintings, and lots of marble columns. Lots of people, too. We looked around and then called it quits.

Daddy and the Sistine Chapel. You weren't supposed to take pictures in here, so it was taken discreetly.

All three of us beneath the Sistine ceiling.

St. Peter's Square.

Inside St. Peter's Basilica.

Mommy and me in front of Michelangelo's Pieta.

Close-up of the Pieta.

Nice hair.

Some Swiss guards. They did not move at all, and the only way to tell that they weren't statues was that they occasionally blinked.

Back in St. Peter's Square.

The Basilica at night.

At around 6 we walked out of the Vatican and to the Spanish Steps, because I hadn't seen them yet. They looked like steps. Nice steps. Then Mommy consulted Rick Steves for a place to eat, and we settled on a place called Trattoria Otello. The food was just alright. We got a tuna salad, lasagna, and grilled sea bass. The bass turned out to be the whole fish stuck on a plate. It stared at us as we ate. People also kept on smoking cigarettes near our table, and that made the eating experience a little unpleasant.

At the Spanish steps.

Daddy got cranky after that as we tried to find the way back to the Airbnb, but we did eventually find it. Now we've just booked train tickets for our trip to Florence tomorrow. Maybe I can fill this one in on the train. In any case, it's going to be an early wake up, so I'm going to go sleep now.