Day 4 - Rome

Places visited:
Vatican Museum
Sistine Chapel
Mouth of Truth
Gelato store
The Rooster Resturant (2nd time)


What can I say about today. Crowds I guess would be the word.

Today was the start of a 4 day holiday. June 2nd is Italy's 4th of July. Something about the founding of the republic. Most shops were closed and hardly any mopeds.

After breakfast and a quick run back to the hotel room for a restroom break, we started walking towards the country of Vatican City where the Vatican Museum is located. Finding the entrance was not that hard. We only needed to find the line that started about 1/2 mile away. The line outside the Vatican Museum lasted a good 30-40 minutes. This is with it moving forward 1-2 feet every minute. Once we got in, it was time for another bathroom break for Amy (sort of like going to the movies, Christine knows about this too).

The only real thing we wanted to see was the Sistine Chapel. But getting there was awful. Lots of tour groups, blocking our path. The wait was well worth it though. Slowly, we made our way into the chapel and found a seat on one side. Seeing Michelangelo's work was awe inspiring. And seeing it restored was that much better. We probably spent about 35 minutes just looking at his work.

From there we made our way to an exit that only Rick Steve knows about. There is a tour group only exit that takes you back out to St. Peters Basilica, removing the 15 minute walk from the main exit. This is a short cut that Rick Steve mentions in his Italy 2005 book.

Our next stop was the Mouth of Truth. Its a 1.2 ton face of a god carved out of marble. The story goes that if you tell lies, you will lose your hand if you place it in its mouth. Its located in, you guessed it, a church. The walk to the Mouth was shady and was along the Tiber river. We saw several men fishing and a couple actually catching some. I don't think you would want to eat them though. There was a park nearby that had newlyweds getting pictures taken and couples just milling about. We hung out at the park just to take a break and to decide what else we wanted to do.

By now, it was late afternoon. The walk back to the hotel was not so bad because there was a cool wind blowing and the tall buildings kept the sun off our heads. A couple of nights before, Amy and Ed bought a bottle of red wine and we thought that the roof top terrace was probably the best place to relax and to drink our bottle of wine.

We had dinner just around the corner at a place called The Rooster. This was our second time visiting the place so far. The food was just as good and we made reservations for our last night in Rome just before leaving for home.

Because of the holiday, there was much going on in the square Campo di Fiori near our hotel. There was live music and lots of people just hanging out.

Tomorrow will involve a train ride to Florence. Not sure what is planned for the day, but I do know that we will be visiting a laundry...

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