Evan & Christina in Europe

Morning

Checked out of our hotel, leaving for the Vatican.

Sistine Chapel & Museums

Visiting the Vatican museums & the Sistine Chapel… gorgeous artwork!

St. Peter’s Basilica

Going to the top of the basilica, down to the crypts, and right in the basilica- with the Pieta.

Last Gelato in Rome

Most impressive gelato place in Rome.

Flight to Munich

The airport check-in process was rather confusing, but we made our flight.

Morning

We checked out of our Rome hotel in the morning, but they were kind enough to let us leave our luggage behind the desk. We went to the Vatican early in the morning. Evan booked the tour of the Vatican museums and the Sistine chapel. All the while we were thinking of Jeff Moore. =P

Sistine Chapel & Museums

It was a rather good tour, and although we both thought it wasn’t worth as much money as they charged us, the convenience of having a reservation there was nice. We weren’t allowed to talk in the Sistine chapel (twas funny- some guards’ job all day long was to yell at people taking photographs, talking too loud, and being too close to the paintings), but at least some photography was allowed in the Vatican museums. By the time we left, the wait was four hours long.

St. Peter’s Basilica

We were dropped off in front of Saint Peter’s Basilica, which is gorgeous. The security line at that time was about 90 minutes- they also stopped people who were inappropriately dressed. Evan convinced me to go to the top of the Basilica, and we took an elevator to the ‘third’ floor, which was equivalent to about 250 steps. Then there were about 250 to the top…. Yes, about 550 steps total. I absolutely loathe winding staircases and felt really scared… the only thing that would keep someone from falling off the ledge is a metal fence about 3 feet tall. I’m not particularly happy about it. What was really really sad was the battery ran out right at the end, when we hadn’t even visited inside the Basilica or the tombs. There aren’t any photos of the Pieta, (which is incredibly gorgeous and moving) or any of the amazing paintings, or the monstrosity of the entire Basilica. We then went to the tombs of the previous popes, which was rather interesting. I’m not well versed in which pope was important or anything… some were rather pretty.

Last Gelato in Rome

Then we went onto the train to get our last gelato, at Il Gelato di san Crispino, near the Trevi fountain, which our tour book recommended highly. The gelato was kept at -92 degrees Celsius, the back freezer and everything in stainless steel. The place seemed to take gelato to an extraordinary form. There were flavors from a red-wine based gelato to the typical lemon to amazing, elaborately-named chocolate gelato. Evan had two types of chocolate gelato, and I had lemon and honey. I was rather sad the gelato was gone, so Evan went back to get more gelato. ‘Twas rather sweet of him, since I was also really sad about not having pictures of the Pieta, and walking up all those stairs for nothing. =) It was amazing gelato, and made me happy during our walk back to the hotel.

Flight to Munich

We were debating whether to get dinner and then leave, or eat at the airport. I found out we had to get there two hours before so they don’t give away our seats, so we decided not to get dinner then. We then picked up our luggage that we left behind the desk, and walked to the Termini station to catch the train to the Leonardo da Vinci airport to go to Munich. We had to go tonight so we could get to Munich in time to pick up my car tomorrow. I was worried we would be late, but there was still a long line to get our tickets at the counter when we got there. I suppose they did give away our tickets because Evan and I weren’t able to sit next to each other. Oh well, it wasn’t that long of a flight anyways.

We took public transportation to the station near our hotel, the Reinbold hotel. It was a nice hotel, and everyone was rather nice. The internet kept on coming on and off, but we were quite tired and went to sleep.

This entry was published Monday, May 21st, 2007 at 11:28 pm and classified in the category/categories. vatican, germany, gelato, flight. You can find the comments section from the feed. RSS 2.0. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.