Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Day three

We woke up early Saturday morning to walk to the Vatican city. We had breakfast outside the Vatican at a little cafe. Donuts are a lot thicker here.  We met up with our tour group and headed inside. The guides gave us these personal headsets that made it easy to hear lots of information, while still being able to look around at everything.  We skipped a really long line to get tickets by being in the group, and headed inside the Vatican museum.  

The museum was really interesting and contained a lot of classic renaissance and baroque works of art. I was really happy to see the Raphael rooms, with some of Raphael's work that I had studied in college.  We also saw  Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel and 'the Judgement' which was breathtaking in person. Sadly no photos allowed in there.  After that, we saw St. Peter's basilica and the crypts underneath. Michelangelo's  'Pieta' was also inside, behind bulletproof glass. Then a stroll inside St. Peters square, with the giant Egyptian obelisk in the center.  We we both starving and grabbed some sub par food nearby, but enjoyed the comforts of a cold Coca-Cola. 

After finishing at Vatican city, we went across the bridge into centro storico, and found the campo de' fiori, a local farmers market and neighborhood hangout.  Got some fresh apples there, and shopped around for possible souvenirs.  On the way back home, we saw a museum with a Leonardo da Vinci exhibit of big machines.  Someone put together mockups of a lot of his concept machines like the flying wings, mobile armored tank, and other contraptions.  After heading back to the room, we watched some dubbed over Mythbusters and tried not to nap.  

After a short nap,  we headed back out towards piazza navonna for dinner. Anna had a slice of pizza and I had a calzone.  It was a little like fast food, but still tasty. We shopped a bit for some local art, and headed back after some gelato. 

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