Personal Post: Day 8: Vatican City-Rome

Early in the morning, we arrived in Vatican City. We were there so early that the moon was still high up in the sky and the sun was just barely rising over the eastern horizon. The roads were devoid of cars, and there was that early morning crisp stillness in the air. A fifteen-minute walk from the metro stop brought us to the empty St. Peter's square.

After taking a few photographs and waiting around, we marched up a few hundred steps to the top of the St. Peter's dome, where we got a bright morning view of Vatican City and Rome. The wind was blowing tough up there, and I felt like I had to carefully hang on to the railing just to make sure I wasn't going to get blown away. Of course, the descent was a lot easier.

Our original plan was to go see the dome, and then head to the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. I had seen so many photographs of the spiraling staircase of the Vatican Museum, and I would love to take one for myself. Unfortunately, the line to get in was really long. In fact, it was meandering through at least five blocks in the Vatican City. There were people trying to lure tourists into paying some extra money to make the visit by forming a group, which enables you to cut the line. At last, we didn't want to pay for that. At the same time, we didn't want to wait another two hours on this line. So instead, we left and moved on from Vatican City.

We walked in the direction of the Castel San Angelo to get back to Rome. As we turned on the Ponte San Angelo, we look one last glimpse at St. Peter's Basilica to our right and crossed the Tiber River. From there, we walked toward Campo de' Fiori for lunch, which consisted of a small restaurant on the cobblestoned street. We ate some pizza and pasta, fresh from the kitchen. We also passed by a fresh fruit and vegetable market. If I lived in Rome, I would probably want to come to this area often.

From the Campo de' Fiori, we walked to the Pantheon. By this time of the afternoon, everyone was out and about. The area around the Pantheon was full of people. There were signs at the entrance telling us not to use flash and not to be loud. Well, either no one knows how to read or they just didn't care. Probably the latter. It's also partly because no one seemed to be working there.

Next, we made our way to the Forum and Palatine Hill. Here, we got to walk through a lot of ruins, but that's really not much different than anywhere else in Rome. The Roma Pass offers two free admissions to various historical sites and museums throughout the city. If we had been able to go to the Palatine Hill and the Colosseum on the same day, they would have counted as one. Seeing that we won't be spending the next day in Rome, we didn't think it was too big of a deal to use up our second free pass. We wandered through the gardens and greenery that appear to be a world away from the ruins of Rome. That is until you walk a little further and see columns and partial walls in front of you.

My overall impression of Rome? It has way too many tourists compared to Florence (my favorite so far) and Venice. I wondered what it would be like to visit during the summer in the actual tourist season. Otherwise, it was pretty fantastic seeing all the history that this city has to offer.