Saturday: Holy Cow. Okay, there was no cow today but a lot of Holy. The breakfast at the Hotel Luciani was meagre but the several coffees plus an initial one in the room got me going. The weather started blue but turned gray and occasionally rainy very soon.
The red line subway dropped us as close on the Metro as we could get. So, as usual, the crowds marched to the side entrance of the Vatican. The line up wasn't unbelievably long to get into the Basilica. I remember having mixed feelings the last time I was there. It does not feel very spiritual to me. I wonder what all the art has to do with the Christian beliefs I possess. I respect even other religions, so I should be a little more relaxed with a sect of my own. As far as all the decoration, even public buildings in certain eras try damned hard to be grandiose.
We waited in line to get into the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. We had to wait a half hour in the one kilometer queue. They sure know how to move through large groups of people at 14 Euros a pop. I'm happy we went. I didn't know the ceiling version of the Creation of Adam would be so high and small. We exited after two hours only having really seen a small part of what was on offer.
On the way back we succumbed to a Big Mac meal, the first from the McD franchise on this trip. After getting back to the room and a cup of coffee, we headed back out just to explore. This time I put on my jacket! The day pass tickets meant we went back towards the Colosseum exiting a stop or so early. This allowed us to view another cathedral and the beginning of a public demonstration against discrimination. We walked and walked more. I wonder how many kilometres we've actually put on walking around this trip. The number is certainly in the hundreds.
In the late evening, we even rode one Metro line to its end just to look around and get our money's worth out of the day passes. Rather than pizza for our final meal, we ate kebab plates at an Arab/African shop near the station.
Tomorrow we're up at 5:00 am for our flights back to Vancouver. Alitalia should get us from Rome to Los Angles. Then, Alaska Air will get us into Seattle. It'll be up to me to drive us back after 7:00 pm tomorrow. Can I spell Y-A-W-N?