Roma day 3, 4 & 5

Before I get started, let's all hope that the grammar editor is paying attention on this post. I was up until a little after 5 AM last night. Saw a VERY dramatic SEAHAWKS PLAYOFF VICTORY! I am pretty sure I woke up half the apartment building when Romo fumbled the field goal snap by yelling with excitement. I know I woke up Paty.

Roma day 3, 4 & 5 were Christmas Eve, Christmas and the day after Christmas; which is also a holiday in Italy. And all of Europe for that matter.

Rome was really dressed up for the holidays. Most all of the alley's had light strung across them. It made for some really cool walking at night. This is a daylight picture of a typical Rome alley. You can see the lights above:


So we went to the Vatican, we wanted to see the Pope do his blessing. We got to Vatican square at noon. The square was PACKED. There must have been around 200,000 people there. I thought this was a typical Sunday. But it turns out that we just happened upon the Papal blessing at exactly the right time:

Saint Peter's square is large. Let me emphasize that, the place is HUGE! I can't imagine how many people pack in here for big events. They put a really large Christmas tree in the middle of the square, next to the curiously omnipresent obelisk.

I felt like I was in the middle of a Dan Brown novel at times with all the obelisks.

The square cleared out a little bit after the Pope left. It turns out they all went inside Saint Peter's.


Of course we did as well. But don't worry, like the square the Basilica is LARGE. There was really too much to take in. It was pretty much the definition of sensory overload. Everywhere you turned there was another 'Masterpiece'. Here is one by Michelangelo:

I am sure this is by someone famous and has a famous name that you will most likely recognize as well, but I wasn't kidding when I talked about the sensory overload as I have no idea what the name of the sculptor or piece is:

This is the best picture I have that illustrates the vastness of Saint Peter's. Notice the small figures on the right, these are actual people:

Outside with that dazed sensory overloaded look on my eyes:

After the Vatican we walked again all over Rome and ended up at the Spanish Steps. There was some US gospel choir playing on the steps with a huge audience. They were quite good. Must have been a really cool deal for them:

For Christmas Eve dinner we ended up at the same wine bar that we were at the night before. We were a little more dressed up this time. We had two of the best Italian bottles of wine ever as part of the dinner. And the food was really good as well.

After dinner we somehow hooked up with two guys that worked on luxury yachts. One was a Captain and the other was first mate for a different ship. We had a great time and learned a lot about the luxury yacht game. The captain was a little tight lipped as to who he worked for, but after the third bottle of wine we pried out that the yacht he capt'd is owned by an Argentinian billionaire whose name now escapes me. But the moral of the story is we had a great time and Paty now knows not to try to keep up drinking with what amounts to a sailor on shore leave. Christmas morning came very early for Paty. We had no presents, but we did do stockings that we picked up in the square earlier in the trip. It was nice, just a harsh contrast to our normal Christmas.

For Christmas day we decided to tour more of ancient Rome. It's not like they could close the Coliseum or anything.
Christmas Day on the Circus Maximus. It looks a lot more impressive in Gladiator, but this is where they used to have the chariot races and such.


It turns out they can close the Coliseum, so we were not able to go in. We did walk circumnavigate and take many pictures. Here is one:

Maybe next year's Christmas card?

The rest of the day was pretty much low key as everything was closed and Paty was still coping with her night of revelry with the sailors! I drank most of a bottle of good red wine that we had picked up earlier in the trip and we had a mini West Wing marathon in the apartment.

As I mentioned the day after Christmas everything is closed as this is a big holiday as well. So we went back to the Vatican as we missed the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel on Christmas Eve.

The Sistine Chapel is actually inside the Vatican Museum. In a totally different building from Saint Peter's. The museum was qutie cool, most of the hallways looked like this:

The best hallway in the museum was undoubtedly the map room. This room has many ancient maps from different eras painted on the walls. It was quite cool!


But undoubtedly the highlight of the Vatican Museum was the Sistine Chapel. It really is quite the sight. You are not allowed to take pictures, but everyone does anyway. Here are the best two pictures I got while trying to be indiscreet with the camera:

and the ceiling:

As you can see, we were extremely lucky all trip with the weather:


That is the trip, or at least the highlights. Rome might be our favorite Europe city. It has such a mix of sights that are unparallelled and then you take the great food and wine into consideration and there is really no comparison.