Day 11: Rome

Our first morning in Rome, we decided to eat at our hotel cafe. We had freshly made cinnamon break and the most wonderful strawberry pancake either of us have ever eaten. We then took the Metro over to Vatican City and visited the Vatican. We kept expecting to see the Sistine Chapel, but we must have passed through a hundred different rooms before finally getting there. The Vatican was bigger than we expected. After we'd taken about 15 pictures, the security guards in the Sistine Chapel said that no photography or video was allowed. Since there were several hundred people all crowded in there, they really had no way to enforce that rule.

We wandered over to the Basilica and watched the nuns and priests go by. At first, we wanted to go inside, but a look at the long line under the sun in the 90 degree heat made us realize that the Basilica was less special than we previously thought. We grabbed some Nutella flavored gelato (our favorite) and headed back to the hotel to rest.

That evening we took the Metro back to the Spanish Steps stop and visited a huge park. We couldn't really find the nice part of the park and ended up wandering around some scary-looking deserted sections until we found the street again. We decided to revisit the Trevi Fountain and wander around before getting dinner. Our hotel was only 2 Metro stops away from there we ate, so we decided to walk back. We made it just fine, but we were exhausted.