Next we went into San Marco church, right next door. It was a strange church, originally started in the 4th century. It had graves all over the floors, but it was another one of those churches that seemed too bright for its time period. Mom and I lit wax candles.
We saw a kid climbing up the steps leading up to the church on his knees, which is supposed to make him win the lottery. I was really pumped to see this.
We walked down the steps and went over to the Pantheon, which was open finally.
The inside was smaller feeling that I expected, and more ornate as well. The coolest part by far was the ceiling, with its coffered roof and the giant hole in the middle, the only supply of light in the building. Too bad it wasn’t raining.
As the probably best-preserved old building in the world, it was exciting to see. Raphael’s tomb was there, as well as that Victori Emmanuel dude, and it’s still a functioning church today.
It was really nice out, and I was hungry, so I suggested we get lunch in the piazza. We found a place right outside the Pantheon and sat outside looking directly at it. Maybe the coolest location I’ve ever ate at.
They gave us bread (and when I say gave us, I mean gave it to us and charged us 6 Euros for a couple packages of breadsticks and four pieces of white bread) and we ordered bruchetta (again, very good, although smaller than the other places) and I had ravioli with ricotta and spinach and mom had macaroni.
The pastas were great, aided by the tomato sauce being awesome. It was better than the night before for sure, and the location made it very enjoyable.
Since it had become a tradition to eat and then get gelato, we went to Giotti, a famous Italian place not too far away. We had to order the size and then go over to the counter and pick out flavors with our receipt. It was very good, one of the better ones.
When we were walking back to the Vatican, mom dropped her cone, but picked it up and ate it. I thought this was the coolest thing ever.
There was no line to get into the Vatican Museums. I thought we’d be waiting for a long time.
The museum was housed in the old palace the Pope lived in during the 17th century. It was rather impressive, almost too impressive. There was statue after statue, old painting after old painting. There was too much to take in nearly.
After an hour or so we made our way into the Raphael Rooms, which were incredible. The best part was the painting of all the Greek philosophers together.
Finally we came to the Sistine Chapel, packed with people. We vultured some seats and sat down for a couple hours. Michelangelo did not only the entire ceiling, but the entire judgment wall. It was awesome, aided in large part by the fact that he actually painted those paintings there. Unlike all the works you see in museums, he labored for years in that location, working on those pieces of art. I really enjoyed staying there and just taking it in.
After that we went through the rest of the museum, the highlights included the last Raphael ever and a cartoon by Leonardo. The cool thing about it was that it was unfinished, so you could see how he was working on it, pretty interesting.
Afterward we went to St. Paul's again since the line was short. There was a service going on, which was pretty interesting to watch, especially in the center of the Catholic religion. We didn't understand anything that was said, but it was still cool. Probably what it would have been like going to services in Latin.
We went to the train station and tried to figure out what to do about the night. Turns out the bus office was closed and opened at 4. We went and talked to the hostel guy, and asked if we could stay and sit in the common area. He said something about having laws and stuff about counting people. Whatever. He said we could keep our bags there until 1.
We went out to get pizza at another place my book recommended, around the Capitol area. We sat outside, the view wasn't that great or anything. The customers were just about all local, so that was really cool, different from the more touristy places we'd been going.
The pizza and bruchetta was great again. I had a four cheese pizza, a good change, definitely tasted differently. Ma got the vegetable pizza. Mine was better.
After dinner we stopped and got some band aides because we were getting some solid blisters. Then we then walked over by Trevi Fountain to get gelato at Blue Ice, a place Lauren said was good. She was right, it was awesome. We went over to the fountain and ate it.
We had some time to kill so we went to a cafe behind Blue Ice and got hot chocolate and coffee. It was really good hot chocolate, like melted chocolate.
We walked back down to the Coliseum and and walked around for a while. We took some little stones from around there, maybe they were part of the Coliseum. Either way, it was cool.
We got back to the hostel just about at 1 and got our bags. The guy didn't let us just sit there, I thought he might.
We went around the corner to try to go to an internet cafe, but it was closed. Then we tried to go to the train station. That was closed too, big trouble. We went to a cafe across the street, but it was closing in 15 minutes. So we walked around to try to find a place. McDonald's was open until 2, so we went there. I had a surprisingly good muffin.
We then went and sat at the train station outside. It wasn't that chilly, but there were some characters out there. I didn't feel really safe about having my computer out, so we read Paris stuff. Not really ideal, but we made it through.
We got on the bus and I fell asleep right away.
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