We had a late start this morning. By the time we reached St. Peter's Square, it's already after 11:00 am, and the line for the Basilica was very long. It did move pretty fast though. We went through the security check in 30 minutes.
The church is huge and very beautiful and ornate. The center of the church was roped off with lots of chairs in place. It turned out Pope Benedict XVI was celebrating the First Vespers on the occasion of the first week of Advent later that day. We had no idea at the time (not that I know what that means now). We only found out after we came out of the church that they were closing down the church for some event. So we couldn't climb the dome as we had planned. We went to the Vatican post office, bought some souvenir and sent a couple of postcards. The postcard we sent to ourselves took over 2 weeks to arrive. So be patient.
1. The line for St. Peter's Basilica.
2. St. Peter's Basilica.
3. Swiss Guard.
4. Inside St. Peter's Basilica.
From St. Peter's Square we walked to St. Angel's Castle, crossed St. Angel Bridge, and walked towards Piazza Navona. Along the way we found a little sandwich/pizza shop. We ordered two sandwiches with the help of an older local gentleman, who was very kind, let us go ahead of him, and taught us the names of the sandwiches we ordered. Mine was called Mortadella, and I loved it. I had Mortadella sandwich many times after that. It's my favorite lunch meat of this trip. I like it better than prosciutto, salami or capicola.
5. St. Angel's Castle from St. Angel Bridge.
Piazza Navona was full of street performers (mainly people pretending to be statues). They had many carnival type games going on to win stuffed animals/prizes. The plaza was nice but Dave didn't like it a lot because of all the commercialism to it, so we moved on to Pantheon nearby.
6. The Moor Fountain at Piazza Navona.
7. Two guys driving by the Moor Fountain in a tiny little car.
8. Sitting next to the Moor Fountain, he was the best human statue we had seen on this trip.
Near Pantheon, we had our first gelato of the trip. I had chocolate + mango (what was I thinking), which was good individually, but didn't go well together. Dave helped me finish it while I enjoyed his gelato: pistachio + vanilla. I always ordered pistachio + vanilla ever since.
9. Pantheon.
From Pantheon we walked to Trevi Fountain. It was crowded but I'm sure anyone who went in the summer wouldn't agree.
10. Trevi Fountain.
After dinner and some rest at the hotel, we went to the train station to meet Deanna and Jorge again. We took the #40 bus and got off near Pantheon. Jorge took us to a gelato place called Gelateria Della Palma. It's the best gelato place we had seen on this trip. They had an incredible amount of flavors to choose from, and a 3-flavor cone/cup only cost 2.5 euros. We enjoyed our gelato, and then casually followed a Rick Steves' walking tour led by tour guide Jorge :) Jorge not only read Rick Steves' book, he torn the relative pages out and took them with him, so he could have the information he needed for the day without having to carry the whole book. That is some serious preparation.
(To be continued)
