It was another difficult night for sleep. I had hoped Sunday night would be quiet, but the activity in the street below our window kept up into the early morning, and we had to keep the window open because of the heat. We slept in a bit, and were out the door around 10:30 or so.
We headed back to the Vatican, stopping first to eat lunch at the same ristorante we had dinner at the night before. Traveling alone, I would generally want to always eat someplace new, but with kids it’s a lot easier to go someplace that you know they will eat. We had pasta and pizza again.
From there, we reached the Vatican and got in line for the museums. It was a long line, but it actually moved pretty quickly, and we were inside in maybe a half hour. Good thing, too, because most of the line was in the sun and the day was shaping up to be another hot one.
The museum lobby was a madhouse, though, with huge crowds of people everywhere. In particular, the passage between buying the ticket and getting past the turnstile into the museum was just a packed mob.
Once inside, things opened up a bit in places, but it was extremely crowded the entire day and so almost impossible to do much more than just quickly glance at things while walking past. Fortunately I had been before so there wasn’t anything I was dying to see, though I think the main memory Phyllis and the girls will take away is just the crowds. Surprisingly, given the international importance of the site and the range of foreign visitors, almost all signage was in Italian only, and there was almost nothing to explain the importance of the works on display. It’s just as well, though, since there was really no chance to read anything anyway. I did recognize the bust of Pericles, which I had seen previously. But otherwise, the effect was just one of overwhelming amounts of statuary and paintings.
We followed the crowds to the Sistine Chapel, which was absolutely packed with people. Fortunately, the art work is on the ceiling so it didn’t really matter. I pointed out the creation of Adam to Kaitlin, and the last judgment to Phyllis. A guard was constantly shushing the crowd and shouting for silence. I understand that it’s a holy place for cathlics, but it also seemed silly to expect quiet with hundreds of tourists passing through.
Afterwards, we mailed postcards from the Vatican post office, and then headed back to the room. It was really hot and sticky by this time, and we stopped for gelato. Lots of gelato stands in rome, seemingly two or three on every block. And pizza everywhere, too. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if that’s because Italians like it that way, or if it’s arisen because tourists expect it to be that way and the Italians are simply giving tourists what they expect to see.
When we reached our hotel, the girls played cards with Judy while Phyllis and I searched for rooms for our next destinations. We lined up what looks like a nice room in Cannes for next week, and looked further for another place in Switzerland.
After the sun set and it cooled off a bit, we went down to the street to eat at the pizza place below our room. It was cheap but ok food. Then Phyllis and I took Kaitlin to get another gelato. We also got a granite to take back to Amber, but she didn’t like it. So picky. I read a bit more of my Third Reich history book on the iPad, and then to bed.