Vatican city and St Peter's

St Peter's Bascilica

Crowds for the Papal audience

The Pope in person!

Security!

Queue in front of us

a better photo than yesterday. Just to prove we are both still alive!

St Peter's square from where the pope sits.

Do you think young italian boys dream of doing this for a job when they grow up?

And we thought we were tired yesterday!!

We were up at 6.30am today. Shower and breakfast and down to wait for the pickup at 7.45. Finally came at 8.15. I can see why no one else bothers to be on time. The vatican city, museum and sistine chapel were truly amazing. I can see why Michelangelo is so famous. His paintings and sculptures stand out in a sea of incredibly talented artists. Our tour guide was very knowledgable but also very fast. We wore earphones but if she got too far ahead, as she often did, we couldn't hear her at all. So vital instructions about where and when to meet got lost.

I thought she was taking us also to St Peter's Bascilica but  the small print says this bit gets missed on Wednesday's due to the papal audience. While it was great to get a real long distance photo of the pope, the crowds and queues were unbelievable. So we waited in the sun for about 20mins just to get into the square .Then we realised all those people were waiting to get into St Peter's. So we gave that up and sat in the shade for awhile. As the bascilica is a little way from the hotel we decided to have another go when the crowds looked a bit thinner. We were really lucky and the wait was only about 40mins. After us the queues were terrible, at least an hour. Amazing you can stand in the blazing sun for 40mins with no sunscreen and not get burnt.
St Peter's was certainly worth it. Probably the only church to come anywhere near St Pauls for us.

So we got the tube (metro) back to the hotel and chilled out until dinner. Last night we had dinner at the hotel. When we arrivved they gave us a complimentary glass of bubb les each and a complmentary glass of red with our dessert. Maybe they can see the prices are a bit of a shock, should have got dressed up a bit more. Dinner was 88 euros but worthit. You have to stop converting back to NZD and just see it as a cost of travvel. Tonight we went for pizza. So funny, when Kevin sat down he went straight through the seat of the chair causing much hilarity from other guests and the staff trying not to laugh. And no he hasn't put on weight at all. OUr kids would have fallen about laughing if they had been there. We had pizza, salad, grilled aubergines, wine and water, 23 euros. Would have had desert but the place was full of giggling teenaghers by then ( god we are getting very old)

So, off to bed. The Roman forum and Colosseum tomorrow. Hopefully an internet cafe to skype in the morning and laundry in the arvo. Fly to Turkey on Friday!!