Day 13

Early start today to get into the Vatican, and believe you me this place opens about 9am and the queue at 8am was already hundreds of metres long, by the time 9am rolled around it was probably over a kilometre long! This place is popular. It actually didn't take too long to get in once the queue started moving. Our guide made a good choice by stopping at the cafe to fuel up first as there are no places to eat/drink once you're in. Anyways the tour started with the Vatican museums through to the Sistine Chapel. We were told no talking and not to take any photos or video in the Sistine chapel, but I tell you the place was packed, noisy and the cameras were clicking like it was the red carpet at the Oscars...lot of respect there, even so the chapel walls and roof were impressive, even more so when you consider that Mike Angelo was a fresco rookie when he started doing the roof. Personally I found 'The Last Judgement' altar freso (and some of the stories behind it) more interesting than the roof. The tour continued onto St Peters, which was not as obviously packed since it's so huge (apparently 218m long and the top of the dome is 40 stories high). The biggest church in the world is a sight to behold, mainly due to the size of the place, combined with the history, gold everywhere, art, sculptures, and dead popes lying there! In spite of the crowds again it was well worth the visit. A total of 5+ hours from the time we started queuing to the time we exited St Peter's out into the square. Today was hottest day in Roma yet tipping over 33 degrees, so was decided against queueing to a) visit more dead popes under St Peter's and b) climbing the 750 steps up to the dome and the best view and highest point in Roma. So we stopped for a bite to eat and then went for a look inside the Pantheon which looked fairly average after being to St Peter's! Definitely recommend going with a guide for the Vatican tour ... shortcuts, queue jumping and lots of interesting facts and figures. Then our final and most important task in Roma was completed with Ruth finally purchasing those elusive Italian shoes...i'll pass onto Ruth... Well girls although it was sale season in Roma I think with all the Italian locals on annual holidays much of what was open was tourist junk ... the best looking shops and eateries, especially those off the beaten track were closed up. Factor in the heat combined with some long days sightseeing and trying on shoes was a fairly unattractive proposition!! Still had to be done :) so with a couple of hours to spare before we headed to the airport we found a promising looking shoe store and I brought some boots - mid calf, black, cowboy style, pointed toe, sort of snake skin effect leather. Not exactly the sexy summer sandals I was looking for but still have London and New York for those ... and as we all know you can never have too many pairs of black boots. Roma is a great city and even though we didn't throw a coin into the Trevi fountain, I think we'll be back. Back to London then...