Day 41 - Vatican...which makes our 5th country we've been to so far on the trip!

Once we got inside the Vatican and our tour guide said as of when you walked through those doors you are officially out of Rome and in the Vatican...Mary and I looked at each other and said number 6!! Which is the number of countries that we will have been to by the end of our trip...we were pretty excited to add that one to the list : )


Day 41 - This day was all about the Vatican but not before a little mishap in the morning…I went to withdrawal money out of the ATM (bancomat as they call them here), it read my card, took my pin number, asked how much I wanted to take out, gave me back my card and then never gave me my money! So I freaked out a little, but like anything it ended up being okay pheww!


We headed to the Vatican, signed up for a tour and got on our way. Our tour guide was great and pointed out some really useful things to know and see…I sure wouldn’t have wanted to tackle those museums and galleries on my own because there’s so much to see it almost starts to look the same! It was neat though they had statues from the Forum in there, baths used by ancient Romans, tapestries of Christ’s life, tile mosaics all on the ground and of course the Sistine chapel. He talked for quite a bit about the paintings in the Sistine chapel and our tour guide pointed out significant figures throughout it…the painting on the ceiling, you know the famous one with the two fingers almost touching, is the story of creation...that particularly famous part of the painting is representing God creating man. But I was surprised at how little that portion of it is, it’s always talked about and I expected the whole ceiling to be that one part of the painting but turns out it’s a small part to a much bigger picture. I’d just to like to point out that in the middle of creation and the ceiling is when God made Eve…that’s right, women are the center of the universe, okay okay that’s a little dramatic but still makes me feel better about myself to know how much God values women : )

Afterwards we went of the scavi tour, which scavi in Italian means excavations. So it took us to the crypts below St. Peter’s Basilica where the Popes are buried but what we focused even more on was what’s underneath the old Popes…mausoleums and the Apostle Peter’s tomb found just in the 1940’s! It was neat to see where Jesus’ best friend was buried and look what’s on top of him, one of the biggest churches in the world. Mary was in catholic heaven here…me not so much, but it was neat to see the Vatican.

Afterwards we went back to our favorite hangout spot…the fountain, one of many, but this one is just special to us because it’s not a well known one, it’s pretty modern and you can walk in it. It felt like we were at a water park or something sitting there with the splashing water and people coming to just relax. So we just got some gelato and hung out there for a while until we headed back to our hotel for our last night in Roma!