Masses of Asses

Today we managed to visit the Vatican without lightening bolts striking us down and we came away with one overriding impression. There were WAY too many people there. We dealt with huge crowds from all over the world for several hours. Don’t get me wrong, we saw lots of very cool art and saw some historic sights, but jeez, we were joined by many people often jammed into a very small area. Without air conditioning. And it was hot. But it was worth it.

At the very end of the guided portion we saw the Sistine Chapel. It made the whole ordeal worth it. It’s quite a sight…exactly what I expected and yet different at the same time. I can’t show you any photos from the chapel because photography is not allowed and boy do they enforce it. I saw a guard make someone delete photos. It’s really ok tho, because photos wouldn’t do it justice.

We saw St. Peter’s Basilica on our own, which was also pretty cool, but we were tired, hungry and cranky so we beat feet to find a lunch and cold drink. We succeeded. Tomorrow it’s the Colosseum and the Forum before a bus ride to Volterra. If we have wifi I’ll post again from there. Ciao!

BTW, sorry for the lack of captions on the photos but we’re doing this on an iPad and haven’t figured out how to add them. The pictures below were all from the Vatican — except the one of cold beer at the end.