When in Rome - Part II

We had two more days of seeing the Roman sights. Sunday we headed first to
the Vatican to see the Pope. And see him we did as he briefly blesses the
huge crowd in Piazza St Pietro from a balcony in the Palace. We had heard
that he did this at noon every Sunday and thought that something was going
on as the streets from the metro stop to the Vatican were streaming with
people, and on arrival in the piazza it was almost packed out. At 12h00
sharp he made his appearance although he was at quite a distance and hidden
behind his bulletproof rostrum. After a few minutes as we did not understand
what was being said we decided to head into St Peters itself as the queues
from earlier had gone whilst the Pope was greeting his audience. What an
amazing building. Not only is it enormous but also extremely ornate. We took
our time and saw as much as we could take in while the place was almost
empty, and made it out again before the tour groups from outside in the
square descended in their hundreds. After eating our lunch in the square we
headed off on foot across the river and ended up in the park in the north
east of the city centre off from Piazza Del Popolo. After a nice stroll
around in the park and as we were feeling the heat we headed back to site
and chilled out in the evening sunshine.
Monday morning was another early start as we were going to try and visit the
Vatican museums early before the crowds hit. Silly idea. We got there at
about 09h00 and the queue was already from the entrance almost all the way
back to Piazza St Pietro, mostly tour groups. We decided to give it a miss
as it would have taken probably 2 hours to get through and it would have
been unbearably busy inside. So instead we utilised our travel tickets and
hit a few buses and trams around the city. We also visited a very nice
little church not far out from the Colosseum which had an amazing mosaic
above the altar, one of the few in the city. As we did not have any food
with us we took a bus to the Centro Storico to hunt down a place from some
options in the guide book, but as is usually our luck they were either
closed or only doing pizza, which we wanted, in the evening. We eventually
found a nice place doing sandwiches and satisfied our hunger. Later on back
at the site Sue was chatting to a nice Dutch lady who said they had been
told buy a German lady who's husband was a tour guide that the Vatican
museums are not worth visiting from Spring through summer as they are packed
and you just get rushed through. Glad we did not queue and spend the 12€
each for the privilege. We will have to return at another time and visit.
After 4 hard days of wearing out the Roman pavements it was time to move on
and today we took the short trip north up to Lago Bolsena and the town of
Bolsena. The campsite was a bit of a fright on first arrival as the
facilities are not quite as good as we have been used to, but they are okay
and will suffice for a few days while we chill out here. I took a brief
cycle back into town, about 3 miles away, and it seems very nice. So we will
be popping in and out over the next few days I am sure.

Avete un vocabolarietto migliore di questo?

Ciao

M&S