Rome Day 2

August 29, 2009

After allowing ourselves to sleep in a little, Tess and I headed for the Vatican. We started by touring St. Peter’s basilica, which was amazing. As a cradle Catholic, I was constantly in awe of the Vatican. The massive amount of art and sculpture, all done by hand blew me away every time I thought about it. For our daily exercise, we hiked up to the top of the dome, which took about twenty minutes of climbing up a spiral staircase in a very small corridor. The view from the top was absolutely worth the hike. We had a panoramic view of the city and could see inside all the Vatican walls, before leaving the Vatican, we mailed our postcards so they would have a “Vaticano” stamp on them.

We enjoyed a pizza lunch and headed back to the Vatican for our Scavi tour. Our tour guide’s name was Peter and he is studying in Rome to get his PhD in Latin and Greek. We got to get very near the bones of St. Peter and see them in their little Plexiglas boxes. I learned a lot of history and got to see the grave of John Paul II, which meant a lot to me. After this 90-minute tour, Tess and I were exhausted and headed back to the hostel for a three-hour nap.

For dinner we ventured to Trestavere and one of Tess’s friend’s favorite restaurant, l’archetto for pasta and wine. I also continued with my trend of enjoying Nutella as often as possible while in Europe for dessert.