It's Tuesday morning and we'll be leaving Rome in the afternoon. But first we will be doing a tour of Vatican City. We walk to our tour bus and begin our short ride to the outer walls of Vatican City. Once there, we, and 30 or so of our tour mates, trail along behind our guide towards the entrance to the museum. Now we stand and wait (and wait and wait...), but we finally pass through security and get inside to start out tour. There are LOTS of other tour groups so it's VERY crowded, but the sculptures, and paintings and tapestry are very impressive.
We get to the entrance of the Sistine chapel, but before entering we are told "NO Talking & NO photos. We packed about a million people (slight exaggeration ;) ) into a room about the size of a basketball court. And, of course, there were some people that refused to be quiet. So not the most peaceful chapel that I've ever been in, but the paintings were truly beautiful. Side note: It took Michaelangelo four years to paint the ceiling and he worked 7 days a week, from sun up to sun down. Also he painted while standing on scaffolding, on his tiptoes!!
Our next stop on the tour was St. Peter's Basilica. Also EXTREMELY crowded but very impressive. Side note: what looks like beautiful paintings in the church are actually mosaics, made up of thousands of tiny colorful tiles; each mosaic taking many years to complete.
We finished the tour, headed back to our b&b to pick up our luggage, and walked to the train station to catch the train to Florence. We hopped on the fast train and got to Florence in about 1 1/2 hours. We walked out of the train station and immediately bought a map of Florence, quickly realizing that we had no idea where our hotel was located (!) and, of course, this map did not have our hotel listed. We started to walk, which was silly, since we had no idea where we were going:) Then, technology to the rescue....we managed to figure out, after several attempts, how to use our phone to call the hotel and, the concierge, who thankfully spoke English, gave us directions.
We get to the entrance of the Sistine chapel, but before entering we are told "NO Talking & NO photos. We packed about a million people (slight exaggeration ;) ) into a room about the size of a basketball court. And, of course, there were some people that refused to be quiet. So not the most peaceful chapel that I've ever been in, but the paintings were truly beautiful. Side note: It took Michaelangelo four years to paint the ceiling and he worked 7 days a week, from sun up to sun down. Also he painted while standing on scaffolding, on his tiptoes!!
Our next stop on the tour was St. Peter's Basilica. Also EXTREMELY crowded but very impressive. Side note: what looks like beautiful paintings in the church are actually mosaics, made up of thousands of tiny colorful tiles; each mosaic taking many years to complete.
We finished the tour, headed back to our b&b to pick up our luggage, and walked to the train station to catch the train to Florence. We hopped on the fast train and got to Florence in about 1 1/2 hours. We walked out of the train station and immediately bought a map of Florence, quickly realizing that we had no idea where our hotel was located (!) and, of course, this map did not have our hotel listed. We started to walk, which was silly, since we had no idea where we were going:) Then, technology to the rescue....we managed to figure out, after several attempts, how to use our phone to call the hotel and, the concierge, who thankfully spoke English, gave us directions.
