Today we are going to the Vatican Museum to see the Sistine Chapel. We had to go to the first hotel because they had the least expensive way to buy the fast track pass. Shirley though we should purchase Hop on Hop off bus tickets which we did.  We set off to catch the tour bus to go to Vatican City.  All went well and the fast pass was really worth it.  The lines are tremendous.  We went into the Vatican Museum and we were in a line for the Sistine Chapel that wound around inside the museum for an hour.  We finally saw the Sistine Chapel!

 I’m having extreme difficulty uploading pictures.  I’ll just send text until I am able upload them.  It takes at least 1/2 hour to get one loaded if I can.

After the Chapel we walked back to St Mark’s Square to see if we wanted to tour St Peters Basilica.  The line was at least a mile long and did not appear to be moving.  We opted out of waiting in line for hours and headed to the bus for another stop. Next to do was the Spanish Steps.  The bus really can’t drop us close so we walked to the steps and took our pictures then instead of trekking back to the bus we walked to the Trevi Fountain.  The fountain is under reconstruction and covered with scaffolding.  There we a walkway provided over the empty fountain so that’s what we did.  We didn’t see the sign that said not to throw coins from the walkway until after we had thrown them.  Now we had to look for the bus stop since we didn’t get off at the Fountain.  After much walking we found a stop.  Part of the problem was the bus doesn’t stop at some of the scheduled places on Saturday.  It worked out and we took the bus to the Colosseum and then walked to the hotel.  It was almost 6pm so we walked to the Main Street to get dinner.  We stopped at a little restaurant.  I had fried olives (they were stuffed with meat) and pasta with eggplant, basil and cheese and Shirley had lasagna.  We also met a couple of women from Tennessee. On the way back to the hotel Shirley stopped for a gelato and I stopped at the little cafe down the street from the hotel for a cappuccino and a small pastry.  Then we went back to the hotel and sat in the courtyard for a little while before going to the room.

i’m having trouble uploading the pictures so I’m sending them separately.

Shirley eating gelato

Shitley and Australian couple

The courtyard is at our hotel and it is quite lovely.  I should also mention I bought something in the duty free shop and in the confusion surrounding the flight I forgot to pick it up at the gate.  I have the receipt and will see if the will give me a refund on my return trip.

But to continue after our arrival and check in we went to the Colosseum.  Shirley wanted to see the interior so we waited in an endless line (at least an hour) for tickets.  We decided then that we would get a fast pass for the Vatican Museum on Sarurday.  The fast pass lets you go to the head of the line.  We toured the Colosseum for most of the afternoon. We returned to the hotel and found a little grocery store and also a cafe at the end of the block. We bought a bottle of wine at the grocery store and a sandwich at the cafe for a snack.  We brought them back to our hotel.  The front desk opened the wine and we went into the courtyard for a snack and some wine.  In the courtyard we met a couple from Australia who are also tourists enjoying a glass of wine.  We chatted for quite a while and it was most enjoyable.  We then decided to tour our surroundings.  We went back up the street to the main thoroughfare.  There were restaurants, pizza places and gelato shops.  We stopped for some gelato and then decided to call it s night.  We were glad to finally have a bed.

We got to Tampa airport and then flew to Atlanta with no problems.  While waiting for our flight to Rome the airline needed people to be bumped.  They offered a $1,300 voucher for a flight anywhere and would put us up in a hotel for the night.  The next flight to Rome would be Saturday the next day at the same time. Shirley and I thought this was too good a deal to pass up.  We told the airline and they asked us to wait until the plane was boarded and they would make our arrangements.  However I would have to let our hotel in Rome know that we would be arriving a day later.  Since it was nearing midnight in Rome I called and told them. The plane had boarded when the airline told us that several passengers had missed the flight and that we should board.  Onto the plane we went- but I had to call the hotel before we took off.  Almost panic mode, but I was able to reach them and tell them the correct date of arrival.

We arrived in Rome got our luggage and headed to the train station for our trip into the city.  At the train station we found out that the Metro and some of the buses were on strike.  Now we had to do plan B.  We took a shuttle into the city that dropped us off at our hotel.  The shuttle was only €15 per person so that was a pretty good price.  On the trip into the city traffic was a mess due to the strike.  It is chaos, not organized chaos, just chaos.  When we got to the hotel they were having a problem with the plumbing on one of the floors and had to get us a room in a sister hotel. We had to wait while the hotel tried to get a taxi for us – near impossible. The taxi finally arrived and we took our lives in our hands trying to cross the street to get to it.  Rome was a giant mess.  Finally we arrived at our hotel and checked in.  It was about 1:30pm Rome time and we are sleep deprived and tired from traveling.