Rome and Vatican City

We have quite a few days in Roma, and we are staying at a franchise campground we had previously stayed in Venice so the set up was familiar.  The social media posts, google and youtube all warn you about pickpockets across europe but really focus on Rome as the hotspot.  We get off our Frecciarossa train (so fast and comfortable) and immediately hit with heat and crowds.  There’s no doubt our travel has prepared us for adapting to different forms of transport, so Gareth has metro tickets in the blink of an eye (despite so many issues others have experienced in Rome) and I've mapped the route and stops.  The level of discomfort you feel on the metro, suspiciously eyeing everyone as dodgy is exhausting.  Then we have to catch a bus, and very quickly two young guys decide to wait very close to Kaia and I as we have separated ourselves from Gareth and Zach who are in the shade, so it must have looked like we may have been easy targets.  Not to worry - turning and facing them directly with the art of a good old staring contest weirds the shit out of these guys, who I'm guessing, accept that I may not be as easy a target as first thought, walk off down the street.  We get on the bus, it's 35 degrees and we are crushed in, the most uncomfortable we have been on this trip, the air con is full force and doing nothing to quell the heat.  We get off the bus saturated, and probably subconsciously making the decision that we will never catch another bus in Rome again.

Our first full day in Rome and we have tickets to the Vatican Museum.  The campground provides a shuttle service a couple of times a day, so we catch the 8am to get to Vatican city.  Parts of the museum have air con but most of it doesn’t.  Despite our extensive travel, we can't seem to work out a simple map of the museum and end up making our way to the Sistine Chapel in the heat of the day with the crowds.  For Zach, he’s heard all about the Chapel, and as the heat increases, so do the crowds in each room. He's super keen to get to the highlight of the museum.  Unfortunately for him, each time he reaches a new room, he feels like he’s never going to get to the Sistine Chapel.  So when we do get there (and the same feeling of awe I felt the first time I saw it is unchanged) Zach is like - oh ok cool, i’m glad i’ve seen it, but I’m never coming back here again.  Like father like son, Gareth is also glad he experienced it but no desire to come back.  Kaia is with me on the thoughts of the chapel, and seems to be enjoying the experience in spite of the heat and crowds. Funny that the room of maps was the one room we all agreed was pretty cool.

It would be remiss to not also share that we spent way to long in the room holding all the gifts given to the pope from various countries. And it wasn't because the gifts were the most amazing things we'd ever seen, it was because the air con worked in this newer part of the museum.

We leave the museum after lunch and make our way to St Peter’s square.  The awesome thing about Rome and the Vatican city is the water fountains for water that is super clean and cold.  In 38 degrees, dunking a hat into very cold water and then putting it on your head is the most refreshing feeling for approximately 5 mins before it's all dried up again.  We sit in the shade of the stone structures surrounding the square, taking it all in for 20 mins, people watching.  The Bascilica is free to go into, you just have to wait in line.  And we are watching the faithful, lining up in the blazing sun and heat to wait up to two hours to go in.

Getting back to our tiny shack, we had left the air con on, and OMG it was amazing.  Gareth makes us pasta for dinner, Zach had picked out pasta that were tiny bicycles from San Gimignano and we ate it with real meat sausages.  It feels like actual good quality meat is for the rich here, we either can’t find it, or we are shopping in the wrong places.  Even Kaia who has declared she is a vegetarian that eats meat agrees the sausages are the best.