The breakfast in the hotel with students was very nice. We had red orange juice, bread, cereal, cheese and coffee.
Today the Vatican museum was open but not tomorrow, as it is the religious holiday called the Immaculate Conception. Therefore, we put a trip to the museum on our agenda for today. We got to the museum about 8:30 for an 8:45 opening. The line was 26 miles long (OK, it was a good 3 city blocks). The line did not move until after 10:00 and then it went very quickly. That gave me an opportunity to take some pictures of the tourists and the Romans as they passed by our non-progressing line. By the time the line started to move the line behind us was at least 3 more blocks. It went around a corner and I could not see the end.
We rented audio guides. The content of the museum is pretty much the history of the world. There are on display (like the Smithsonian the majority of the museum’s collection is not on public display) many statues (from all over the world), ancient maps, Egyptian mummies (at least one was a daddy), and of course paintings.
Interestingly, or perhaps not, due to the changing mores about nudity in art over the centuries most of the male statues either have the penis broken off (don’t ask me by whom, but I suspect some 14 year old Roman from the 3rd century) or they have had a stone fig leave glued over the private parts.
The tour through the Vatican museum is a forced one-way route that winds up in the Sistine Chapel, which was painted by Michelangelo. The room is not small but it was packed and people were literally standing shoulder to shoulder. Men stood at the font yelling “NO PHOTOs” in several languages at all the people who ignored them and snapped pictures. They also kept yelling “silence” and “SHHHHHHHH.” With 1000+ people in this room, these instructions were ignored.
We then went back to hotel for a nap. After regaining our strength, we sat out on Rick Steve’s night walk across Rome. The starting point was a long walk across the river and by the castle where I took pictures of a nice family of Italian tourists.
We ate at 7:00 (too early for Italian folks) at a nice restaurant over an ancient theatre. We had the restaurant to ourselves until 8:00 then the crowds came pouring in and the place got very noisy in a friendly family way. We ordered fish for our main course. The waiter took me to the display case with ice at the front door and there we picked our sea bass. The fish and the waiter emerged from the kitchen a bit later with the fish, head and all, on a lovely platter. He showed it to us and after we approved he took it to a table and filleted it. I am a great picker outer of dead fish because it was delicious.
We then walked to St Peters, The Pantheon, the Trevi fountain, and the Spanish Steps. All of this was very nice at night when there were almost no tourists around.
Our trip to the Spanish Steps was by a circuitous route but we made it. The Spanish Steps were less than impressive with an orange construction barrier at the bottom and a giant car ad at the top.
Then our mandatory daily transportation fiasco began. We found the Metro but could not read all the signs. We walked in a tunnel thinking we were going to the train. It was a long walk. We got to the end and found no train. After wondering around a bit (OK a lot) we asked someone and found that the trains were not running and that there was a replacement bus service. A very nice man helped us find the bus stop and he told us the number of the bus but the bus did not, would not stop for us. We waited and asked another bus driver and were told a bus number to take but that bus never came. We took a taxi.
Back at the hotel, it is midnight and I am going to bed.
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