Italy: Day 5 - The Vatican

Today we were up really early: I think I set my alarm for 3:45 to catch our tour to the Vatican. Our tour bus was scheduled to leave at 5:00 in the morning. The boys did really well - I am so proud of them - they never complained once! Anyway - our trip to the Vatican was kind of a bummer. There was some sort of train/metro accident the day before - and the roads were absolutely packed with traffic all around Roma. It took us more than 5 hours to get to the Vatican from Napoli. When we got there - we were told that we had to be back at the bus in about 3 hours. What a rip. We spent some time in the Vatican museum (this was crowded also). We had a guide that explained some of the things we were seeing - he was good - but since we were there so late - he had to rush and I feel that we did not get to hear all of the things that he would have liked to tell us. The Vatican allows pictures anywhere except in the Cistine Chapel. They made me put my camera in my bag once we got to the Chapel. Here are a few of my pictures from this tour:

This is one of my favorite pictures that I took - it is sans people!

The Vatican museum is amazing. They have so many artifacts here - many are original - and there are some that are reproductions on display - while the original is somewhere else. I was impressed by the volume of pieces on display. The museum was crowded - and we ended up going through it 2 times as we were looking for some specific pieces of art. Yes - we found them - but it was hard.


We did not get to go in St. Peters - remember - it took us nearly 5 hours to get here - and we did not have as much time to explore as we would have liked. Here are Caleb and Jesse in St. Peter's Square.