Day 8: Rome

Time to move on to day 8 of the 10 day adventure! I can't believe it!  If you have not yet read about Day 1 in Rome, click here! This post covers our second day in Rome, which was also delightful and busy!

When we woke up, we were all so sweaty. It was even hotter than Granada, and again without air conditioning or fans. Plus, since we were planning to visit The Vatican and St. Peter's Basilica, we needed to cover our knees and shoulders. However, we thoroughly enjoyed our organic breakfast that the owner of the Eco B&B made for us, which included freshly baked coffee cakes and sweet bread, organic yogurt with granola, fresh fruit, hard boiled eggs, orange juice, and tea or coffee.  Breakfast of CHAMPIONS!

We started with our morning walk across the river and past the horse farm to get to the Metro station.

We began with two different museums of Roman history! I definitely loved all of the statues and columns and classical art that we saw! I was also happy that I was able to take many pictures, and the museum wasn't very crowded. We actually ended up here because we purchased the Roma Pass. If any of you wish to travel to Rome, I highly recommend looking into this pass. If I remember correctly, it cost us 30 euro, but for 3 days offered unlimited transportation (bus, Metro, tram), free admission to two museums/groups of museums, and discounts at every museum thereafter. The biggest highlight was when we used our passes to get into the Colosseum for free and bypass the gigantic line to walk right in. It was beautiful, since I think the line would have been at least 60-90 minutes long.  We also were able to get into the two Roman history museums for free, so that was awesome!

Detail from a tomb we saw

Not the original, but still very cool, especially with all of the Olympics going on right now!

This is the courtyard from the museum. So pretty!

The hallways were lined with awesome artifacts. It is amazing how much is preserved, despite the fact that all of these historical treasures are so old!

Next stop... the Vatican! My third country *technically* on my study abroad trip! Here is the dome of St. Peter's Basilica, the largest church in the world.

Our first stop, however, was in the Vatican Museums. We were a little bit on the fence about whether or not we would visit the Vatican museums, but it is definitely something I had looked forward to from the time I saw pictures of it in my old and beloved Geographica book, and it was the only way to see the Sistine Chapel! So I was very happy to see it, although it was huge and lots and lots of walking.

There was an epic courtyard we encountered very soon after entering the museum. The centerpiece was this rotating gold sphere, which happened to have a seagull on it, enjoying the ride.

The whole courtyard was very pretty!

Then, we were inside the seemingly endless museum. Each and every room seemed to have a glorious ceiling and lots of gorgeous architecture and art, along with lots of tourists. And we were allowed to take pictures! The whole place definitely had a palace like feel to it, so that was cool! Fun fact: Together, all of the Vatican Museums make up the largest museum in the world. We spent over two hours moving at a pretty good clip just to see the main parts, but there were lots of side exhibits we did not see. Also, they are sneaky to have the Sistine Chapel be the very last thing you see, so everyone passes through the main parts.  At one point, Kelley, Elle and I were so tired that we found a bench in this random contemporary art exhibit in the museum that wasn't very popular, so we gladly rested for about 10 minutes before continuing onward.

With all of the beautiful ceilings, we kept asking ourselves if we were at the Sistine Chapel, since we couldn't believe that the ceilings could get better than they were. Also, they were all very elaborate, so I was thinking about the logistics of painting such ornate designs on the ceiling, so many years ago. Crazy!

Next, we were in the famous Gallery of Maps, which I thoroughly enjoyed!

Looks legit.

This place is big... really big.

And all of sudden... BAM!!!!!  Raphael's The School of Athens! I couldn't believe it, and actually had no idea that the original was a fresco on one of the walls in the Vatican Museums! It was a huge surprise and just wonderful! I did not realize that it took up an entire wall either! It is really cool since I have studied this painting in many years of history classes, especially because of all of the historical figures and thinkers present in this work!

And finally we made it to the Sistine Chapel! I think we spent a good 20-30 minutes in that one room. We weren't allowed to take pictures, but here are some images from the internet.

It was very cool stuff. This picture is what it would have looked like had the room been empty, which it was not. It was cool to be looking at "the" Sistine Chapel, although I think I may have built it up too much in my mind beforehand. The pictures I had always seen gave me the impression that it was so massive, with small detail upon small detail. However, it was smaller than I expected, and much larger and more spread out. It was still fascinating to imagine not only how many people on this Earth have looked at the exact same ceiling that I was looking at, but also to picture "the" Michelangelo painting it between 1508 and 1512!

The cool spiral staircase we walked down on our way out!

Now we moved to St. Peter's Square.

And then we got in line to visit St. Peter's Basilica.

I love all of the natural light that's going on here!

La Pietá, completed by Michelangelo in 1499

Perhaps my favorite part of the Basilica was this timeline of all of the popes since the year 64 CE! So many popes over the course of nearly 2,000 years.

The Vatican guard, sporting U of I colors!

My attempt to get a panoramic shot of St. Peter's Square

After the Vatican, we got some pizza slices and moved on to explore some other smaller landmarks that Rome had to offer.

The Spanish Steps

That awkward moment when you don't remember what this is...

The Pantheon!! It was built by Emperor Hadrian in 126 CE.

Our day so far had been quite full of adventure, so we crossed this bridge to visit the Trastevere  neighborhood, which is home to one of the most famous pizzerias.

They were working so quickly and whipping out pizza after delicious pizza! It was an incredibly popular place!

I ordered the mushroom pizza, which was covered in so many mushrooms!! YUM YUM YUM!

And then we made it home around 12:30! Fortunately, Gelati and Mozzarella was open until 1 am, so we indulged with the best Italian gelato one last time, before heading to Madrid the next day!

And that is all for Rome! I promise my Madrid posts will be much much shorter!