Rome, September 13th

We visited the Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica. We had to start our day with the traditional breakfast of cappuccino and cornetto.




Here is a view of gardens at the Vatican:







The Vatican Museums and St. Peter's Basilica can be overwhelming and you have to pre-plan your visit:


































After touring the Vatican Museums, we went to St. Peter's Basilica, where we saw the original Pieta by Michelangelo. This is a very moving piece of art. We also saw the grave of St Peter the apostle when we went below to tour the grotto beneath St. Peter's. The history of the place is unimaginable. This is where we saw what remains of Constantine's Basilica, the original basilica built on the tomb of St Peter. A meaningful moment during the visit was seeing the grave of St John Paul II at St Peter's Basilica. Many areas in the Basilica did not allow pictures to be taken.





The ORIGINAL Pieta...very moving:






The Baldachin in St Peters's was enormous. Pictures have difficulty conveying the size:













Standing guard of the Pope is the Swiss Guard. Don't let the uniforms mislead you, these guys are HIGHLY trained:




Here is the famous St. Peter's Square: 


The Castle of St. Angelo, which acted a fortress for Popes and acted as the Tomb of Hadrian, was very close to St. Peter's. Here is a view we had of the Castle of St. Angelo:



Below are various views we had in Basilica de Santa Maria Maggiore:



















While going to the Castle of St. Angelo, Gary was able to live his dream of being behind the wheel of a ferrari:



We finished our day by touring the Castle of St. Angelo:




























Here is our beautiful view of the sunset behind St Peter's:



We have to include an obligatory food picture. Trappazino has been featured on food shows,  so we decided it would be an amazing dinner in our AirBnB:



Again, we say, "Buona serata."

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