Mirko B&B Rome

... sf in the Vatican. The value of the Sistine Chapel? Money has no meaning. The last pope started a modern art gallery in 1973, in order to display a collection that was largely donated by artists over the past 2 centuries just to claim that they had paintings in the Vatican – Van Gogh, DeChirico, Feininger, Kandinsky, Bottero, Severini – 30 rooms of art, an afterthought in Vatican terms, but a world renowned billion ...

... are. I'm guessing just one of these off the beaten path Basicilas would blow anything we have in the US away.
-Ruins everywhere-Just walking around the city, there are so many ruins just laying around. A lot of it is half columns or walls or buildings, but it's cool just to lay eyes on them.
-Pizza everywhere-Take every fast-food in a major US city and turn them into pizza joints and that is how many there are here. It is ...

... to realise that we had left our Rome passes at the hostel! As such, we spent about half an hour deliberating whether to come back with our passes another day or just pay the 8 Euros and go. In the end we decided that given our already jam-packed schedule, we could not afford to come back another day and so begrudgingly handed over our money. As we had such a great experience with the audio-guides at Hampton Court, we also decided to pay a bit extra and rent ...

... a hop-on, hop-off tourist bus that we decided to take instead. It was very good, we did one whole circuit and then just got off where we wanted to explore further. We went into an old fortress that they had, not much there but great views around the city. We walked back to the ship by way of their beach area. Nice beaches, yes Doug, they were topless! Sorry I didn't take any pictures for you L. Next stop, Barcelona! We got ...

... the building is a similar shape and construction and you can see the remnants of the old rooms. Thursday night a bunch of students from Temple all went out together. A few of us were planning on a trip to another area of the city, but decided to tag along with another group instead. It turns out we ended up at Campo di Fiori, a square filled with bars notoriously known for all the American students who frequent it. It isn't the greatest ...

... s fountains. The Cupola of St. Peters that dominates the Rome Skyline is also domineering in its views and we did the 320 steps climb between the two layers of the dome up to the lantern and enjoyed eternal views over the eternal city. Down to the crypt we followed serpentine queues that passed by the tombs of the past Popes and paused in prayer at our beloved JP2's simple stone slab. The feeling at this moment was tremendous as this was the only Pope who ...

... half way down for two passengers called B&P and we exchanged news over breakfast. We took our seats in our Trafalgar bus and drove the short distance to the Vatican where our group queued for about an hour and a half in the street outside and learned that P&B had had a dinner out the previous night with the group to enable them to get to know each other. Once inside the Vatican it reminded me of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. Galleries and galleries of statues ...

... but seeing it's one of the oldest sights here I'll give it a break. I had to chuckle coming down the stairs into the piazza. This is where both Ains and Al took a little spill when last here due to copious amounts of vino imbibed before attempting the slippery staircase. We had exchanged some words with some smart-alec local kids and were trying to ...

... were on their way out of the station, and I asked them where they were staying...they didn't know either. So the 6 of us, found a hostel booking center near the train station, and they said that there was one place that might have space, but we would have to hurry. So off we went on a mission to get the last hostel beds in town with horrible directions! We ended up getting there, but it did take a long ass time, and Rome is HOT! Over 30 ...

... to keep an eye posted for her. When we made it to the front of the line, we were informed that we needed to purchase tickets for a set two hour time frame: 1-3PM, 3-5PM, 7-9PM. Forced to make a split second decision, I rationalized that buying tickets for 7PM would give us the freedom to do something else for the day without having to worry about needing to remain close. We stayed at the museo to wait for Brooke until 10:45. By the time we left, it had been decided that we would ...