Off to the Vatican...again!
Trip Start
Jul 21, 2005
1
14
15
Trip End
Aug 05, 2005
Vatican City,
Italy
Friday, August 5, 2005
After a lousy nights sleep with continual interruptions from the bar in the street below our window, we were up surprisingly early. We decided to return the car early to avoid the Roman rush hour so we set out at 7:30 to head to Stazione Termini to the Avis garage. Navigating was easier, but still difficult with one way streets. We found the garage, made it to the 7th floor and emptied the car of all our odds and ends. We were back to the hotel in time for our 9:30 breakfast on the terrace. We then packed up and returned to Hotel Santa Maria.
At noon we took a taxi to the Sistine Chapel and Vatican Museum, seeing how we had missed it the first time around. We spent several hours exploring the incredible collections of art, and being blown away by the decor of each of the display halls and rooms
video of Sistine Chapel
. The paintings are on both the walls and ceilings and become overwhelming.The Sistine Chapel is at the very end of the "tour" of the museum, it is the only room that you cannot take photos, although I did manage to capture a very bumping video before being caught. It was an incredible sight! So many little panels to look at, you could spend all day examining each one, and all night at the chiropractor with a sore neck. (forgot to bring the mirror)
From the Vatican we took another cab to Piazza Venezia, to go to the Time Elevator, a 45 minute, four-dimensional multimedia experience covering the 3000 years of Roman history. Sitting in seats that move with the action and watching 3 screens, it began with a time machine transporting you to the time of the legend of the creation of Rome and ended with spectacular photos of present day. It helped to solidify all that we had seen and experienced while in Rome.
Afterwards we returned to the hotel for a short rest, discovered we had left some things at the villa and Nona had returned them to our hotel for us. We were back to our restaurant for our final dinner. The piazza was much quieter, no live music, but Marco tried to make our night enjoyable; having our wine ready, extras during dinner, dessert on him, and ...having the musician in residence serenade us with a song he adapted to include Canada. After several songs, and way to much bad breath being directed at us, we paid him to go away.
While sitting at our table, the owner of the villa came by, and stopped to say hello before heading home next door. She continued to wave from her second storey window before closing the shutters for the night. It was hard to say goodbye to Rome as we both felt we were just starting to settle in and make some friends. We returned to Hotel Santa Maria for our last night.
