13. How do you solve a problem like Maria?
Trip Start
Jun 17, ????
1
16
36
Trip End
Ongoing
Vatican City,
Vatican City
Friday, June 18, 1999
Apart from inadvertently visiting on a Sunday, I also discovered the joy of bus travel in a foreign city. Ah yes, you work out how to buy a ticket. You work out which route you want, you work out where to get on and which direction you should be going in. And then you sit on teh bus and think "I wonder how I'll know where to get off". Unlike railway stations, there are no helpful signs to tell you where you are, so you have to try to follow the a street map and glean clues from the surrounding area.
So, we sat on the bus to the Vatican and debated what to look out for. Obviously, if you spot the Vatican itself, that's the kind of top quality clue even I can't fail to spot. But what if they stop just down the road where you can't see it? Luckily, Mr Monksan had an idea - he nodded towards a couple of nuns. Of course! They were bound to be on their way to see the pope or pray or something, so we kept a close eye on them, sometimes struggling to see them as the bus got more crowded.
Then, disaster, the nuns got off and we were clearly nowhere near the Vatican. We decided to ignore their devious plan to get us lost and hung on for one for stop. And hooray, that was the right one. Perhaps the nuns got off one stop early so that they could make it look like they'd walked all the way.
We explored the church, admired the square and wondered at the Swiss Guard.
One day I'm going to go back to see the Cistine chapel.
