Sweet mother of god we've been out since 7:30 this morning and we're exhausted.
I just got up from a short noisy nap... being right smack down in Piazza Santa Maria is a never ending sensory overload of church bells, tourist and locals, dogs, village band, birds and fountain trickling. I didn't put in my earplugs because I don't want to fall into a deep sleep else I will be unable to sleep tonight and I wouldn't want that. No sirree.
Greggy is dead in the bedroom and I had to wake him up because he won't sleep tonight if I let him more than have a few minutes rest. The other night - Saturday June 1? - it was a Roman holiday (Republic day) and Greggy was up until 2:30 or 3 am because the peeps outside won't stop partying.... babies and all.
So today we braved taking the tram and the bus from Trastevere to Vatican City. We took the No. 8 to Largo Argentina and stopped a few stops early - no thanks to a Fodor's post. Wandered our way towards what looks like a main intersection, stopped a woman with "Scusi, parla inglese?" and she said in a very Italian way "ohnleee a leeeeetle" and I said, "Bus to Piazza San Pietro?" to which she replied "Ah, si, take nombherrr seexty fourrr".
Thankful for the advise, we moved towards the bus stop and we paused for a moment... because there were tons of cats at this one excavation site! Cats and excavation site in the middle of a busy road. Only in Italia. So we talked to the cats a bit (missing our Peppy :o( and left them there to sleep and stare at others.
By the way Fodor's forum people, it's Bus 64 from Largo Argentina, instead of 40.
Feeling smug, we got off at Pza San Pietro and walked to the wonderful big huge St. Peter's Square. Took a few pics, beelined our way to the Musei Vaticani entrance, which is outside of the Vatican City wall.
Feeling more and more smug, we walked passed the thousands of people who lined up to buy tickets. Of course I had purchased skip the line tickets before leaving Toronto and just breezed right in through the Musei guards, security check and turnstile.
Inside, with THOUSANDS of other tourists, we bypassed all the art first and went straight to the Sistine Chapel, which was my strategy. The Chapela Sistena is at the end of the Musei Vaticani and my plan was to go to the Sistine first, then make our way back admiring all the crazy Pope collection of art dating back from 2000 BC to the Renaissance period to Modern Day.
The Sistine Chapel was dark and full of people, with Vaticani guards yelling "ssssshhhhhhhhhh" to everyone since technically it is a church. No cameras and no picture taking are allowed inside. But that didn't stop me from taking a really good shot of the Creation of Adam.
Then a Vatican guard came to tell me that I can't take pictures.
"Oh, okay... sorry!" I mumbled. Little did they know that I set my super cool Canon Elph camera to mute and no flash so I can take pictures as if I am 007.
It's a high resolution image so I'm sure I can now use the image to make Sistine Chapel swag.
Following the Chapel escapade, we took our time to view all of the Musei Vaticani treasures.... entire Museum used to be Pope's apartments and it's all marble and art and carpet and Room of Maps and statues galore mixed with sarcophagi and Egyptian relics mashed up with Van Goghs, Matisse and the like.
I wanted to visit Saint Peter's Basilica afterwards, but there were BIG HUGE line ups and Greggy and I decided that we can make our way back in a couple of days, first thing in the morning, sans line up. I also want to pick up some Vatican stamps (you can't use these outside the Vatican so it's for pure collection's sake) and mail myself a postcard from the Vatican from my self in the past.
You know I'm tired/exhausted when I make silly jokes like the one I just did.
But I am serious about getting the Vatican stamps.
Anyway, Greggy decided he was going to be in charge of our "shortcut back to St. Peter's Square" by going the opposite way of where we came from. I didn't agree with his plan but decided to go along with him because I am trying not to be the super boss of the trip.
Of course, we ended up scaling the entire wall of Vatican City... what could have taken us 20 minutes ended up being a 45 minute extravaganza of hills, walls and oncoming traffic. I held my tongue, saying "I told you so" will ruin the "I told you so" silent moment.... I was amused, not angry or annoyed, saw him sweat through the whole thing waiting for me to say something. But I'm Hannibal remember? He is the one who ate crow first... ha ha ha.
Fumbling our way back, we took the No. 64 again and decided to go to Termini station where we had to purchase our Rome-Florence-Rome first class train tickets for this Wednesday.
Termini Station is like New York's Grand Central station only with better food and some sweet talking gypsies. I was having a hard time with the ticket kiosk and one of the scammers said to us "where are you going? Florence? Let me help you, only if you want." Greg answered him "Yes we are" and I literally had to tell him "don't talk to the guy Greggy, will you just please block the screen so no one can look over my shoulder as I build our itinerary and punch in my credit card pin number??"
I saved Greggy's life again. He cannot travel without me. He would be all lost and kidnapped by Gypsies and will end up in Turkey instead of Florence.
So we got our tickets, ate lunch at Ciao, then bussed and trammed our way back to Trastevere.
Tomorrow: Colosseo, Spanish Steps, Santa Maria Popollo, and a stylish walk at Via Del Corso.
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