May the Bosch's be with you: Day 5 Rome

I didn’t sleep at all that first night in Rome because our room was located right next to the elevator and it was extremely noisy. So Chris went and asked the manager about switching our room to another. The manager said that there were no other rooms and when Chris asked about the bathroom he said that all of the bathrooms looked that way. After taking a shower in the scary bathroom I went to blow dry my hair only to find out that the hair dryer didn’t work. I came out to tell Chris and the manager that the hair dryer wasn’t working. The manager saw that I wasn’t very happy and offered to give me a new dryer. I told Chris that he just needed to email Choice Hotels about the issues that we’d been having. After hearing this he must have looked up Chris’s account and saw that he stays in 100+ nights in a hotel. He then offered to switch us to a brand new room with a completely renovated bathroom.

After all that we asked how to get to the Colosseum. He kinda looked at us funny but told us how to get there. We walked 2 miles to get there and we started noticing that there weren’t a lot of people around. We thought that was a little odd but when we got there we found out that the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, and the Roman Forum were all closed due to a strike! So we decided to walk around and take some pictures of the outside of the Colosseum before walking back to our hotel room.

Arch of Constantine

When we got back to the hotel we told the manager what happened and he didn’t look shocked at all when we told him they were on strike. We decided that would head to Vatican City so we asked him for directions on how to get there. He told us we needed to take a bus but he didn’t tell us where the bus stop was or where to get the tickets for the bus. After walking around for an hour and a half in the rain we finally found a place to buy tickets for the bus. The machine only took 10 and 20 dollars so we had to buy three tickets. Once we bought the tickets we had to walk back to the bus stop. We waited for about 10 minutes before the bus came and then we were on our way to the Vatican. After being on the bus we discovered that you really don’t even need a ticket!! When we arrived in Vatican City we walked over to St. Peter’s Square to get in line to see St. Peter’s Basilica. We waited for about 30 minutes to get in and go through security. We walked around the Basilica a while before heading up to the dome. We decided to pay to use the elevator that way we didn’t have to walk all 551 stairs to the cupola. Instead we just had to walk 320 stairs to get there. I don't see how anyone who is claustrophobic would have been able to make it up to the top. After a few breaks we eventually made it to the top. The views were worth it but we didn't really get to enjoy it that much since there were so many people who wanted to be able to see the views too. We walked back down and headed to go find some lunch.

Michelangelo's Pieta

Saint Helena

We ate at a little restaurant right around the corner from the Vatican and it was the best pizza we had. We knew it must be good when we saw several clergy men eating there and when the little Italian woman came out from the kitchen barking orders to all of the employees. We finished our lunch and walked to the Vatican Museum. We really didn't enjoy the Vatican Museum because it was so crowded and you weren't able to enjoy a lot of things. By this point we were really tired and we just wanted to see the Sistine Chapel. When we finally made it to the Sistine Chapel there were so many people in there that you could hardly move. We took a few pictures and we were finally able to stand in the very back and enjoy it. After the Vatican Museum we took the bus back to our hotel room and rested for a while before we went to dinner. Thankfully we ate at the restaurant right across from our hotel room. We were so tired from the days activities that all we did that night was walk back to the Trevi Fountain to toss our coins in and get some more gelato.