Making Memories: A Mum & Son on Tour

Today started out lazy. Our tour of St Peters Basilica didn’t start until 12:30pm which meant a small sleep in before breakfast.

Of course, by the time we had our breakfast and I had hand washed our “delicates” and hung them about our room like weird decorations, we were bored and ready to head out. It was 9am. And there were public transport strikes.

So, we got a taxi to the Vatican City. We wandered around the souvenir shops. Lots and lots of weird souvenirs featuring your favourite modern day pope. Didn’t matter which one, there was something for everyone.

We grabbed a sandwich for lunch and met up with our tour guide. Off we marched inside, starting with a tour of the tombs under the church. Everyone was there. Popes, Queens, Rowan Atkinson…..

It was hot, crowded and unpleasant. I get claustrophobic in big crowds. It was not a great time. I would have been much more interested if there were no other people around. But, we did see the tomb of St Peter. No idea if he is actually there or not but there is a tomb.

We moved on to discover that there are a total of 200 tombs within St Peters. 120 underneath the church and another 60 within the church itself.

There was some beautiful artworks on the ceiling of one of the corridors of the catacombs, just before the stairway leading up into the church itself.

When you come up the stairs the sight is spectacular. It’s overwhelming. So much to look at you just don’t know where to start.

So, in good tourist fashion, I just started clicking at everything. You just cannot take it all in. It is just stunning.

Something we learned today is that all of the “paintings” you see in the Basilica are not actually paintings. They are titled murals. This was something Michelangelo decided to do so that paintings would not be subject to humidity and be damaged. Unless you are really close to the pictures you just cannot tell.

We also had all our sins cleansed and so we are good to go for a while. It’s a Jubilee year in Rome (Jubilee year) which happens every 25 years. As part of that they open the “Holy door” and everyone can walk through and have their sins forgiven and cleansed away. And we went through.

It was very exciting and not at all like walking through a door with a large crowd of people.

Anyway, we were going to explore the dome itself but Jacob was feeling a bit off and so we headed back to our hotel. We may do it on Wednesday after we go see the Sistine Chapel.

We discovered the buses were, in fact, running and so we sat at the bus stop and admired this view until the bus showed up.

On Saturday we discovered an amazing view of Rome that just happened to be on our bus route to our hotel. We haven’t had a chance to get off the bus and take it in, until today.

And it happens to be just a 10 minute walk from our hotel. It’s actually at Piazza Garibaldi. Just amazing views.

And that closes out day 3 of our trip. Tomorrow we are exploring the Colosseum. Despite the weather being miserable…