Rome, part 2

 I wrote about our first two days in Rome in the last post. This post is about days 3 and 4. 

A few back stories: 

1) Jason is still sick and coughing and not feeling great. We actually think he has an ear infection, but were happy that pharmacists here can help give medication advice and we were able to get him started on some meds for this, so hopefully he'll be better soon. Thankfully, the rest of us are all healthy and energetic again!

2) We are all quite tired. It's really hard to find the balance between resting and maximizing this amazing experience as we travel for one year in Europe. I thought our time in the Balkans, because it was slow paced, would revive us and give us energy for this next portion of travels. But currently I must admit that there are some things that frustrate us pretty easily, and some decision making that we find quite tiresome. 

3) Jason has been working toward an international coaching certification for some time, and he was able to schedule his last certification requirement - a 3 hour online exam - during our time in Rome. So Rachel, Ava and I needed to get out of the house for several hours on our third day in Rome.

Day 3: the Zoo

Today was a beautiful, sunny, blue sky, t-shirt wearing day. It feels SO good to have made it through the cold of winter and have days like this that are happy and uplifting! The kids and I packed up our things, walked to the metro, took the metro toward the zoo, and walked to the zoo. 

I've been to zoos in Washington, St. Louis, Denver, Calgary, San Diego, and Belize. We went to a small zoo in Sweden also. I wasn't quite sure what to expect with the Rome Zoo. But it was great! We got there when it opened at 9:30am and we walked about 8km and explored for about 4.5 hours seeing all the animals. This was such a welcome activity to do together as a family. Everyone was into it and we thoroughly enjoyed our experience! Our favorites were the macaques eating fruit, the lemurs, the white tiger, and the meerkats. It was so fun to have a day doing something special but not something related to ancient history. 

Going into the metro like pros

 

If I ever come back to Rome, I hope I can stay near the park Villa Borghese

Only Rome would have this super fancy zoo entrance

Day 4: Vatican City

Mojo family fans who read the last post will know that, in order to get Colosseum tickets, we bought a Rome tourist card, but I only bought it for two adults instead of for 2 adults and 2 kids because I thought kids under 18 were free and didn't need tickets. So we had two scheduled things with tickets at the Vatican: a guided tour of St. Peter's Basilica at 8:45am including climbing the dome, and at 1:00pm 2 adult tickets with skip-the-line entry for the Vatican Museums, which includes the Sistine Chapel. We tried to add children's tickets after the fact, and could not. (And FYI, the service for the Rome Tourist Card and everything to do with tiqets.com has been TERRIBLE and I don't recommend using them.)

So we came up with another option. We woke up at 5:30am so we could walk/metro/walk and arrive at St. Peter's Basilica at 7am on a Monday morning. There was hardly anyone there and we could just walk right into the Basilica without any fee or any hassle. Walking into the Vatican City, seeing the square and all the columns was impressive. And the basilica was huge and amazing. It was cool to see nuns and priests (and bishops and cardinals maybe?) starting their days. It was lovely to be there without many others.

Then we went to the 'cupola' or dome line up. That opened for us at 7:30am and then we went in and paid for tickets (24 euro for our family as the kids were half price) to the stairs. We climbed a lot of stairs up around the curve of the dome. That was a new experience! We were inside the basilica but way up high inside the biggest dome, looking down at the pews and people far below. Totally bizarre. Then we climbed up the curving dome further on various stairs at various angles for a total of 551 stairs to get to the outside top of the dome with its view all over Vatican city. It was very cool to do this, although Ava and I felt a little outside our comfort zone. 

We did all of that by about 9am and then came down to enjoy St. Peter's square for a snack. I'm so glad we did it this way because it was LOVELY and I really enjoyed it. I didn't really want a guided tour and by 8:45am the calm and peace would have been gone with the crowds. 

St Peter's Square

Inside St. Peter's Basilica

The main dome from below

Starting up the 551 stairs to the top of the dome

Part way up the dome

Mosaics covering the walls inside the dome

Looking up at the dome from part way up

Can you see that the walls are curved? Because we are going up a DOME

View from outside the dome top, looking down at St. Peter's Square

We were just way up there near the top of that big dome

Back on ground, inside the square

Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel

Then, because we only had two tickets to the Vatican museums and our entry wasn't until 1pm, Ava and Jason left and went home. Rachel and I went over to see what the line up situation was. We had skip-the-line tickets that could let us in without waiting at about 12:30... or we could wait in line and still use our pre-paid entrance tickets once we got there. Since we had to wait one way or another, we opted to wait in line, which took almost 2 hours before we got in. 

Once we were in, we were immediately overwhelmed by the busy and craze of it all. It's no longer the off season and spring break vacationers were everywhere! There were line ups and different ticket voucher options everywhere. There were guided tour groups everywhere. I had an online map in English and a '10 best things to see in the Vatican' article but found it a little hard to figure out where we were at what time. For example, the article said on entry we would immediately see the beautiful double helix spiral staircase, but we didn't see it. We found ourselves very quickly in the Egyptian rooms and were concerned that we somehow missed the Raphael rooms and the spiral staircase and the giant pinecone statue outside. We got swept up with the huge crowd and just moved en masse from room to room, moving from Egpyt to Greek to Roman displays. From sarcophaguses to statues to tapestries and vases. It was hard to stop and look with the huge crowd, and it was hard to skip sections we weren't interested in and move faster. IKEA 'shortcuts' and diagrams would have been very useful here! We finally made it to the Sistine Chapel and felt like we were moved through quickly by all the security guards... so it wasn't very moving or interesting to us. The best part, in my opinion, was the double helix staircase that was the finale of our exit out of the museums at the end. I'm glad Jason and Ava didn't bother coming and I would only recommend going if (1) you're into art and religion and have the patience to take it all in and (2) you either have a guided tour or do some good research before hand to know what you're looking at and why its important and (3) you can figure out how to go first thing in the morning before the crowds... if that's even a thing? 

Waiting in line with this kid

Ava and J brought us snacks in line before they left :)

'Bes' the dwarf god of childbirth (in the Egypt section)

Amazing ceiling

The hallway of maps

Art on the walls and ceilings of the papal throne room

you weren't supposed to take photos in the Sistine Chapel ... oops

The snail staircase - my favorite part

Looking back up the spiral staircase

So that was Rome, and the end of our Italy trip. Bucket List Item: check. 

I have to say that I have LOVED Italy but I also feel that I need to come back - I don't feel satisfied and haven't had enough. I could happily go back to Venice and really want to go back to the Cinque Terre region some day, ideally with all my travel companions being healthy!! Everyone tells us we should go to the Dolomites to hike or ski but I also really want to go to the sunny warm beach spots and awesome regions we didn't get to: Sardinia, Sicily, and the 'heel' of the boot (near Lecce).