Day 3: Vatican City

Despite waking up early and planning extra travel time into our morning, we barely, barely made it to our Scavi Tour at St. Peter’s Basilica this morning.
But we did make it. I have no pictures, but it was amazing. St. Peter’s is built on the top of the tomb of the Apostle Peter, supposedly. This tour is only open to a couple hundred people a day and was really neat. We had just 6 other people in our tour. You literally go under St. Peter’s and see amazingly preserved Roman family burial chambers/buildings from the 2nd and 3rd centuries. And you get to see the supposed tomb of St. Peter and what remains of his skeleton. Edon called it a “once in a lifetime opportunity.” Plus you exit inside the Basilica and get to skip the lengthy security checkpoint to get in.
Next, we climbed the dome of St. Peter’s. There were over 500 stairs, but overlooks along the way. We had views of St. Peter’s below and Rome outside.
We visited the interior of St. Peter’s next. It is huge!! Aside from the dome, For me the highlight was Michaelangelo’s Pieta. It was so beautiful and sad.
We passed a Vatican post office on our way out of St. Peter’s. We bought some postcards for my nieces and John’s aunt. I remember one of my junior high teachers letting us know the Vatican post is very reliable while the Italian post is significantly less so. Not sure if that is true, but we mailed things from here while we had the chance.
We headed to a local sandwich shop after that. I had read about it online. It is a rare find. Close to the tourist area, but actually delicious and well-priced. And the have vegan items on the menu. We ordered these amazing sandwiches with vegan salami and cheese, sundried tomato, olive cream, arugula, and hot sauce.
We walked over to the Vatican Museums for the afternoon. We had reservations, but at this time of day in the winter they totally weren’t necessary. We had passed a huge line earlier, so oh well.
The Vatican Museums are filled with treasures from many ancient cultures. They also have a decent amount of modern art. The Raphael Rooms were stunning and I had forgotten Raphael’s School of Athens was here. The boys and I had spent so much time studying the Renaissance and Michaelangelo and Raphael and DaVinci in particular it was unreal to see this in person.The Sistine Chapel was further along and I wasn’t prepared for how moving and beautiful it would be. It is the most amazing thing made more or less by a single person I have ever seen.
We finally found a local bread bakery on the way home and got bread. They had huge thin pizzas, but with no cheese on them, so we got some of that, too.
We ate, then headed to a local all vegan market called, iVegan, that is close by. We bought even more food. We cooked up a delicious dinner, did dishes, and packed up for leaving tomorrow.
We are all exhausted, but content.