Saturday, May 26, 2007

Rome-antic Weekend Day II


Up at 7am, we rushed up to the rooftop balcony for a buffet breakfast. It was the ordinary faire, similar to what we had in Naples of fruit, break, eggs, various meats and cheeses. Afterwards, we actually went back to nap, and didn’t leave the room till just before 11.
We decided on heading towards Vatican City, which is on the opposite shore of the Tiber River. We walked west, decending the Spanish Steps yet again, through the major shopping district on Via Borgognana. We passed Fendi, Gucci, Valentino, Armani, of course never going in but amazed at the amount of tourists that were. We crossed the Via del Corso and went over the Ponte Cavour bridge. Along the river we came across the Piazza dei Tribunali, covered with stunning statues of angels, and also passed the Castel Sant' Angelo, which apparently was featured in the book Angels and Demons.
From there, the top of Saint Peters is highly visable, even on a hazy day such as this, and as we walked towards it it continued to dominate our skyline. Along the Via della Conciliazione we found a street painter (here there are many) and fell in love with one of her works featuring 3 paintings of the Colloseum, St. Peters and the Spanish Steps. Kelly christianed her down from EU15 to 11.50, and we were all happy.
From there, the road leads you straight into Vatican City. Once we got to the plaza, we were taken aback by the thousands of tourists queuing to get in. With a potential 4 hour wait in the sun, we decided the church will have to wait for another year. We spent about 2 hours at the base anyway, taking photos of various objects around us, especially pigeons in flight, and finally headed back out to discover more about the city. Crossing the Ponte Vittorio Emmanuele II Bridge this time, we found ourselves on the ... incomplete (never got around to finishing blog)

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