We slept in...and it felt good! After having breakfast and showers, we left in
the rain for an offical tour of the Vatican Museum. We arrived in less than five minutes bright eyed and ready for an amazing tour. Sigh. The tour was far from
amazing! :( The guide was dryyyyyyyy and very one note. I was impressed
with the history and the artwork and such but totally stunned and floored by
the Sistine Chapel. Amazing! We left the Chapel via the group tour door that took us directly to St. Peter's Basilica and saved us lots of walking! I knew about this exit thanks to a tip from RonInRome so I had planned that I would find a way for us to use it even though our tour ended at the Chapel. Luckily, I didn't have to as our tour guide talked to the guard and he let us through. At least she served some purpose. Sorry...I know that was a little mean...but really...her tour sucked! St. Peter's Basilica was another wow! moment. Such a beautiful place! We admired it for quite some time then went downstairs to view the crypts of the Popes who are entombed there.
The boyf and I then battled the rain so he could climb the cupola (310+ steps in a dark, narrow, winding "staircase"). I am unfit and claustrophobic so I knew prior to arriving in Rome that the climb wasn't going to happen for me! We took the elevator to the roof and he climbed the dome while I waited for him. He started at 3:27 pm and returned at 4:13 pm. The boyf reported that the climb was fine overall but quite tough at some points. He said it was worth it though and the pictures he took certainly reflected this! Astonishing views of Rome! Point to note: When you get out of the elevator, you still have to climb some
stairs to enter the Basilica and walk along a path to the other area where another
roof is and the dome climb entrance and exit. I didn’t realise this and spent a few minutes on
the roof by the elevator before heading to the right place. The other roof had a bathroom, gift shop and an area to relax.
Tired feet and empty bellies caused us to lose all sense of
direction when we left the Basilica. When we left St. Peter's Square, we were approached by vendors! I was becoming very annoyed with one guy when I remembered that we needed to replace the B&B owner's umbrella so the boyf used his bargaining skills and purchased a 10 euro umbrella (madness!) for 6 euro. Back to the tired feet and empty bellies and lack of direction - I was so drained I had no interest in figuring things out
so we took a cab back to the B&B. We relaxed for a bit and then met with the
B&B owner to sort out payment. We told him about the umbrella situation and gave him the replacement. He seemed touched that we bought a new one and informed us that we really didn't have to as it was "just an umbrella". Due to the issue with the plumbing on our
first evening, he took some money off of our final bill. We really weren’t
expecting that but we obviously didn’t object to it. Lol. After the owner left we relaxed some
more and then went next door for dinner at L'Isola Della Pizza. Dinner was yummy! We
shared red wine, pizza blanca - gorgonzola, mozzarella and sausage, fettucine bolognese and veal and potatoes. The boyf had tiramisu for dessert and I had
black cherry gelato. Sigh. Heaven. Bill came to about 45 euros. We took the
long 30 sec walk back to the apartment (lol), showered and called it a night.
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