After leaving the tour group, we got closer to the church for pictures. Like many places in Rome, multitudes of tour group recruiters stare at you like vultures, and one such vulture approached us. She offered us a bit of a high price and after we discussed it a bit, she came back and gave an even better one, since we sounded like we were going to leave. We accepted to go on the next tour and got some Calzones from a food vendor nearby.
The tour we went on again let us skip a line and covered 1/3 of the museum inside. Given the size of the place it’s easy to see why they do this, but towards the end I was tired of walking and the guide was going over things I didn’t care to know about. It didn’t help that for some reason the Vatican’s audio boxes (audio transmitters so that you can hear your guide even when not next to them) had less than ten channels! If you saw the inside of St.Peter’s you’d agree with me that they can afford a few more channels. Why is this important? Because for part of the tour I was either out of range or listening to a nearby Spanish tour.
After the museum we entered the Sistine Chapel, finally, and got to spend 10 minutes in there. We weren’t allowed to take pictures, but if I wanted I probably could’ve taken some. I decided I could probably see better ones online, so I just focused on what was in front of me. Once we left the Chapel our tour was over, but our guide pointed us towards the tombs of the Pope’s, which would lead us to inside St.Peter’s Church. She also mentioned that there were stairs we could take to the top of the Church and that it’s the best view in Rome. We walked through the tombs, and entered the Church first. The Church was awe inspiring, I would suggest going to anyone regardless of their beliefs. After spending a good amount of time in there, and taking lots of photos for my Catholic parents, we went in search of the rumored stairs. All we found was a massive line, and prices. You have to pay to go up! Pay to walk up some steps (more to take an elevator halfway up to a Cafe)!? Another thing I think the Vatican could afford is to have this included in the Museum ticket, like we thought it was. We gave up on the steps and slowly exited Vatican Hill. I think during the process of searching for them and leaving we walked through the forgiving gate, but when we walked back through it it was half closed, so I joked that we’d regained half of our sins. After this we ate at a great pasta place and walked back to the Piazza Navona to look at some art and see about an underground tour our guide from the morning had told us about. We memorized the hours for tours and then went back for some better pictures of the Pantheon. Lastly, we found ourselves back at the Gelato place from the night before. Emily wanted to see it at night and Colin and I didn’t mind. Emily received a rose as we walked into the fountain area, but tried giving it back saying she didn’t have money. The man said it was free, then tried getting money out of me and when I kept walking/ignoring him he really tried to get some from Colin. After he kept saying no, Emily tried to give the Rose back before the man finally gave up. The Gelato made up for it.
Until next time,
Reed
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Read more from Reed at https://reedingatcolchester.files.wordpress.com/
To find out more about the Exchange program with University of Essex, visit http://studyabroad.uark.edu/exchange/essex
