28/06/09 - Rome Day 1

We woke up pretty late, and headed int Rome.

Th Vatican was really crowded. The line moved fairly quickly, so it wasn't too bad. The line was a lot longer as we were leaving. In the Vatican, we headed straight for St. Peter's Basilica. It is huge, and quite impressive. There are a lot of strange doors with statues of popes over them, which were all closed. Also, the center of the basilica was roped off, so we were restricted to the outskirts. The pictures are primarily mosaics, which were beautiful. There was also a statue by Michaelangelo. He carved it at the age of 24... Which is completely ridiculous. (That man was pure genius). We also went through the crypts. Unfortunately, the line to climb the dome was quite long, so we headed towards the museum...

Which was closed. We would have had free admission today, but the museum closes at 1:45 and we arrived at around 2:30. Oops. We are planning on hitting it up tomorrow.

We went from the museum to the train station, and booked seats to Venice for the 30th. We proceeded from the station to the National Roman Museum (name?). A 7 euro entry fee granted us access to what Rick Steves calls the largest exhibit of Roman art ever. There were some amazing mosaics, and a lot of marble busts. They also have an exhibit on the history of coinage, and a room that was a giant painting of a garden.

Tomorrow, we hope to see ancient Rome (whatever is not closed to us), and the Vatican Museum.