Vatican Museums

Today we spent much of the day at the Musei Vaticani. We started with our first use of the Rome subway - the Metro. Was pretty simple even for non-public transportation people like us. The Vatican Museums are only two stops from our hotel. For someone up to the added walking, it is probably about a 15 to 20 minute walk.

Once at the museums, we located the line for non-reserved-tour individuals. Oh my gosh, it is down an entire long block, turn right down another entire block, turn left and down a little more. It looked absolutely daunting. Turned out to be about a 45 minute wait as the line moved pretty well. By the way, there were many tour groups trekking the line with us - so not all tours include priority entrance. If you don't get priority entrance, there really isn't a reason to book through a tour. Museum entrance is 13 euros and a self-guided tour listening device is 6 euros.

Once inside the museums, we began our art-viewing trek. It turns out the Vatican has a huge, very extensive and awe-inspiring collection of art. There are about two dozen different galleries and period room as well as the Sistine Chapel. The literature claimed that it can take several days to see everything - and they were right. We touched on as much as possible for us - but our limited capabilities meant that we certainly missed lots of stuff. The museums include sculpture and art from ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. We saw items from earlier than 1250 BC. Other significant art included works by Raphael, Van Gogh, Monet, Matisse and Rodin - not to mention Michelangelo and the other artists who did the ceiling and walls of the Sistine Chapel. It was truly amazing just how many sculptures, busts, paintings and frescoes are included in the museums. The Sistine Chapel is magnificent. The frescoes on the walls and, of course, ceiling are pretty phenominal. It is hard to fathom the Michelangelo did the entire ceiling!

We would have loved to have had the energy and stamina to see everything at the Vatican Museums - but that would be unlikely for us. After spending about 3 hours walking at the museums (not counting the wait), we were wiped out. We didn't even attempt to take the Metro back to our hotel - just got a cab to take us there without any more walking. (For info, the Metro cost was 1 euro each and the cab to the hotel was 5 euros + tip). Once back at the hotel, we passed out for a few hours - nap would not qualify in this case!

Re food, I think it is safe to say that we have been OK but we really haven't focused on the Italian cuisine. Our hotel includes breakfast which is quite satisfactory - lots of breads, cakes, cold cereal, scrambled eggs, fried panchetta, juices and freshly brewed cappucino. For dinner, we got a recommendation for an Italian restaurant from the hotel but we learned that they don't open until 7:30PM, it was just after 6 and we were quite hungry. We wandered on the route back to the hotel and found a small cafe. They served very good sandwiches (heated like a panini). We had a turkey with spinach - not something we would have assembled but very good. The sandwich with two Sprites was 8.5 euros - about $12 - certainly lots cheaper than Copenhagen.

That pretty much filled our day. Really haven't given much thought to what we will do tomorrow. Since we have seen the Colloseum, the Forum, the Pantheon, the Appian Way and many of the other traditional sites, we might just shop or otherwise relax.