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Our last day in Rome…so sad. We realized yesterday the fully scope of what Rome had to offer. You could easily spend a month here and not have seen all the incredible historical sites, museums, shops, and restaurants. So, with just one day left we hit our guidebook, trying to figure out what things were 'must sees'. We ended up deciding to return to aplace that we'd already been…the Vatican. When we were here the other day we had done the excavation tour of St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museum. By the time those two were finished we were way to hot and exhausted to wait in line to actually go inside the Basilica. So, we headed back, and wow are we glad we did!
After waiting in a line-up that looked like it would take forever, wrapping all the way around the square, we were into the church. What a breathtaking place! It's huge, and packed with history and opulence. The pictures will never do it justice. This church can hold 60,000 worshippers! Everywhere you looked there were looming statues, large mosaics (no paintings in the Vatican, it's all mosaic…even the ceiling!).Matthew lined up to do the tradition of touching the sculpture of St. Peter's feet (a sculpture that was original from the first church built on the site). Even though we are not Catholic, this was a pretty incredible place to be, and seemed to have more significance and symbolism since we had visited the excavation site and learned about the history of this place.
Like we had at St. Paul's cathedral in London on our first day their, we finished our morning of sightseeing by climbing up to the top of the dome of the basilica. All 520 steps to the top! We have been doing so much stairclimbing here, Matt is definitely ready for hockey season in the fall, and well, I'll just have 'buns of steel'. I was a little bit nervous about this climb, after having felt so claustrophobic and afraid of heights when we'd gone up St. Paul's, but I was determined to do it and see the views from up top. This climb was not half as bad, a little claustrophobic at times, but I was thankful not to be able to see down, to know how high up I was. The view from the top was just awesome. Rome doesn't allow any contemporary designed buildings or skyscrapers, so there were very few obstructions to our view. You could see the original seven hills of Rome,the sprawling terracotta rooftops dotted with patches of ancient ruins. It was really something to see!
Of course, having been to St. Peter's meant that we were in our 'church wear'….me in a long black dress and Matt in a black t-shirt and jeans. We were hot! Following our visit, we were desperate to change our clothes, so we headed back to the hotel for a short break.The evening was spent trying to suck every pleasure out of our last night in Italy. We planned another long walk through the streets and piazza's of the city, and marked our map with a number of restaurant selections. We ended up walking 'del Corso', which is essentially Rome's version of Robson Street. I had hoped that this street would have some smaller shops to buy a special souvenir to take home, but what we got was mostly stores that we do have at home (Nike, Disney, H&M, Guess, Adidas….). We tried to duck off the main strip for the quieter side streets and found ourselves a great contemporary Italian restaurant. We really lived it up with our 'last supper', ordering a meat and cheese selection, pasta dishes, Matt had a steak, and of course a large carafe of the house wine. Do we have to go?
We lazily strolled through to the end of our walk, the Vittoria Emanuele statue and the Capitoline Hill. We took in the evening sights, then wondered down to look over the ancient Forum by starlight. It was pretty special to see this place at night, with no other people around…just wild cats hopping through the ancient ruins. Wow.
So that's it for us in Italy. Now, we have the long trip home! London tomorrow, Vancouver on Friday.
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