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Today we planned a visit to the Vatican. The owners of the hotel helped us with transportation there and back. They suggested we walk back. He created a map of all of the sites to see along the way back. Great idea. Getting to your locations at a specific time can be a challenge with traffic and small roads. We almost missed our window for the Scavi tour.
We made advance reservations online (only way to do this tour) for the Scavi tour or the Roman Necropolis. It was the best thing we did in Rome. Interesting and just cool to see. We liked that better than visiting the Sistine Chapel. The Necropolis is the early church (Vatican) buried below the Modern Vatican. You are walking on 2000 year old streets. It is crazy cool. You can see where the tombs of people of that day are placed and so well preserved. St. Peter's tomb is down below as well. You can see a bone fragment they unearthed. From above in St. Peter's Basilica, you can also view his tomb. I highly recommend.
Later, we walked through the Sistine Chapel. This was frustrating unless you enjoy miles of statues, tapestry and beautiful ceilings, oh and, dozens of gift shops to get to Michaelagelos ceiling. I am an art major and I was disappointed. I hoped for a religious moment or an artistic inspiration. What we got was a room full of hundreds (literally) of people staring at the ceiling with armed guards hushing everyone and making sure it was silent and no pictures were taken. Took the romance out of the entire thing on top of feeling exhausted walking for 2 hours to get to it only to realize that many other artists in the museum had done ceilings quite similar if not more beautiful. hmph. A must see but keep your expectations within reason.
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