Well...Day 3 of Rome was a fun one. We woke up pretty early in the morning and had about due caffe (2 espresso) on the way to the Vatican again. This time, we went straight to the Vatican Museum to see the Sistine Chapel (since it was closed the day before by the time we got there).
The Vatican Museum was pretty interesting. Lots of sculptures of animals eating other animals and then we saw a bunch of sculptures of Roman emperors and whatnot. Then to the good stuff. We started walking through the corridors and the ceilings were painted almost the whole way through. What was interesting was there is a hall called the Hall of Maps which basically has ancient cartography of Italy. It was so amazing how the cartographers mapped this all out back then and also interesting to see the progression of the maps as the ages went by.
We finally got to the part everyone was waiting for....the Sistine Chapel. It was very pretty. However, there is much more to the Sistine Chapel than the image that we all see of man's finger touching God's finger. There was painted images all over the walls and the entire ceiling.
In the Sistine Chapel a bunch of tourists were disrespecting the laws and taking pictures, videos and talking loudly. The Italian guards were not happy about this and they were constantly having to yell and shshshshshhhh people. At one point, they got fed up with a couple repeat offenders and escorted them out.
After the Sistine Chapel, we went to this awesome pizzaria by our hotel. The lady that worked there was really really nice and she kept insisting that we try her lasagna but we were more in a Pizza mood. We ate pizza with mozarella, tomato and basil and it was so yum.
Then it was nap time. Naps are precious when you are traveling because you walk all day and for me its hard to sleep in major cities because of all the background noise outside.
After naptime, we took a stroll over to the Pantheon. It was free to get in!! The first time we were able to get into an ancient church for free!!
At the point we were in the Pantheon, I realized something. The Pantheon was turned into a Christian church and it used to be a pagan temple. It was surrounded by two Egyptian obelisks with crosses at the tops. The Collisseum was also used as a Christian church at one point too. The Vatican has an Egyptian obelisk with a cross at the top as well. It seems like the Christian church got a hold of a lot of ancient history and turned it all into churches and crosses!!!
After our last day in Rome, we went on over to Campo de Fiori. This is supposedly where the nightlife happens. We found ourselves a nice little patio bar and had ourselves a strong little Sangria! Yum...Roman sangria. Me likey. This was the first time in a long time I saw Evans drunk. He was all wobbly and we both stumbled across the piazza to the Ristoranti across the way (1 sangria each and we both get drunk! not too shabby). At the restaurant I had the best food I've had so far in Italy. I ordered it based on a recommendation by my brother Alan. Penne alla Carbonera. It was soooooooooo good! This Carbonera sauce was the bizzybomb! it was a cream sauce with bacon and eggs and it was to die for. I've tried the Carbonera in Florence too and its not nearly as good.
After finishing off a 1/2 liter of wine at the restaurant, both of us were more than toasty. We also had to find our way home. We found a bus stop which took us to the Termini but we were still a ways from home and the metro was closed! Finally we got home after about 30 minutes of walking in different directions.
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