Return to the Vatican ... and to England

Saturday, December 13, 2008

When we woke up in the morning, it seemed that the rain had finally left Italy for good. It was sunny and warm out, and a quick internet check showed that the predicted possible flood of the Tiber wasn't going to happen after all. Nick went out to pick up more rolls and sandwich meat for the day at the grocery store while I took some pictures of the sun.







After breakfast, Nick and I headed out back towards the Vatican so that we could go up St. Peter's dome and take some pictures of Rome. We took the metro to the Vatican with no misdirection this time, and then started to walk over to St. Peter's. On the way, though, we sort of came to a section of road blocked off by cops with people standing on either side. It kind of looked like a parade, but there weren't enough people on either side to be a real parade, especially so close to the Vatican. Another American kid in the crowd asked me and Nick if we knew what was going on, but we had no idea. Next thing we knew, several dark, official looking cars drive up and past us. Not really at full speed (probably like 20 mph), but definitely faster than parade speed. I'm hopping up and down looking for the Popemobile, but next thing I knew, the three or four cars are past us, the cops are letting us cross the street again, and Nick is claiming that the Pope was in the first one. I didn't see him! I said, "Nick, are you sure?" and he said "I think so." Argh! But then I got it out of Nick that in the first car there was a guy dressed in what seemed to be a Pope costume that was waving out the window. So I guess I kind of saw the Pope while I was there (even though I didn't notice). It wasn't any sort of official parade or anything, I think that's just how they have to move the Pope from one place to another.

Nick did admit that he didn't know what the Pope looks like, but later in the day I saw him on postcards in the Vatican and asked Nick whether that was the guy he saw in the car and Nick said yes.

So anyways, at that point we continued towards St. Peter's again. The line to get into the Basilica was much longer than it had been on Wednesday, but I think that was mainly because this was the weekend, and was nice weather. People were moving through quickly, though, and we only had to wait like 15-20 minutes.





Once we were in, we had to pay money to go up to the dome. It was something like 5 euros each to take the stairs, or 7 euros to take the elevator. However, when you read the signs, it became clear that the elevator didn't actually skip that many stairs. To get to the absolute top of the dome you had to go up about 500 stairs (these turned out to be way too hard to count because it was really unclear what counted as a step and what didn't), and the elevator only cut out about 150 of them. Plus Nick and I like stairs anyways, so we probably would have chosen stairs even if it was the same price as the elevator and even if the elevator went all the way to the top. So we got tickets for stairs, which was a good choice.

After buying our tickets, we saw that there was a long line waiting for the elevator, which was a slow one that didn't hold that many people per lift. Meanwhile, Nick and I got to go up the pretty empty spiral set of stairs that circled around the elevator. Based on the one or two times we saw it go past, we were pretty sure that we made it to the top faster by walking than we would have if we had had to wait for the elevator.

After finishing that set of stairs, it popped us out onto a little rooftop partway up the whole basilica that gave us some nice views before we continued in to a walkway around the interior of the dome.





We got a nice view of the inside of the basilica from above on the internal walkway around the dome, even though we only had access to half of it, so couldn't see everything from all angles.









From there, we continued onto the stairs up the dome that did not have an elevator option. It started off with a normal spiral up with narrow windows and nice views, but then even the walls started to slant in and the spiral stairs got tight.







After this, though, we made it to the top of the dome. We were a little out of breath, but not as out of breath as some of the other people we saw come up after us. We wandered all around the dome and got some nice views of Rome (even though it was rather crowded up there).





















Then we were hearded down a separate set of stairs from the ones we went up, and back to a separate portion of the roof that was partway up.









At that point, we headed back down to the ground again. We could probably have taken the elevator at this point, since no one was checking tickets anymore, but we just did the stairs because they were faster (and at this point, a lot of other people did the same as us even though I suspect they did have elevator tickets). This popped us out into the main part of the basilica again, so Nick and I did another walkthrough. This time, more of the central part of the basilica was open for us to walk in that hadn't been open on Wednesday.















From there, we headed back out to St. Peter's Square again. Nick was hungry for cookies, but I was paranoid about eating in the Square -- until I looked around and saw that there were tons of people eating giant meals all over the place. So I said fine and he ate some cookies. We got a few more pictures of the Square as well.





Then we walked back over to the banks of the Tiber again to see how high the water was, and check on the status of the boat that crashed into the bridge. It was still pretty stuck, but the water seemed a little lower.







At that point, it was time for Nick and I to go back to the room, pack up the rest of our stuff, eat lunch, and head for the airport. By the time we had left, it had unfortunately started sprinkling. We had to find a different train station than the metro stop we normally went to while dragging our luggage through the rain, but we made it. We got on a train that we weren't sure was the right one (I asked "Aeroporto?" and a guy on the train said "No, wait, yes" or something like that, which didn't give me a lot of confidence), and we couldn't see anything, because it was after dark and raining at that point. I was also getting nervous because it didn't seem like there was anybody else on the train with luggage. Plus the stops weren't really lining up that well (or at all) with the ones listed in our eight year old guidebook. But, somehow, it did miraculously stop at the airport, and we hopped off. Success!

At the airport it took us a little while to find our check-in counter because we were flying with EasyJet. Normally it's really easy to find the EasyJet counter because it brands everything in bright orange. However, orange also seems to be the official color of the Fiumicino airport, because all the check-in counters were painted bright orange. After wandering back and forth for a little while we eventually found EasyJet in a corner.

The flight wasn't too eventful (we again got a row of three seats to ourselves), and we landed in England on time. We headed back to Nick's house late at night and ate pasta, the only thing he had besides sandwiches (and I was so sick of sandwiches at this point). We also found out the heat was broken in his house. Brr.

The next day I headed back to Cambridge, unpacked from Italy, repacked for the US, and went back to Orpington.

Then, on Monday, December 15, I flew back to the US for vacation! I've been here since, but it's a good thing I finished blogging the Italy trip now, because I'm flying back to England on Tuesday and to El Chorro in Spain on Friday, where I'm visiting Zeb and his Hampshire climbing buddies, who are spending two and a half weeks there (they're already there). So stay tuned for blogging about that trip (although that's a short one; only three and a half days).

Also stay tuned for a post with a link to Facebook photos from the Italy trip! Most of the FB ones will also have been posted here, but there will probably be a few new ones.