Day 14: Rome

For our final day in Rome, we left the country. In a short lived rainstorm, we entered the tiny entity of the Vatican City through the museums. In the first of two huge coincidences today, we walked passed a huge line of people (thanks to Brandon's research on the pre-purchased ticket!), through security and into one of many lines for ticket will call, and who should be directly in front of us but a member of the University of Michigan Men's Glee Club! Here, half way around the world, we happen to be in the line of the same building of the same city at the same time with someone we see on a weekly basis. Crazy. Anyway, we went into the Vatican Museums and saw hundreds or thousands of statues and artwork by people like Michaelangelo and Leonardo DaVinci. Eventually the path led us to the Sistine Chapel, which was a truly incredible sight. Unfortunately, we weren't able to take pictures, but go here to see it yourself with a 360 tour. Very cool.

We left the country for lunch and found a nice little cafe where we enjoyed some spaghetti, pizza, and tiramisu before picking back up the exploration on the other side of the Vatican. We entered this time through St. Peter's Square, looking straight at the beautiful St. Peter's Basilica. We thought our museum tickets would get us in there too, but unfortunately it didn't work that way, and since the line was wrapped almost entirely around the square (for a wait that may have been 4+ hours), we decided not to go in. We then walked along the wall to the Castel San Angelo, the old fortress and home of papal apartments, built around the year 100AD. Climbing up to the top gave us another incredible view of the city.

For the next few hours, we wandered around, walking up the river, crossing over into the Piazza del Popolo and visiting the Leonardo DaVinci Museum, a place that houses physical recreations of his sketches which can be manipulated and maneuvered. It was totally cool, and we would recommend it to anyone, even though its a little hard to find. We slowly made our way back to the Trevi Fountain, one of our favorite locations to just sit and relax (and also peoplewatch). We sat there for over an hour just talking and reminiscing and enjoying the day. Then fate struck again in our second huge coincidence.

Brandon suggested that we go check out the Colloseum at night to see it lit up. I didn't really want to walk that far, but didn't want to waste our last night in Rome, so we went. It really was pretty neat to see. We took a few pictures and looked at the map. One main road was the clear path back to our hostel so we went on our way. There was a TON of traffic backed up and lots of cops everywhere. We thought there had been an accident. At one specific crossroads, there happened to be an ambulance and several police vans and some people. Brandon said, "Do you think we should go check it out or just keep going towards home?" We both kinda shrugged and decided, "When in Rome..." so we mosied up to what we now saw was quite a large crowd. As we got closer, we could hear singing and see people in all white holding candles. We knew that it had to be something religious. Brandon asked the guard standing in front of the barricade in Italian what was going on. He replied quietly, "Il Papa". We got chills! Suddenly we knew the voice we were hearing in song was the Pope! We couldn't see him from where we were so we ran around to the other side of the building. Again, we couldn't see the stage he was on, but music began to play and the cardinals began to file out of the square right past us and onto two big tour buses. We thought the Pope had to be close behind! Brandon suggested that they probably took him into the church to wait for the square to clear of the onlookers and then they would escort him to the bus shortly. So we waited. Suddenly, we saw barricades put up at the left end of the street we were on. This has to be it! He's coming right through here! I thought. A cheer suddenly erupted from somewhere and ended just shortly after it began. Brandon looked to the right and shouted, "There!" We took off running but we were too late. The pope mobile, now occupado, was on its way. We literally missed the sight of him by a few feet in a few seconds, but it was still an incredible unexpected experience for our last night in Rome. To hear the Holy Father, you can see our video here.

We are really still just in awe that we were that close to the Pope. It was so cool to hear him and be in the audience there. So as the high winds down, we are back at the hostel preparing for another day of travel. Tomorrow is Athens, with a 0% chance of rain and a high of 86. Can't wait to put our jeans and jackets away!