Day 5 Vatican - Sistine Chapel & St.Peter's

Molly: Jacob crashed tonight after a very long day and evening, so I'll write tonight's blog. We jumped on the Metro A line this morning and headed to Vatican City (residence of the Pope). First up, we took a tour of the Vatican Museum. Our favorite things were the mosaic floors and the many statues.The Sistine Chapel was our next destination (finally!) and it was fabulous! WOW! We all stared up at Michelangelo's amazing ceiling and wall panels until our necks ached.

We enjoyed the outdoor gardens a bit. There are some beautiful sculptures outside. Charlotte, our art conoisseur, chased pigeons. We enjoyed a big lunch at the Vatican where the kids and I met some lovely American teachers traveling with a student exchange program. They asked Jacob to tell them what he knew in Italian and he said "Well, it's really interesting because it's a lot like Spanish." They loved that, especially the one who was a Latin teacher.Our final destination in Vatican City was St. Peter's Basilica. Ok, again may I just say, WOW! This isn't so much a church as it is a palace! Marble, gold leafing, statues, paintings, wood carvings...everywhere! St. Peter's is named such because it was built over the tomb of St. Peter, Jesus disciple. We all took turns touching the right foot of St. Peter's statue, and admiring the amazing art & architecture (designed by a number of architects including Michelangelo). Brave Aunt Lynn took Jacob, Ben & Mitch up to the roof of St. Peter's where they proceeded to climb a narrow, spiral stone staircase of 320 stairs to the top of the gigantic dome! Jacob took my camera and got some great arial shots. In the meantime, Aunt Beth, Charlotte & I explored the interior of St. Peter's further and attended the 5:00 mass (in Italian & Latin).A bit of shopping rounded out our day and we headed for home, where we had an 8:00 dinner reservation at Bon Amici, a favorite neighborhood restaurant. Shockingly, we stuffed ourselves with pasta...again! Our apartment owner, Pietro, had called ahead to get us a reservation and to order all of his favorites for us. The dishes kept coming...we had red wine, sparkling water, fried calamari with lemon juice, linguini with clams (Jacob & Charlotte both loved the clams!), seafood risotto, fettucini with portabello mushrooms, spaghetti pomodoro, chocolate apricot cake and my favorite, Mille Feuille. We took the long way home, but those 125 stairs up to our apartment were still tough after that meal! It was a wonderful, memorable day. The kids are truly having the time of their lives!