Rome & Vatican Museums

Yesterday morning, we venture into the old city centre.  When we got off the bus at Piazza Venezia, this is the first thing we saw.  Called Vittortiano - Altar of the Fatherland - inaugurated in 1911.


Our main goals were the next ones, though.

Trevi Fountain



The Pantheon


And Piazza Navona





While travelling from one to the other, we stopped for what we thought was a small snack and a beer at one of the many cafes/trattorias.  It ended up being quite a bit more in size (portions are rather large).  But it was most enjoyable.

When we were done with this tramping around, we managed to flag down a taxi who took us to our meeting destination for the Vatican Museums tour we were doing this afternoon.  

Another great shot of the dome.


A couple of the loooonnggg hallways we walked through.



I have to say, I don’t recall walking through all of the areas we walked through in the past.  Overall, we didn’t particularly enjoy the tour.  Our guide was very knowledgeable, but too much about specific things which seemed to drone on and on.

At the end, of course, we were rewarded with the Sistine Chapel.  And that centrepiece by Michelangelo (well, all of it is by him).


And the Day of Judgement as well.


We left the museums after this - just tired of it all.  I think there was another 20 minutes or so left of the tour, which we didn’t care to indulge.

We went back to our place and ate up leftovers and other snacks we had, along with some wine.  Another busy one this morning!



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

We’ve Been Preparing

 …for a loooonnngggg time.  This trip, including Sue Hunter, Judy Hollinger, Darlene Allen and myself, has been in the works for quite some time.  Last year, at one of our cottage events, Judy said to all of us, “we should go somewhere to celebrate our 70th birthdays”.  That sounded like a great idea, so we started throwing out places to go.  Of course, New York City, and Chicago, and various other places came up…for a long weekend.  Somehow it morphed into a Mediterranean Cruise. Then we needed to decide on where we would go, timing, and for how long.  And what cruise line and other things.  We kind of knew where we wanted to go, so we had a travel agent set us up and book our flights.  We are boarding the Majestic Princess in 6 days! After we decided where we were going, then we looked into booking various excursions.  We did our own thing using “Get Your Guide” (great app) for most of it.  And used the Princess excursions for a c...
Read more

Greece - Here We Come!

Image
Well, today is the day!  Here we are, all ready for our ride to the airport in Toronto, and then a long ride to the airport in Athens.  Sue, then me, Judy, and Darlene. The flight was about 9-1/2 hours long, gate to gate.  One of us slept quite a while on the plane (Darlene), while Judy and I grabbed some naps here and there.  Sue didn’t sleep at all.  So we left at 6:30 pm Toronto time and landed at 11:00 am Athens time (7-hour time difference - we’re ahead of you).  In other words, we will know what you’re doing before you do. We’re taxiing into the airport terminal. Almost missed the representative Olympic rings.                                         Saw these dudes strutting down the street.  Not sure where they were going, but it was near their parliament building. In the older part of Athens, the streets are just a tad narrow....
Read more

Our First Stop - Mykonos

Image
  Last night we had our first dinner on board as we left the port around 7 pm.  It was quite good. This morning, we docked in Mykonos on a pretty windy day.  Thankfully it was windy, as the temperature was quite warm again. Our outing today was a trip to Delos, an island near Mykonos, that was an important ancient centre of trade…because they had no taxes.  People came from all around Europe and Asia Minor to trade there.  They’ve been excavating this site for about 100 years now, finding many things that I can’t begin to get into.  But here are a few pictures from the site. From the boat. Mosaic floors This was the base (all of marble) of the statue of Apollo. Some lions.   And some cats. The story is that in all of Greece, cats are protected.  Our guide in Athens yesterday told us you will not find one mouse or rat anywhere in the cities because the cats keep them away.  These cats are all strays, but they are protected for this reason. On ...
Read more