We went to Rome, Italy as a family on Christmas Day 2022 and came home New Years Day 2023! Follow along on our day-to-day adventures of Rome!
Day 4
Dear Adventure Avenue,
We woke up, ate the bakery items from last night and got a taxicab and headed to Vatican City!
The roads in Rome require you to take a most circuitous route through the city as there are rarely two-way streets.
Vatican City
When we finally arrived after zipping and bouncing along, we waited outside the Vatican for our tour guide assignment.
We had Marina and she was wonderfully knowledgeable! We passed through security and were given our audio enhancers. (The guide gets a mic to communicate with us).
I really liked how Marina explained the significance of the art in the Sistine Chapel before we even went in.
On our way there we saw many stairs and statues in the Greek and Roman style. Though we also noticed that there were a lot of prudish popes because the balls had either been covered with fig leaves or just whacked off.
We also saw a couple long corridors one filled with tapestries and the other with maps. On the tapestries, if they were marked by a bee, that meant they were made by a particular family.
The direct route was closed to go to the Sistine Chapel, so we went around the long way which meant we got to see more things!
Sistine Chapel
Once in the Sistine Chapel, we were not able to take any pictures. It’s always amazing to see the frescos.
Then we went to St. Peter’s Basilica which is a very large church.
Once the tour was finished, my mom and I returned to go through the grotto. It was mostly just tombs and blocked off passages. Nothing too terribly exciting. You also couldn’t take pictures in there.
Then we met back up with my brother and dad and started the long walk home. In the course of our traversing, we ended up on what I’d call a luxury lane because it had all the expensive shops like Louis Vuitton.
We stopped for lunch at I believe a place called Numbs. The food was good, but a bit overpriced compared to some of the other cafe-like places we’d been – No doubt because we were in the ritzy part of town.
During our meal a guy from Senegal came up and forced some bracelets on us and then of course waited for a tip. Try to just refuse them and don’t accept “their gifts”. Another woman with her child came up again but we were able to avoid direct interaction.
Our lunch consisted of ham and cheese crepe for me, a margherita pizza for my brother, lasagna for my dad, and caprese salad and fascia bread for my mom.
We then continued making our way to our hotel when we came upon some rather crowded stairs. It seemed that they were of some importance. I snapped a photo of it and did reverse Google images and it turns out they were the Spanish Steps. We can check that off our list now!
We finally made it back to our hotel and proceeded to rest until dinner.
My brother and I played cards.
La Bruschetta Dinner
For dinner we went to La Bruschetta again. The people there are so nice. Mere and I split a lasagna and some grilled zucchini. My brother and mere’s friend both had fettuccine with meat sauce. My mom and brother split some grilled chicken.
Then for dessert we ordered a delicious Nutella pizza. It was Nutella on focaccia bread. We polished off the whole thing. SO GOOD!!
We bought my dad a lasagna to-go.
When we got back to the room, my brother and I played a couple more rounds of cards and then it was time for bed!
Sincerely,
A
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