Our first day in Rome, we awoke at the crack o’ dawn in an attempt to beat the crowds that would inevitably have amassed at the Vatican Museum if we didn’t bust a move. To say that we had beaten a crowd would definitely be a lie—the line already stretched around the block shortly after 8:00am, and it is a large block—but we certainly got there before the majority of people.

Once you cross the threshold into the Vatican City, you are technically entering a sovereign country, of which the Pope is a sort of monarch. We didn’t see the Pope at the Vatican, as he probably had the good sense to be in bed at that time. But we did get a very informed guided tour of the museum and the Sistine Chapel, which looks magnificent in its post-restored state. Centuries of neglect had blackened the paintings covering the walls and ceiling of the chapel, including Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, and much effort and money had to be expended to restore it. Small sections have been left uncleaned as a sort of historical record.

I felt somewhat conflicted walking around Saint Peter’s Basilica, the largest and most significant church in Christendom. The building is like a massive work of art with exquisite painting, sculpture, and masonry in every direction, and impossibly tall ceilings. Whilst certainly impressed, all I could think of was how much it all must have cost, and how the church could have built things many, many times more useful with the money.

We saw the Colosseum, the Vittorio Emanuele II memorial, the Spanish Steps, the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, and drank a beer on a red carpet outside a restaurant. We had dinner at a place called Pizza and Beer, where we ate tube pasta, chicken, and apples, and drank wine. I had got more tourist-y value out of Rome than the other cities so far, and I was sad not to see Mario anywhere, but there is always next time.

Smo