Trip to Italy with the Girls - Sunday Night

By far the highlight of today was Vatican City.  Seeing the Pope was truly surreal.

We walked over the Tevere (Tiber River) and saw the Castel Sant Angelo - spectacular in and of itself.  Turned to the left and walked toward St. Peter's Basilica. We stood in St. Peter's Square in awe of where we really were.  We were THERE.  Right there, right then.

At noon, the Pope appeared from a window, greeted us all, and blessed us for 15-20 minutes (we think).  We have NO IDEA what he actually said, although we know it was good.

Tomorrow (Monday) we have a private tour of St. Peter's, The Vatican Museum, and Sistine Chapel.  We are setting an alarm to make sure we can be there by 9:00 am.  We don't want to miss that.  Words really cannot explain how amazing it was to see the Pope.

After the Vatican, we walked to Piazza Navona - a magnificant plaza with fountains, artists, cafes, pigeons, and tourists!  The big WOW there was Sant Agnese in Agone, a 17th century Baroque church in Rome.  People come to pray there and when you walk in the door a sign tells you to be quiet and "no pictures".  Bummer, because it was absolutely beautiful.  Then, I noticed people talking pictures and I recalled reading where many places we would be visiting would say "no pictures", but if you took pictures they would not stop you.  So I did.  Jane also lit a candle in memory of Don's parents.  I got a nice picture of that!

We then headed to the Piazza di Spanga and the Spanish Steps - once the artistic quarter of the city, attracting English poets Keats and Shelley, German author Goethe (read one of his books in my Humanities class), and Italian film director Federico Fellini.  All the way there I was hoping I wouldn't have to climb the steps.  You can only imagine how pleased I was to find it "under renovation".  I would have done it, but am so glad I didn't have to.

We put on only 16,500 steps today.  Seemed like more until I realized we stood in St. Peter's Square for over an hour waiting to see the Pope.  We had a couple bottles of wine and it's now 10:30 pm here in Roma!  Going to bed to be ready for our big day tomorrow.

Love, Rondi and Girls