July 8, 2015

First off, we are so excited to be in Europe and to be using the train system.  We have global Eurail passes and it really couldn’t be much easier to get around!  We left Naples yesterday and just went straight to the train station where we paid a $3.00 reservation fee and jumped on the next train to Rome.  We did have a quick stop over, but it was worth it to only pay $3.00 instead of $10 for the direct train.  The trains are nice (even the Regional trains) and even had plugs so that we could sit and charge up all of the electronics.

We made it to Rome in about 3 hours and found our campsite right away.  Luckily, Adam had e-mailed them ahead of time and got exact directions including the bus numbers!  We LOVE the campground!  They have a huge pool, a super market, and really nice bathrooms/showers.  We have our nice little tent set up for the next few nights, and we are good to start hitting the city!

We spent today touring the Northern portion of the city along with the Vatican.  We pre-purchased our tickets to the Vatican because we heard horror stories about getting in, but it wasn’t really that big of a deal.  The security line to get into the Basilica was long (about 30 minutes), but we read about times when it is much worse!  The inside of the Basilica is beautiful…really amazing!  It is definitely a place that anyone (whether or not you are Catholic) can definitely appreciate.  The walls/ceilings/floors/statues/EVERYTHING are absolutely stunning.  I took a ton of pictures, but I’m afraid that none of them do it justice.

Inside of the Basilica, you can also go downstairs into the crypt where all of the deceased Pope’s have been buried.  It is really cool to go through a read about when they each served as Pope and to think about all of the history that has happened through the years.  We were not aloud to take pictures inside, but it was very beautiful down there as well.  After going through the Basilica, we went around to go see the Vatican Museum.  This was a separate line, but also not too bad.  We had pre-purchased tickets for 1:00 and we pretty much got in right at that time.  The museum had a really good audio program where the kids got their own guide that had more interesting kid stuff so that we could listen to the adult version.  Hayden was SUPER excited that they had an entire section with Egyptian artifacts and that his audio guide had an “actual ancient Egyptian” talking to him.  🙂  Even for “non-arty” people like us, there were tons of really amazing things that we could definitely appreciate.  The paintings were beautiful and there were tons of really neat sculptures too.  We spent a few hours going through the museum before coming to the Sistine Chapel at the end.  Unfortunately, no pictures are aloud in the Sistine Chapel, but it was certainly amazing.  I have to say (and I’m sure true art lovers will disagree), I was more impressed with the ceilings in some of the other rooms than in the chapel.  While it was really neat and the history of it is amazing, I thought that some of the other rooms (the Map Room in particular) were even cooler.

We also walked around the Northern part of the city to check out some of the buildings that we wanted to see.  We started out at the Plaza of the People and walked along the river down to the St Angel’s Castle.  There were so many cool buildings and the bridges along the walk were very nice too.

After a very long day and lots of walking, we made it back to the campsite where we had dinner from the grocery store.  It’s nice to be able to get some bread, meat and cheese and just have a relaxing dinner by the tent.  Tomorrow we will be going to the Coliseum and spending the day at the Forum and the Ancient Roman ruins.