Rome -> last night in Italy

It's our last night in Rome and we are sad our trip is over. It has been so wonderful, despite a few travelling hangups. I think the whole experience was much more than we expected. We learned so much history that it starts to run together at the end but is still so interesting we hope to retain a lot.

Our visit to the Vatican and Sistine Chapel today were fabulous. Our tour guide was extremely knowledgeable and seemed so passionate about the history. He did an excellent job explaining the process of painting the Sistine Chapel before we saw it. It was so interesting to learn about how Michelangelo painted the first half of the ceiling but then didn't like it. You can see how his painting over the second half evolved and was much more exquisite. The picture below is the most famous from the ceiling.

We couldn't believe how many statues were at the Vatican, they just went on and on. We ended the tour at St. Peter's Basilica. This church is the biggest in the world and is absolutely beautiful. I almost wish we'd seen it before all of the other churches on this trip to fully appreciate it.

We also toured around the rest of the city today on the open top bus. The city is much more lush with trees than we thought. It also wasn't as hectic as Florence. But in both cities you have to be careful and brave when crossing the street. Even at the crosswalk the cars and mopeds barely slow down for you!

Well I'm off to bed because we are leaving for the airport at 5 am, which is 8 pm Monday night Pacific Time. I am so thankful my dad found us a direct flight from London to Seattle so we get into Seattle in the early evening on Tuesday instead of late at night. Hopefully we'll recover from jet lag quickly.

Keep checking back to the blog over the next month or more as I'll post some of the pictures I took...it's going to take some time sorting through the more than 1100 pictures we took!!

Ciao!

P.S. I did find some cheap sneakers at a street vendor! :-)