ROME–ITALY– All roads lead to Rome

First full day of our tour and an early start as we were booked into the Vatican Museum for 8.30am.

We visited the Sistine chapel to see the famous ceiling painted by Michelangelo.

There were thousands of tourist in there and the guards kept shouting at people to be quiet. SSShhhhh.

Dare they try to take a photo they were again shouted at.

It was really difficult to see the paintings properly as you had to crane your neck to look up.

How on earth Michelangelo could have painted it without pain and suffering is beyond me.

BUT, maybe that is the point, like monks who wear a hair shirt, maybe it proved his piety to God or something.

We also lost one of our tour party at some point here but his wife didn’t seem too worried.

(Ted, where are you? Got him back later)

We then went to St Peters Basilica.

It is enormous, very light inside with lots of gold.

The pope is at home at the moment, but we are going to give getting a blessing a miss tomorrow as we are taking an optional tour to Pompeii and Naples.

After lunch we went off to visit the Colosseum.

Here I am below!

(Andrew, note I’ve had to change to the Prada Sunnies)

Then tonight we took an optional walking tour to the Trevi Fountain.

The crowds at the fountain were amazing, but I squeezed to the front and tossed in a coin.

Lot of baloney says Graham- Bah Humbug.

Then we finished at the amazing Pantheon.

Our tour director is a lass called Marisa. She is Croatian but has lived in London, Italy and France.

She calls us her bambini's (Children)

“Are you excited bambini's”

“Si”

“Oaky dokey”

She is lovely and remains enthusiastic despite losing people, people having too much Limoncello, and people who don’t listen to instructions, especially meeting times and places!

Until next time, Kim