It’s been a while, and I am truly sorry. Fall has been quite hectic at work and s/y Rosinda has found her place under the tarp for winter. The great news is, that we’re on holiday again. After a short 12 hour tourist walk, we’re now back at our Airbnb room taking a much needed rest before tomorrows attractions.

Roma, la città eterna. The eternal city. I threw a coin in the Trevi fountain some ten years ago and now I’m back. The charm works. The captain’s boss is here for the first time. Her only wish was to see the essentials. There are a lot of essential things to see in a city that has millennia of history to tell. So, for our first venue, we headed to the Vatican city. We had no advance bookings, and thought we’d do the thing by ourselves.

We refused the first tour offer, but the second one was so well dressed and convincing in his speech, that we decided to take a chance. And it paid off. Maya Tours and Deborah as the guide was a great experience. There weren’t actually any queues to speak of (5-10 min) so the “jump the queue” promise, wasn’t worth anything. The expertise, knowledge and stories that Debbie had was absolutely fantastic. A great guide is a great guide. Just imagine a sassy Italian lady talking about the Pope’s assistant looking like George Clooney and drooling about it….

So, we saw the Vatican Museum, the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s Church and the square. We also took the time to go up to the cupola and had a great view all around Rome. We were a bit lazy and took the elevator up. It still only goes half way, so we had to take the final 320 steps up. And down. I recommend this to anyone, except those with bad knees, claustrophobia or if you need to reserve two seats on a plane.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Having spent nearly four hours in the Vatican, we moved on. There is so much to see that you could spend a lifetime wandering in the museum and church. Our next place was a little bit easier, Castel Sant’Angelo. With only about 2000 years of history, it was a quick visit. Imagine, a brand new place and they just keep renovating it.

Castel Sant’Angelo

With the obligatory museums done for the day, we headed for something equally touristy, the Spanish Steps