ROME4

Got up early, our bus was ready at 7.30.

On the roads I saw orange trees, full of oranges; I never got tired of seeing them. apart from that nothing much happened and we reached Vatican .

Wow, what a long line ahead of us!! I am sure it must have been a couple of miles long!! our guide was standing in front with a red ribbon tied on top of her umbrella. We met a few people behind us who were from Iowa . At last we were able to get inside the gate/walls of Vatican . Since it was a different country, they checked our passports and had to wait for our baggage clearance.Then we started our tour inside. It needs an expert to describe what we saw inside. Everywhere it is paintings. Instead of saying I am posting the pictures, they can say more than what I can say!!

Then we came to Sistine Chapel where we saw Michelangelo’s last judgment. Nobody was supposed to take picture there and the Vatican guards were watching us. But when I looked around, almost all the people had their cam turned upside and clicking away without flash light. After the Vatican they took us to a restaurant. Lunch was included in the tour. First they bought a basket of bread. Then for a long time nothing. I was thinking may be this is what our lunch was. I felt like crying because I was so hungry. Then there it comes, a table full of foodI felt so much better.
Then our last trip was to see the catacomb. It was supposed to be the place where the supposedly persecuted Christians were hiding. Romans did not know about this place and the persecuted Christians were buried there. But what our guide told us was a different story. The Catacomb guide looked like a Malayali, we asked her to confirm, she wasn’t a Malayali but a Srilankan. According to her there wasn’t any persecution at least regarding the catacomb. We saw the tomb of a noble roman and his family and also the tombs he bought for his servants. So the Romans did know about this place after all!! And if they did, how did the “persecuted Christians” hide here??

On our way back to our hotel, we saw the only pyramid in Europe .
Then as usual we went to our pizza placethe next day we are supposed to go to Sorrento . A beautiful placeso needed to do some packing’s since were were not going to be back for the next 4 days.