2022-07-21: Rome Day 1

It was a really early morning today. We booked a Vatican Tour for 7:30 this morning. Why would we do that? Because it gets us into the Vatican an hour before the public is allowed in so we’re not fighting the crowds. It also included breakfast after the tour. So, we got ourselves up at 5:30am, got showered and dressed, and headed out the door around 6:30am.

We walked a couple of blocks over to Basilica Papale di Santa Maria Maggiore where there is a taxi stand outside the Basilica. There were a few taxis waiting there so we hopped in one and were off to the Vatican. The taxi driver let us out in front of St. Peter’s Square. After taking a few photos of the square and the basilica without any crowds, we headed to the entrance of the Vatican Museums. The entrance is actually a fair distance from St. Peter’s Square. It took us a good 15 minutes to walk to the entrance. We were supposed to check in for our tour 15 minutes ahead of time. We were at the entrance a few minutes early and were ushered into the Vatican entrance. After checking in at the tour desk, we were given headsets so we can hear our guide and given a meeting point. A few minutes later our guide introduced herself and the tour started.

The tour went through a few of the galleries including the gallery of candelabra, gallery of tapestries, gallery of maps, immaculate conception, and Raphael’s rooms before entering the Sistine Chapel. It was a really nice tour because of the lack of crowds in the rooms. We were the only ones in the rooms at times. The guide was also allowed to talk and explain the paintings in the Sistine Chapel. Normally, there is no speaking allowed in the Sistine Chapel, but that rule only goes into effect at 9:15am which is when we were leaving the chapel. After viewing the chapel, we quickly walked through a few galleries on the main floor on the way to the courtyard where they served us breakfast. There were a few wasps flying around that had Michael freaked out during breakfast. After breakfast we were free to re-enter the Vatican museums and explore on our own if we wanted, but not surprisingly, the kids had had enough of the Vatican exhibits. We made our way to the exit and moved on with our day.

From the Vatican, we walked to Piazza Navona passing Castel Sant’Angelo and walking along the Tiber River. When we arrived at Piazza Navona, we were surprised by the number of people in the plaza. We thought it would be pretty busy but it was actually quite empty. We took a look at the fountains for a few minutes before carrying on. Michael was disappointed by the fountains. He decided they didn’t pump out enough water and they needed to have fish in the water basins. That made us chuckle.

We continued our walk and made our way to the Pantheon. The boys were concerned by the length of the line to enter, but it moved quickly and we were inside within a few minutes. We admired the hole in the center of the roof and took a quick look at the tombs of the first Italian Presidents that are kept inside.

We walked a few blocks to the Big Bus Tour bus stop which is a hop on hop off bus. We decided that might be a good way to get to a few of the destinations in Rome. We waited a few minutes for the next bus to arrive and rode the bus a couple of stops to the stop for the Spanish Steps. We walked for about 10 minutes to get to the Spanish Steps. Michael couldn’t understand why steps were such a big deal along the walk. Once he saw them though, he decided they were worth seeing. We approached them from the top, so we walked down the steps and checked out the fountain at the bottom. Again, we were surprised that there weren’t more people in the area.

We decided we’d walk over to the Trevi Fountain next as it was nearby. The kids were hungry for lunch at this point as well. We started walking towards Trevi Fountain and came across a restaurant that looked decent, and more importantly, was in the shade. We stopped and enjoyed our lunch break before continuing on.

We made our way to the Trevi Fountain and spent a few minutes there admiring the fountain. Michael decided that the Trevi Fountain was outputting a sufficient amount of water unlike the Piazza Navona fountains. Everyone was pretty cooked from the heat at this point and we had seen a lot so we decided we would return to the apartment. We made our way to the nearest Big Bus stop and hopped on the next bus that showed up. We enjoyed the bus tour until it pulled up to the stop beside Basilica Papale di Santa Maria Maggiore. We got off the bus and walked back to the apartment, stopping for some gelato at a local shop along the way of course.

We headed out to grab some dinner around 6:30pm. We just wandered down a couple of blocks and found a restaurant we decided to try called L’Archetto di Cavour. The food and service were excellent and the prices were reasonable. Amanda remembers eating there the last time we were in Rome. We would definitely recommend the restaurant. After dinner we went in search of a market to grab some food for breakfast. Unfortunately, the only markets nearby seem to be mini markets that didn’t have much of a selection. We ended up grabbing a few pastries from a local cafe and then grabbing some yogurt from a mini mart. We returned to the apartment and called it a night. We have another early tour at St. Peter’s Basilica in the morning.