When in Rome..

The saying "when in Rome" does a good job summing up our weekend in the Italian city. We rarely have 3 glasses of wine with lunch, in the afternoon, and with dinner... but when in Rome. If we go out, we don't order an appetizer and dessert with every dinner... but when in Rome. We had a pretty perfect trip to Rome, sunny days in the 50's and it only rained 2 nights while we were there. We saw everything we really wanted to and still got to enjoy some wine/coffee drinking and people watching in a few of the many piazza's around the city. Enjoy the photos and recap of our first day below!

Door to our Airbnb apartment, so cool!

Day 1: The Vatican, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica

We started out the morning with our hike over to Vatican city. It took us about 30-40 minutes to walk there but we were stopping in cafe's looking for breakfast along the way. We pre-booked our tickets ahead of time, but it turned out we wouldn't have needed them as there was barely a line at the entrance. January/February is the low season and I couldn't imagine waiting in the 2+ hour long line that wraps around the wall of Vatican city in the tourist season. 

Making our way to the Vatican

The Vatican is definitely impressive even for those of us non-museum people. We didn't do a guided tour which was perfect for us to wander through at our own speed. The Raphael Rooms were pretty amazing along with the Sistine Chapel. There were no photos allowed in the chapel so we put the camera down for a bit and tuned in to Rick Steve's podcast guide to learn a little about Michelangelo instead. Rick Steve's podcast tours were a recommendation from my good friend Megan and they didn't disappoint! Pretty fabulous information for a free audio tour. 

View of the St. Peter's Basilica from Vatican gardens

We went from there to the one place we had to wait in a short line - the St. Peter's Basilica. The Basilica is free to get into, everyone just has to wait in a security line before entering. The sheer size of this church completely blew us away. Sixty thousand people can fit standing inside. The Dome is just under 500 ft. high and the letters in the Dome are each 7 ft. tall just so you can read them from below.

We climbed a bunch of narrow, leaning steps to get to the top of the Dome which gave us an unbelievable view of the city. The sun didn't hurt the view either! 

St. Peter's Square

View of Vatican Museums from Basilica Dome

After our time in Vatican city, we enjoyed some pizza in one of the many squares of the city, grabbed some gelato, and just explored on foot until it was time to eat and drink again for dinner! Tomorrow, I'll write about our visit to the Colosseum, stay tuned.