Saturday 27th August
All of us were up early and ready for more sightseeing. We left the flat just before 8:00am and took a very short walk (about 2 mins) around the corner to the Vatican Museums. We had tickets booked for an all day tour of the Vatican City including a train to Ciampino station where a tour bus would then take us to Castel Gandolfo for the afternoon.
Our tour started with the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel. We took our time walking through the museums admiring the sculptures and paintings. There was a lot to take in and we were determined to take in as much as we could. That was until Glyn pointed out that we were running out of time and had to catch our train. So we ended up rushing through the Sistine Chapel taking a quick look at the famous Michelangelo ceiling as we went.
We hastily made our way to the train meeting point, no one else was there so we thought we must have missed it but we were then informed by a member of staff that we were actually early and still had loads of time. Luckily there was another museum there for us to look around while we waited. A nearby staircase lead us underground to a space full of carriages and cars used by former popes, including a cute little Volkswagen Type 1 Beetle.
We went back to the meeting point where we were then taken on a guided walk through the Vatican Gardens to the Vatican City train station. The walk through the gardens was nice but by this point we were starting to feel the 30° heat so we were quite relieved to get onto the air-conditioned train.
After a short train journey we got onto a small tour bus that took us to Villa Barberini and drove us around the Barberini gardens. These gardens were beautiful and full of nice fountains, tall holly oaks and ancient roman ruins. We were told via an audio guide that these ruins date back to Emperor Domitian, the last member of the Flavian Dynasty.
The bus then dropped us off in Castel Gandolfo where we were given three hours to spend. The first thing we wanted to do was to admire the view over Lake Albano. There were rain clouds in the distance and thunder could be heard from across the lake but even that didn’t spoil the wonderful view. We went for a wander around the village and had lunch at one of the cafes. There were plenty of souvenir shops so I decided to make a start on my souvenir shopping. I found a cute summer dress for my niece and a nice scarf for mum. After checking the time we realised we still had an hour left and had run out of things to do. We wanted to visit the Pontifical gardens but we couldn’t find the entrance so we went back to Lake Albano and found a bench to sit on and rest our aching feet. It’s safe to say we were all a bit exhausted by now. Well Sarah, Matthew and I were, Glyn was somehow still full of energy and joked about us getting old and needing a rest.
We had just about enough energy in us to get back to the meeting point. We were expecting to get back onto the small tour bus again but were crammed onto a normal bus with loads of other people instead. There were no seats left so we had to stand (our poor feet!). It was then about a 40 minute wait at the train station. We were surprised at how hot it still was at this time of day (late afternoon/early evening) as we stood on the platform and waited for the train. The train finally came and we took our seats. An exasperated Italian man was rushing through the train, as he went past us we heard him say “Mama mia!”. All of us were happy to hear an Italian actually say this in real life. We thought it was just a stereotype! The train took us to Roma S Pietro station where our Vatican tour came to an end.
It was then a short walk to St. Peter’s Square (after figuring out which way to go). From there we followed the Vatican wall back towards the flat. We were all too tired to go out for dinner so we decided to find a fast food place and get some food to take back with us. We came across a signpost for Jollibee. I’ve had food from Jollibee before (my sister-in-law introduced me to it in New York) so I suggested we go there. We got our food and headed back to the flat to just chill for the rest of the evening.
It's All Happening 