Woke up very sore at 8:15AM. The floor was not very comfortable after a nights rest on it and my left hip was killing me. I got up and dressed right away and headed breakfast with Amy. Since Amy and her parents were heading to a few sights I had seen and church, I went over to Campo di Fiori to catch a glimpse of the market (this time early enough before its all closed). I walked from the hotel to the Campo di Fiori which was just bursting with fruit, jewelry, veggies, nuts, wines, just packed with people. The markets took up the whole piazza and was very colorful and bright this morning.
I walked thru the market, browsing the sales and then went off to Trastevere. I crossed the Tiber River into a nice town called Trastevere. This town had lots of restaurants, very close buildings, lots of apartments--almost like a suburb of town with families, homes, and a lot tighter than the city. It seemed like the people knew each other more and everyone seemed a bit more friendly in Trastevere. On my way to the main strip, I stopped in Piazza San Cosimato and bought a peach and grapes from a local market. The sellers were very respectful and not pushing me to buy buy buy--they let me look around and offered me a basket if I wanted to pick out something. I made my selection which I would have for lunch----and it only cost me one euro!!($1.50US).
After getting my fruit, I made my way to Trastevere Street which had a ton of markets. This is where I get Laurens colorful purse, my black purse, and another dressy teal shirt. Again I was bargaining more and more, and always saying "Ohhhh too expensive, I only have _____amount." The market guys are very helpful at first when they see I am interested and say "good price good price", but they are always way too high. So I start to act uninterested and they say "ok for you less." Usually I still say its too much and we go back and forth bargaining. I only had time to shop a few markets and then had to start heading toward the Vatican.
But first I stopped on the Roman Island called Isola. To get to the Island there was a bridge cars and people could cross. It didn't seem much like an island----was just like a little town, had restaurants, cars, buildings---and to get off I just took another bridge and walked off. I only walked thru the island and it took maybe 5 min to cross it so it was very tiny. Not a whole lot to the "island," so I continued on my way. I walked along the Tiber and had to move pretty fast because I had to meet Amy and her parents at the Vatican Museum within 30 min. It only took me 27 because I was booking it and flying on foot.
We didn't have to stand in any line because we already had tickets so we went right in. There was security to go through, but it was very relaxed---I looked at the guy watching the xray machine and he was not even looking at the screen as bags passed.
The museum had a courtyard at the very beginning and then lots and lots of statues and heads in the first part The entire museum was a one-way path. Once we entered, the path just kept going thru different sections. The paintings were just outstanding and gigantic. The path kept winding back and forth all the way to the Sistine Chapel which is the very last thing we walked to. This is a very famous creation piece which is portrayed on the ceiling about the creation of adam and eve, however, everyone is herded into this room like cattle. There are police at the front telling people to keep walking, not take pictures, but there was no where for people to go. It was so crammed in there it really was not enjoyable at all. I did snap a couple pictures as did all kinds of people, by turning off our flashing and holding the cameras down. We only spent 10 minutes in there because everyone was too squished and then left. I really was not that impressed with the Sistine Chapel or the Museum---it had lots of art and sculpture, I did see a mummified corpse which was neat. We spent about 3 hours in the museum which was enough--I love art but not too many hours of just looking at it.
Amy's parents were hungry so we went to a close cafe and they ordered some beer and a pizza. I had my peach still from the market (ate my grapes in the museum) so we sat for a bit to relax.
It felt good to sit down for a bit, but then we were off to St. Peter's Basilica dome. There was no line at the Basilica either now that was 5PM so we went right through security--which was again very relaxed. To enter the Basilica however, everyone had to be covered up--my dress was long enough to my knees so I just pulled out a small shoulder jacket to get by the dress code security.
We decided to climb the dome which was 531 steps to the top. There were two options the stairs (5 Euro---Amy, her dad, and I took this way) or the elevator (7Euros and it brought her mom half way up).
The stairs started very wide and long apart then moved to normal stairs---this brought us to the halfway part which was the first landing area---we could peer into the Basilica and see a special mass going on just for religious figures. Then we continued up more stairs to an outside landing point. This is where we met up with Amy's mom. We had to walk across the roof it appeared like to another set of stairs. We guessed we were about half way there. There was more to come. The stairs started to get really narrow and turned into small, tight spiral staircases all the way to the top. When we got to the top, we had a beautiful view. It took about 25-30 minutes to get up, but the view was well worth it. We could see the whole city for miles around the dome. We took a few pictures and then jumped into the line for the exit. It took about 15 minutes to even get back to some stairs. The only way to get down though was the same way we came up---the stairs. The elevator line was ridiculous so her mom decided to use the stairs down, however, she dropped her sweater on the way down and didn't realize it until we reached the bottom, but luckily the security allowed Amy and I to go back up to find it. They actually took up in the elevator to do so---one of the guards jumped in at the last minute and started sweet talking us on the way up, asking what we were doing later and asking us to go out with him that night. He was very cute, but a bit forward. As we stepped off the elevator, I spotted the sweater and because the elevator was so crammed on the way down, we just took the stairs...again.
Walked through the Bascilica---I saw the body of one of the Popes which has been preserved however without any restoration techniques. Then Amy and I ran to the priest store for Father Weldon, however, it was closed already and had to walk the 25 minutes all the way back to the hotel.
Along out trip there we could feel some tension between the two of us---Amy didn't know if she could afford Florence on her own and didn't want to ask her parents for money and I really wanted to see somewhere else and because she went to Barcelona the week before I got there, I wasn't going to go all alone but still wanted to see something besides Rome. Amy was stressed that this trip had very little planning, but we talked on the street before heading back to get what each of us was thinking and discussed what we each wanted to do. But we figured it out in our talk and then headed back to hotel to meet her parents for their last dinner.
We went to a restaurant close to the hotel. I shared a fungi pizza (mushroom) which I ordered and pasta and mushrooms which Amy ordered. I had a little white wine and we relaxed with her parents for the evening. We talked and reminisced about all the things we saw, and then walked back to the hotel. Then Amy and I went back to Jo's for the night. We stopped at Termini to get a ticket to Florence and then off to Jo's. We talked with Fabio and Jo for a bit and then it was bed time.
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