All roads lead to Rome

Today saw us heading back to Vatican City to visit the Basilica.  We decided to walk there as we were confident we had sussed out the way. It also helps to make sure the big dome attached to the Basilica is in front of us rather than behind!  Where we went wrong yesterday was we headed left when we should have turned right.  There was a big sign telling us which way to go which helped too.

After a 20 minute walk we were there.  It is a huge, beautiful space.  We went in and had a look at all the statues and art in there.  Pretty amazing.  Alison wanted to see the Pieta which is also in there.  I must say I preferred David.  After that it was into the bowels of the church to check out the tombs of all the dead Popes.  We didn't see all of the Popes but there are a few in there.  I didn't get to see Alexander VI, aka Rodrigo Borgia, who is my favourite Pope.  John Paul II is up inside St Peter's so we had seen him earlier.  We also saw St Peter's tomb down there.  We went back up the stairs to the way out and ended back in the church.

After that we decided to head up into the dome to get a look from above.  I only went as far as the first vantage point but Alison went all the way to the top.  Up there you get a great view of the entire city.  It was a beautiful day so it was just lovely to stand out on the roof of the Basilica and just have a look around.  We then headed down and ended up back in the Basilica!  It seemed that whichever exit you took you ended up back there!  Up on the roof you get a much closer look at the statues on the top, a lot of whom are shored up to stop them falling off.  I wondered how they decided the order of the apostles.  I might google it later.  Inside St Peter's there are heaps of statues of St Peter holding his keys and St Paul holding his sword.  According to David Moxon, the Popes used to be all about St Peter and St Paul but St Paul was dropped off pretty early.

Upon leaving the Basilica we were accosted by the selfie stick sellers yet again.  One got all up in Alison's face and she told him to go away.  We had to run the gauntlet of them!  We were overtaken by a Police car heading up as there is still a lot of security around.  Next minute about six selfie stick sellers came tearing past us with the Police in hot pursuit!  Hilarious and my favourite moment of the day.  Have just had a piece of pizza from a little cafe and now I am resting my weary feet before heading out for some gelato.

Photos will be added at some later stage.