Waking up in the port of Civitavecchia — we drew a long straw and walked straight off the cruise ship, no lines or waiting, right at 6:30am. Hauled the 300 pounds of luggage we are carrying over to the station and caught an early morning train back to our hotel, beating the morning rush hour. (by the way, we’re not sure who actually works in southern Italy — as you never see a business person and the streets are full of men standing around)
Being ahead of schedule and without our hotel room ready, we hustled over to the Vatican Museum — the one really big site that still needed to be crossed off our list. Over the past five years Dave has become a big Italian history and art nerd — primarily through reading books like The Pope’s Ceiling, Brunelleschi’s Dome, and Galileo’s Daughter. So this was a highly anticipated stop on the tour.
We are excited to be revisiting Vatican City and walking over the Vatican Museum
We were pleasantly surprised to not face massive lines as we entered the museum (although every room insides was packed like sardines)
Young Raphael's School of Athens adorns the walls of the Pope's Chamber in the Vatican Palace
Michelangelo's recently restored Sistine Chapel -- the 1st wonder of the Renaissance art world
23 years after he painted the ceiling, an encore performance produced The Last Judgement, an incredible alter wall fresco
This is one massive museum -- you could easily spend 4-6 hours here (well, at least some of us could...)
To each his own...Zack and Kayla enjoy the bread and pastry from the tasty Il Fornaio bakery
While Dave consults the map about our next stop -- Zack works the crowd in true Rome begging fashion
We spent the rest of the day tooling around some of our favorite piazza’s and sights and doing a bit of shopping. Oh yeah, and there was a 2 hour nap thrown in there somewhere too.
We leave Rome feeling like we really got a chance to know and appreciate it — yet there is plenty of meat left on the bone should we be fortunate enough to visit again.
Early to bed because we have a 7:30am train to catch to Florence. Despite the number and size of bags in our entourage, we are getting efficient at packing up and hitting the road !
Our European Adventure 
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