We started out the 4th of July thinking of the US and the most honored tradition: The Coney Island Hot Dog eating contest. The one US channel we have was highlighting the American hopeful and his goal of over throwing Kobayashi to reclaim the hot dog eating crown for the US. We are dying to find out who won. We’ve got our eyes glued to CNN News but it sort of runs in a loop so we might night find out until later when we have internet connectivity. (I just checked and yes, American has regained the crown!, go USA).
Today was cranky Jeff and Angie day. We had a tour of the Vatican setup and were picked up at our hotel around 7:15 a.m. The tour was through Green Line and I would never ever recommend them for a tour again based on this experience. Everything we had read about touring the Vatican was that after seeing the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican to not leave and to go to St. Peter’s Basilica from there. This would keep you from having to stand in line. As our Vatican tour was ending we asked our guide this and he said the buses would take us over there. We figured he knew what he was doing and that maybe there was a group entrance we would go through over there too. Well it turns out that basically we got to get back in the tour bus and driven to a gift shop and that’s where the tour ended. So we had already exited the Vatican and now we were outside St. Peter’s Basilica with no way to get back in without standing in the line that went all the way around the outside of the square.
It turns out that the Basilica was closed and had we been in the Vatican we might not have been able to go in anyway, but we saw maybe 1/10 of the actual Museum in the Vatican and would have preferred to see more if leaving with our guide was just to be driven to a gift shop.
Because of the early morning start, heat and the tour guide we were cranky. We went over to Castle Sant Angelo and saw some angel sculptures done by Bernini. They line a bridge that crosses the Tiber River. An interesting side note was that this bridge used to be lined by gallows, so I guess the angels are appropriate. We also went through the castle but nothing of real note to call out.
After the castle we took a cab to the Spanish steps and had an overpriced quick lunch of pizza and then took the subway back to our hotel for a nap.
After our nap we headed out to dinner, our hotel is nice but it’s not in a very central area and we wanted to go somewhere that had some more nightlife. We headed over to the Piazza Navona area to a restaurant our hotel recommended. We both enjoyed dinner. I had a homemade pasta dish that had some chili spice in the pasta with a tomato and thyme sauce. The sauce and tomatoes was a bit sweet but combined with the slightly spicy pasta it was very good. Angie had ravioli with ricotta and spinach stuffing that she enjoyed. We shared a meatball and potato main dish that was pretty good too.
After dinner we walked over to the Piazza Navona and saw the Fountain of the 4 winds (another Bernini work). It’s currently being restored and there was some information on what is being done to it. All around the plaza there were street performers and artists selling their work. We found an awesome gelato stand (Blue Ice) and for 2.50 Euro got a giant gelato. Best gelato deal of the trip and it was pretty good quality.
We saw a crazy street performer from Chile that had a pretty good act. At one point he was parading around a tiny little stuffed turtle and he made him parachute into the crowd. After he was done with the turtle he tried to prop it up so people could applaud for it but it kept falling over. Each time it fell over he would pick it up bang it on the ground and prop it up again. The turtle kept falling over and the violence against it increased. At one point he was slamming its head in a suitcase. I thought Angie was going to pee her pants she was laughing so much at it.
Tomorrow we’re going to see the Pantheon and try and squeeze in the last few places along the path of Illumination from Angels and Demons. We also found out about an afternoon wine tasting tour that we’re going to see if we can do.