Well tomorrow wraps our trip here in Rome!! I’m sitting in our nifty AirBnb rental, thinking of all we accomplished these past two days, whew! My tootsies are aching just thinking about all the walking we did!! I’m gonna do a two part post for this trip because there is just too many memories, info and tips that I wanna share!! So here it goes…..Roma, Part 1! 
Day 1 Vatican! When we planned this trip of Tuesday-Friday, I honestly didn’t know that the Pope did a free general audience speech on Wednesday mornings in front of St. Peter’s Basilica. I was up one night doing some research on visiting the Vatican and saw that the public has two chances to view the Pope, Wednesdays and Sundays! You can fax a request for FREE seating tickets that can be picked up the day before or morning of the papel audience. 
Don’t worry if you don’t get tickets, there is plenty of standing room space in the back, and huge monitors around the square to view the Pope! Let me just say that viewing Pope Francis was AMAZING!!! There were people from so many different countries! The feel of people chanting and singing was wonderful! Then Pope Francis came out and the people got up to their feet and stood on their chairs just to get a closer look of him! I too got caught up of the excitement! 
After hearing the Pope. We had timed tickets to see the Vatican Museum! Okay here are two tips: (1) I highly recommend getting your tickets ahead of time. The line to get in the museum is crazy long. We walked right past all those people and got right in without waiting at all! (2) The bathrooms, yes bathrooms!!! inside the Vatican were the greatest I’ve seen in Italy! Im talking super clean, toilet paper, an actually toilet seat (yes that is a rarity here in Italy) soap & wait for it…..paper towels!!! There is a nice bathroom attendant who is there all day, its wonderful!!!! So back to the Vatican Museum, such a wonderful collection of art, sculptures, tapestries! To be honest my boys were beyond bored, but I HAD to see the Sistine Chapel!! They knew momma was gonna win this fight, so we finally made it to the chapel. It was bigger than I expected and just beautiful. Once I saw the chapel, we were ready to go! My boys were more excited about the spiral staircase that leads you out the exit, ahaha! Which I must admit, was pretty fun! 😉 
After seeing the Pope and viewing the museum, my boys were DONE!!!! So off to lunch we went! What better way to charge our bodies than with SPAGHETTI & a cold beer! 😉 (No beer for the children) 
After lunch and of course gelato! We head back to the Vatican to get in line to see St. Peter’s Basilica! Not without a stop at our new favorite bathroom, going to the Vatican post office and burning some pent up energy by chasing pigeons! Tip: Buy a postcard and mail it to yourself or a loved one. They have the neatest stamps and how cool is it to get it mail from the Vatican? 
After the long line, we finally made it to the basilica! Tip for parents with littles! You can take your stroller to the Vatican museum but not in the basilica! But they do have a stroller check in you can use for free!!! St. Peter’s Basilica is just AMAZING!!! I cannot even put into words how beautiful it is. My main objective was to see Michelangelo’s Pieta! We walked around, toured the tombs below the church and called it a day!! 
We were going to keep going, I mean it was barely 4pm, but I had the worst headache and just wanted to lay down. I think we were all exhausted, ahaha! 
We walked back home, and picked up dinner at this yummy kebab & pizza place right by our rental that we found the night before! We ate, showered and all in bed by 7:30pm! Record breaking for my family!!!!! I would say our first day in Roma was a success!!! Hope you enjoyed my first Roma installment! Stay tuned for When in Roma- Part 2!!! Ciao Ciao, Icela 🙂
La Dolce Vita 