Rome Part II

On Friday we planned to take the train back to Rome. Little did we realize so would everyone else for Easter Weekend! We did get on a train but had to travel first class which wasn't too much more expensive thankfully. We arrived back in Rome just in time to pick up our tickets to see the Pope. We had tickets from the US Bishop's office for both Good Friday and Holy Saturday mass. And no I didn't have to say we were Catholic!

But by the time we picked up the tickets (since I went to the wrong spot first) it was really too late to get to the Vatican in time to wait in line for service. Instead we checked out Trevi fountain again in the daylight (it's better at night) and went to the Pantheon. Then we headed over to Castle San Angelo (from Angels and Demons) but didn't go in. Instead we took a nice walk along the Tiber River to the Trastevere area of town and did a Rick Steve's walk. We saw the Church of St Cecilia, Piazza Santa Maria and Church of Santa Maria. This side of town is very quaint and cute and was a nice change of pace.

Castle St Angelo

River Tiber

Trastevere

We also walked back to old town across Isola Tiberina (also from Angels and Demons). We headed back to the hotel then wandered to find a place for dinner- we ended up at another wonderful kebab/middle eastern place. Good story from dinner- Jason points to a nice looking meat stew and says "that with rice" the man say "that's liver" Jason responds "not that then" - the man obviously knew Jason wasn't looking for liver! We also found a cool Italian bakery with lots of traditional Easter cakes and candies which was neat.

Easter Cakes

The next day we went to Borghese Gallery in the morning. You have to have a reservation, you are only allowed in for two hours and they only allow 360 people in at a time (and no pictures). It was a pretty place with lots of statues including some amazing Bernini. After that we walked to the Cappuccin Crypt which contains the bones of 4,000 monks. Then we headed to the Church of Santa Maria Vittoria to see Bernini's St Teresa in Ecstasy (also from Angels and Demons). We had a quick bite to eat then headed back to the hotel to rest up for our big evening with the POPE! First though we went to Piazza de Popolo and ate some pizza on the piazza. On our way to the Vatican we stopped at the Chigi Chapel (from A&D) which was in a church on the piazza. We arrived at the Vatican at 5pm to stand in line for the 9pm service. I think the Pope deserves his own blog post though so you will have to wait to hear about our experience.

Bernini's St Teresa in Ecstasy

Chigi Chapel

Piazza del Popolo