Rome

Sunday was a wonderful, if exhausting day.

We were up by 6 and on the road before 7. We walked to the Vatican and as arranged met up with Jason. His friend Mike was doing the tour and Jason decided to come along as well as he is trying to learn as much as he can.
We joined the line-up which snaked around the outside Vatican walls and it went remarkably quickly. We were inside the Vatican Museums in less than 2 hours. It was extremely crowded but our guide Mike was excellent. He was extremely knowledgable and we were able to follow most of his commentary via the supplied headsets. The Sistine Chapel was jaw dropping and we finished up with a tour of St. Peter's Basilica. We weren't done until about 1:30 at which point we joined Jason and Mike at a patio bar for a couple of well deserved drinks. All the more enjoyable because thy were free...as tours operators the guys refer customers to the place and as a consequence the bar owners look after them.

We then headed off, still with Jason & Mike, on the subway to their local, the Shamrock where we met lots of their friends. A really nice group of young people from Norway, New Zealand, The States, England, Crotia and Australia. We left them on the patio and walked up to the church of Santa Maria Maggiore. Breathtakingly beautiful, it rivals St Peters in it's architecture. We sat there for a bit in a side chapel listening to the beginning of a sung Mass, and then we headed back to the Shamrock where by this time Marzia had joined the group.

We left them about 6:30 and walked home which took about 30 minutes. We were both exhausted. We had been on the go virtually non stop, standing and walking for over 12 hours. Anyway we rested up and went out for something to eat around 9:30 just around the corner again sitting out on a patio.

Once we got back to the B&B I hooked up the Internet phone and we used Skype to call the Bank back home. Una's bank card had a low daily and weekly withdrawal limit (apparently it is set automatically based on your historic usage). We got through easily and the customer service rep says the limit has now been changed so we will test it today. We also got a rather loud complaint from one of the guests who came out of her room in her night attire asking what the hell we were doing (we had to make the call in the small lobby that all the rooms adjoin). calling at this time of night and didn't we know what time it was and on and on....She was in no mood to listen to Una's apology but beat a hasty retreat when I told her to put some pants on!

Today we slept late and have a taxi booked for 11:15 to take us to the train station for our trip to Sorrento. It is a bit cloudy and there has been a little bit of rain, but that's OK. The weather so far has been brilliant and today being a travel day it doesn't matter.

The holiday should start to take on a different character from here on, more relaxed with a lot of the major sightseeing out of the way, it's time to re-charge the batteries and find a laundrette.

Arrivaderci Roma!