Well, today started as spectacularly as yesterday finished. We were woken early as we had a very important place to be, the next and smallest country in our visit to Europe, Vatican City. This was the day Sally and I had been looking forward to most since we had booked this tour way back when as we are both history nerds and no place has more history than the Vatican and ancient Rome (which was also on the menu today). We started by meeting our tour guide, a very very attractive blonde haired, brown eyed and tanned skinned Roman women named Alessia (she is the only guide who's name I have even heard, let alone remembered so far) who was extremely knowledgeable about all things Rome and Vatican. She had studied at Rome university for 5 years to be qualified for the job she is currently doing, but I have well and truly digressed. We started by wandering along the Vatican walls which create the border with Italy until we got to the Vatican museums entrance. These were by far the strictest security regulations we had to face in entering anywhere so far. We safely negotiated this issues and wandered past the waiting masses and entered the museums. The things that strike you first is the oppulence that the popes live in. Every hallway, staircase and wall is elaborately decorated with some piece of ancient and beautiful artwork. We past through a room of ancient statues of pagan gods and saints alike. We then went through the tapestry room filled with stories of popes lives and bible stories all that had been hand woven. The thing to remember though is you don't know where to look in these places, do you look at the artwork on the walls, the amazingly decorated ceilings or the huge marble floors? The next room was the geographical maps room (of the Roman empire) which even today are 70% accurate which is astonishing considering they had to do all the work on the ground. The next room was the biggy, the granddaddy of the tour. The Sistine Chapel. This is what many to believe to be Michelangelo's definitive and most famous work and it is breathtaking. The first thing you notice is actually the amount of guards stopping you from taking pictures and attempting to keep everyone quiet, but then you very quickly look up and see the unbelievable artwork that is all around you. The roof was painted by Michelangelo in his thirties and is telling us the story of the creation of the world. The walls were painted when he was in his sixties and tell us about the end of the world. The famous fresco of God creating Adam (trust me, you've seen it) is amazing to be able to see first hand but the whole place is remarkable. And to think that Michelangelo originally didn't want to paint this because he hated painting and only did it because the Pope of the time almost forced him too. They recently cleaned the chapel and it took twice as long to clean as it did to paint (20 years to clean, 10 years to paint). We then moved on to the worlds largest catholic church, St. Peters Basilica. Being able to see it is amazing enough, but to go inside it is about as good as it gets. You lose all perspective of size when you enter the main entrance as everything seems much smaller than it is. It would take me weeks to right about all the statues, artifacts and history of this place so I will give you a general rundown. The basilica is the cathedral for the bishop of Rome (known as the Pope) and was built on the exact site of St. Peter's burial site (he is buried under the altar) and all the other Popes are buried here as well (St. Peter was the first Pope). The dome is the tallest building in Rome and no other building can be taller in Rome or Catholicism. Michelangelo's first work (and only signed work) is held here, La Pietà. It was originally built in 324 AD and then was was rebuilt in 1506 which is how it is today. We then crossed St. Peters Square and headed on the bus to ancient Rome. I will say a lot less on ancient Rome as as interesting as it is, the heat was forcing our concentration to waiver. We first walked through the Roman Forum which was very cool and saw the three triumphal arches remaining in Rome from the 36 original arches. We then got to once again skip the queue (gotta love being in a tour group sometimes) and enter the Colosseum. The place is massive and fit 70,000 people in it at is fullest. We got some pretty nice pictures here and it is a very interesting place but once again I couldn't get the facts because I was to busy looking for shade and water. What I can tell you is that it was used for gladiatorial combat (no chariot racing, this was at Circus Maximus around the corner) and was in use for over 200 years. It was also the place for the persecution of many Christians before Christianity was made legal by Emperor Constantine. The rest of our day has been spent shopping, lazing by and in the pool, drinking, eating and sleeping. Hope this has been interesting and there is thousands of other facts and tidbits I have left out due to the fact I don't want to be writing this for days! We catch the ferry to Greece tomorrow so I will have plenty of time to update then as it takes 24 hours to get there. Oh another good thing we did today was buy 3 Peronis for €1.69, that's about AU$2! Talk soon

Alex