We arrived in Rome a little after lunch, we have just under 48 hours in Rome, but the Rugby is on today slowing everything down, and tomorrow the Rome Marathon will shut down the city for the morning. Our only chance into the Sistene Chapel is today. We head straight there. Already I can't appreciate the age and value of the things I'm surrounded by. They say it would take years to take in each piece of art they have collected here. It takes 8hrs just to walk through all the galleries, without looking at anything.

This is as close as I'll come to a religious moment. The Sistene Chapel is impossible for me to appreciate, Gab is overcome by the sight of it, even the kids stand in wonder for a few minutes before they return to the questions. When you see an image of God incarnating Adam, that's it right there, thats where it came from, here Michelangelo laid on his back for 4.5 years painting it. Its beautiful but I'm taken with the politics. The depiction of the repressive cardinal as the keeper of hell, Leonardo's self depiction as the empty skin. Stunning.

Then you leave, no one built up St Peter's Basilica, so I expected another church, there are plenty in Italy. This place puts Versailles to shame. The scale is unimaginable. There is a 30ft alter dwarfed by the building it sits in, I tried my best to capture it in picture, I'll never capture it in words. It is the most beautiful man made place I've ever been in. I'm sick to think what so many must have sacrificed to make it possible.

From the Vatican we took in the typewriter, the Pantheon - years are a blur for me, was that 100ad? There is no discernible difference between 600bc and 1600ad in my mind. I have no grasp of these dates, I'm walking on unimaginable history.

Finally we came to rest in Piazza Navona, with the four rivers fountain. Unrearkable overpriced food aimed squarely at tourists like us. The Break dancers at the other end of the Piazza however were awesome, these guys are all muscle and balls, flipping onto your skull for a spin is stupid and impressive all at once. Max was more impressed than me, I had to give him a Mythbusters style warning lecture all the way home :)