After we were all up and ready for the day, we caught the shuttle from our campsite to Vatican City. Suprisingly there was no line for the Vatican Museum and we were in within a few minutes. We made our way through Museo Pio-Clementino (the Roman and Greek section) first, through room after room filled with sculptures of Gods, people and animals. We shuffled along with the crowd, each room so ornately decorated with paintings on the ceilings, statues along the walls and mosaic tile floors. Next stop was the Egyptian section, filled with mummies, sarcophagi and artifacts. We had underestimated the sheer scale of the museum (its corridors stretch for over 4 miles) and after we had passed through a giant section entirely filled with pottery we were starting to grow weary of museum-going. But at the end lay Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel which was a must-see so we trekked on. We passed through Galleria degli Arazzi (tapestries) and the incredible Galleria delle Carte Geografiche (the map gallery), a long hallway with detailed maps covering the entire length of the walls. We continued on through the Raphael rooms, with every inch of the walls and ceilings covered in incredible murals, and Appartamento Borgia with frescoes by Pinturicchio and through a section of modern art when, completely burnt out, we finally reached the Sistine Chapel. The entire room was packed with people, marveling at Michelangelo's magnificent Creation overhead and the Last Judgement on the first wall. It was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. After we were done marveling, we wanted to get out as soon as possible but discovered we had to walk all the way back to the entrance down what I'm pretty sure is the longest hallway in the world. By the time we finally got out, we were famished. We found a little restaurant in the area outside the museum where we got a rather disappointing meal (mushroom risotto) before continuing on. Technically we had already been inside Vatican City while in the museum, but we had to walk around the perimeter to the east side to enter St. Peter's Square. Statues gazed down upon us from the semicircular colonnades around the edge of the massive square leading to the incredible St. Peter's Basilica, with it's dome (designed by Michelangelo) stretching towards the sky. We stood in the shade of the Egyptian obelisk in the center before deciding we didn't want to wait in the huge line to enter the church so we just hung out in the square for awhile, chatting and people-watching, until we were ready to move on. We grabbed some gelato and then hopped on the metro which dropped us off right near the Spanish Steps. The plaza at the base of the staircase was packed so me and the boys sat down by the fountain to people-watch some more while Jess went and joined her friends on the steps. Eventually the girls decided to head back but we wanted to stay longer, engrossed in the crowd of tourists, streetsellers and locals. We eventually left the fountain and walked to the top of the steps, gazing out across the town until we were hungry for dinner. Mike and Konsti hadn't seen the Trevi Fountain yet, so we walked through the sidestreets to it and then found a cheap restaurant a block or two away where we had an awesome meal of salad and pasta. We returned to the campsite and played drinking games and chatted with some fellow travelers until it was dark and then we joined the stoplight party at the club where we met up with Jess and her friends (and Sophie who we hung out with in Venice!) and partied and danced until the early hours. One of the best nights of the trip so far!