Day 219, 8 February 2013, Vatican City, Italy. It was up and at 'em eventually today and we trundled off to the metro and headed to St Peter's around 10.30 am. A brisk but stunningly sunny day to visit Vatican City. We happily queued up with the tourists and the faithful and several nuns (faithful tourists?) to go through security prior to entering St Peter's Basilica. As is sometimes the way with things you've only seen pictures of, I found St Peter's Square smaller than I imagined, but the Basilica itself seemed huge. The gleaming golden mosaics were incredible, as was Bernini's Baldichino or canopy over the high altar. We made our way around the chapels and back to the warmth of the sun and had a close look at the snazzily attired Swiss Guards before heading through the square under the watchful eyes of Bernini's saints stationed on the Colonnade. Apparently Bernini completed over 800 works in his lifetime. Which sounded all a bit suspicious, so with a wee bit of research we discovered the masters usually made small clay models and had their students do the hard yards. Given Bernini's prolific nature, we think he'd still be working if he'd had to do them all himself. From there it was a stroll around the ramparts to the Vatican Museums. An absolute feast for the senses, statuary, pictures, all manner of things. We paid attention, we truly did - but the main purpose of the museums sometimes seems just to control the flow of thousands heading into and out of the Sistine Chapel or Capella Sistina. The restored colours of the story of creation were sublime. Because we both went to Catholic school (and I at least was scarred for life), we didn't take any photos because of the roaming guards and the massive NO PHOTOS signs. Apparently they don't have Catholic schools in Japan. 'Nuff said. Made it back to the inn for a bottle of wine and a snooze and then spent our last evening revisiting favourites by night - The Spanish Steps, Via Condotti and its designer handbag shops (Sue, in Texas, you know who you are - we saw a cracking hat in Furla that would have suited you very well!), the Trevi Fountain (pictured - even more crowded at night!) and finally the Colosseum. Wow. Good night Roma - off to Firenze on the morrow! (One of the things that continues to amuse us as we travel is what we call the places we go and what they are actually called... Rome/Roma. Naples/Napoli. Florence/Firenze and in a few days Venice/Venezia. Makes for huge fun when booking trains on foreign sites!)