Just finishing up 2 busy days seeing some awesome sights here in Rome. One of the things that we splurged on was arranging for a private guide to take us through some of the sites in Vatican City, in particular the Sistine Chapel. Though the "Walks of Italy" site we booked a tour into the chapel before it was open to the public. Usually you would be shoulder to shoulder crammed inside, tilting your head upwards scanning the ceiling while being slowly ushered along. We were able to enter it early in the morning before the madhouse. We could relax and spend time looking at both the ceiling and the Last Judgement painted in the wall. The ceiling is generally considered one of the most magnificent pieces of art in the world. Upon completion (after 4 years) Michelangelo reported "I've finished the chapel that I was painting. The pope is quite satisfied". Ya I guess he was!

We also toured through the vast Vatican Museums, seeing the famous Rapheal Rooms (formerly the Pope's apartments). These rooms have huge frescoes painted by Raphael that the Pope could gaze at when we wasn't doing Pope business. According to our guide Maurizio, this museum was the second formal museum ever created after one in Naples. Full of Roman and Greek sculptures, Egyptian plunder, and many many other items. Lastly we ended up in St. Peter's itself. A huge, enormous, sprawling edifice, I just can't get enough of that place. The sheer size of it is hard to describe. I'll post some pics that have people in them to give you a sense of scale.

A little buzzed out with museum overload, we had lunch to regain our senses followed up by a bit of shopping. I think Keith found a few more fancy pen shops (he's a Visconti aficionado) and I seem to recall Beth becoming the proud owner of a new pair of shoes. We stopped into one smaller church that has a famous Bernini sculpture that Beth is crazy about and finally made our way back home. We picked up some spicy chicken from an East Indian joint, which was a nice change from our regular Italian fare, washed down with a Moretti beer. We were dozing off in our apartment when we were jolted awake with a sudden realization that we were forgetting something .......... gelato! Back out to our new favourite place up the street.

The following day we decided to head out of town on the metro. About a 45 minutes away is the former port town of Ostia Antica. It was situated where the Tiber River (which flows through Rome) meets the ocean, and most of the goods and supplies passed through here bound for Rome. After the fall of Rome, and also due to the Tiber silting up and changing course, the town was abandoned. Gradually forgotten about, it slowly got covered over. It wasn't until the time period between the 1930's to the 70's that it was extensively excavated. I kind of looked at it like a closer and cheaper Pompeii. There are more intact buildings than simply a pile of rocks, foundations and rubble. Really neat mosaics too. We finished our outing by popping back onto the train to go a little further down the line to the current shoreline where today's Ostia is located. It's a nice little seaside town with a promenade of small hotels, shops and beach-front places where in the summer you would reserve an umbrella, beach chairs and a changing locker. Apparently this is very popular in the summer and you must reserve your spot well in advance. Today in October there were just a few tourists out sunning themselves. The locals are all in jeans and sweaters even though it was 25 C. It was nice to just lay on the sand and listen to the waves hit the shore. After a bit of a doze we caught the train back into Rome and were soon passing by the Forum, Colosseum and to our stop on Via Cavour. It's hard to believe that we have just one last day in Rome and that our trip is soon coming to an end. Ciao for now.