The Vatican, a day on the beach and our last night in Europe

As I sit down to type this post the reality is hitting me that this will be the last time I blog in Europe. I'm sitting in the computer lounge at the Litus hostel in Ostica Antica right now. Grant is at a computer to my right and Phil just retired for the night. It's about 10:30 and we have to catch the bus to the airport fairly early tomorrow morning so I'll probably check out as well soon after putting up this post.

The last time I posted, I believe we had just finished up our first day in Rome (Monday) in which we saw the colliseum, the forum, etc.... We got an early start yesterday (Tuesday) morning because we were headed to the Vatican, and we were pretty sure it would be packed if we didn't get there early enough.

The Vatican opens it's doors at 9:30, so we got there at 8:45 just to be on the safe side..............however, there was already a huge line. There were a bunch of tour guides standing around the line promising that if we bought their tour package (for like 15-20 euro) we could skip the 2 hour wait in the line. Since we were feeling risky and somewhat economical we decided to take our chances with the line. Turned out to be a good choice......we were at the front of the line in 27 minutes!

Once inside the Vatican we went straight to the Vatican museum and started slowly digesting the layers and layers of church history that were stored inside. It really was a fascinating place. They even had a display of a small robin that was given to one of the popes as a gift by Richard Nixon.

After the museum, we walked through the Sistine Chapel. The rumors are completely true....the ceiling is amazing! It was quite an experience just going through the room. You're shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of other tourists and everyone is looking up at the ceiling as they walk around. I imagine the Swiss guards must pull up the Sistine Chapel security tapes when they're board (which brings up an interesting discussion question: if you're a Swiss guard, when aren't you board?)

Next on our agenda for the Vatican was Saint Peter's basilica. We had to wait in another enormous but otherwise fast moving line to get in there. Once inside, it was easy to see what all the fuss was about. This place is gigantic, lavish, and extraordinary! Easily the most impressive cathedral we've seen on this trip (and believe me, we've seen some impressive ones). In fact, Saint Peter's was so big and so packed with people that Grant and I lost Phil for about 45 minutes (or he lost us, depending on how you look at it).

Just outside of the basilica, right off of Saint Peter's square was a fairly new museum dedicated to the late Pope John Paul II. It was quite well done and informative. I wish I could go into detail about all we learned about him, but it would take up to much space in this post. You should go read about him yourself. He was quite a guy.

We also got to see the Swiss guards on the outskirts of Saint Peter's square. I took a few pictures of them. They must have the most mind-numbing job in the word, standing around all day wearing ridiculous multi-colored outfits and holding sticks. (Here's another discussion question: can you be a Swiss guard if you're not Swiss?)

At this point it was getting fairly late in the afternoon, and we were about all Vaticaned out (yes, I realize that I made up that word). We went back to our hostel and spent a little time in the room recovering from our big day before heading out again for some dinner.

After much indecision and walking around, we finally found a reasonably priced place that looked like it had a pretty solid Italian menu. We were seated at an outdoor table and immediately given appetizers on the house! There was even a guy who came out with an acordian and serenaded the patrons! This was a great place!

The food was also tremendous! We completed our Italian dining experience by stopping for gelato on our way back. I rated it as a surefire top 3 choice in the "meal of the trip" rankings (up there with Momma Kovac's culinary ingenuity in Breidenbach and Wendi's home-cooking specialties in Bardejov).

When we woke up this morning (Wednesday) we checked out of our hostel and stored our backpacks while we took a bus outside of town to the ancient catacombs! We paid 8 euro for a tour, which honestly, could have been better. Because of safety reasons and water damage only about 3% of the entire network of underground catacombs is open to the public. It was a pretty quick tour. However, I'm glad we had the experience. It really would be dark and creepy down there without any artificial light.

When we were done with our catacomb tour, we somehow lost our return trip bus tickets, so we ended up walking most of the way back. Needless to say, we were hot and tired by the time we fetched our packs and boarded the metro to head out to our final destination of the trip.

However, when you're hot and tired there's one destination that can easily fix all that.....the beach! Thankfully the hostel Grant had booked for our final night in Europe was right on the beach in Ostia Antica (as well as being close to the airport). Major bonus points for Grant! (actually, I'd like to take this opportunity to give Grant a huge shout out and thanks for all of the work he's done booking hostels and making travel plans this trip).

Once we had checked into the Litus hostel, we grabbed some McDonalds, which was the only thing open at 3:00 in the afternoon, and hit the beach! The beach was absolutely fantastic! It felt great to relax on the sand and swim in the cool refreshing Mediterrenean Sea. I even took a walk down the coastline, walking for about half-an-hour before turing around and walking back. I bet I covered over 3 miles of coastline! Grant and Phil also enjoyed the previously stated activities, as well as Grant getting himself covered in sand and Phil sunburning the entire front half-of-his body.

This evening we enjoyed our last dinner in Europe by eating pizza and calzones at an outdoor cafe. We even had Italian tiramisu for dessert! We arrived back at the hostel after dark and are now enjoying our final relaxing evening on this continent. Our plane leaves for Montreal at 1:00 in the afternoon tomorrow, after which we will take connecting flights from Montreal to Chicago and Chicago to Peoria. We are scheduled to arrive at the Peoria airport at 10:14 pm CST.

Until next time, this is Ben signing off from Ostia Antica.