July 4

Rome day 3. Today is a big day. Antonella (our tour guide) is taking us to the Vatican City.

But first, Happy 4^th of July! I Heart the USA!

We started at the Vatican Museum continued on the the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica. The museum had what felt like miles of tapestry woven in real silver and gold thread. The Sistine Chapel was incredible. I don't know how Michaelangelo could paint around the clock on his back for 3o years. I felt almost humbled sitting there taking it all in. Unfortunately it was quite loud and I thought it a bit sad that everyone was taking pictures with their flashes as workers would constantly say, "PLEASE, no pictures".

In this picture and in real life the figures look 3D but when you look up close its just paint! Pretty amazing.

After the Sistine Chapel we headed to St. Peter's basilica, the largest Catholic church in the world!

It took over 100 years to build.

After the tour a bunch of us decided to climb to the top of the dome. We paid around 7 euros to take the elevator part of the way up and hiked another 300 or so steps to the top of St. Peter's dome.
On our way up we arrived first at the base of the dome that overlooks the cathedral. The dome walls are all made up of tiny mosaic pieces. It's hard to fathime all of the work that was put in to create something so beautiful! A few more stairs and we made it to the top. The most beautiful view of Rome.

We did finally make it back down to the bottom. Did a quick sketch of a fountain outside of St. Peter's and made our way to the Panthon

I'm falling for Rome!