Hoedown on the way to Venice

This morning we had worn Crystal out and she decided to stay in camp while we hit Rome one more time. While we were gone she got us caught up on laundry – yippee! Thanks Crystal!

 

Bob and I took the bus to the Vatican and found out the museum didn’t open for another 2 hours. So, we wandered Rome and climbed the hill behind the Vatican for an incredible view of the city and a 1 Euro cappuccino.  The coffee is excellent although the prices vary from 1 – 3.5 Euros for the same coffee. Odd…

 

After a nice walk we headed back to the Vatican museum and walked right into the picture gallery first thing. There are fewer people here in the morning as most head towards the Sistine Chapel immediately.  The gallery is incredible and we hit more ninja turtles early on and marveled at the quantity of work.  Most disturbing is the room of martyr deaths… I won’t describe it but my mind has yet to erase the images.  How did they paint this stuff? Graphic…

 

On through the museum we saw Egyptian mummies and sarcophagi – scarabs and other remarkable objects.  The museum winds through history and feels like you have walked through it after a few long rooms.  Incredible stuff – Greek, Roman, tapestries, the map room of incredible map painting (or were they frescoes?)… so much to see.

 

Finally we came upon the Raphael rooms – and they are really something to behold.  The most famous – and certainly my favorite – is School of Athens.  Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Pythagoras mixed with Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael himself and Michelangelo.  Very cool fresco.

 

The Sistine Chapel was next and more than I expected.  In some ways it was not at all what I thought, smaller, the ceiling further away.  But the color, the detail, the time that it took (4 years seems pretty fast when you see it) – what a stunning place to see.  The altar painting is incredible and I was surprised that I had seen very little of it.  The hand of God reaching for Adam is VERY far away in actuality.  I was wishing for binoculars. 

 

We left the museum and took the bus back to the campsite, collected Crystal, went for a quick swim and hit the road for Anzio. Bob’s grandfather landed at Anzio in WWII and it was a special trip for him: “There was a steep set of stairs that led down to the beach, which is now a recreation site.  It was not hard to imagine soldiers landing on the beach and digging in to the steep sandstone cliffs that were a short distance from the water.  The remnants of foundations and other structures were sill very evident in the hillside.  After a quiet walk up the beach we visited two military cemeteries for UK soldiers that were involved in the Anzio invasion.  Nearly every grave had flowers growing on them.  The cemeteries were beautiful and very sad.”

 

We left Anzio and began a long drive.  Thanks to P.J! we cut across the country to the Adriatic coast to see the water.  On the way there the road goes through the mountains literally one tunnel is over 10,000 meters long. That is over 6 miles – impressive, huh? The road continued with many more small tunnels until we hit the Adriatic coast.    

 

We continued on last night driving all the way to the campground outside of Venice.  It was a long drive, but switching off drivers kept it from being to exhausting.  Everything was going swimmingly until we hit the area around Venice.  Venice is a series of islands and the coast can be very sketchy.  We couldn’t find the right turn for the campground and tried to pull off and consult the map.

 

But the space we were pulling into was occupied. As was the next… for a few miles of pull offs and closed gas stations we kept getting the hopes up of “working women” that thought we were looking for them. A good time was had by all. We called the campground, spoke to a man who knows no English and wandered away from hoeville towards our site.  What a relief to get to sleep tonight.

 

Be sure to check some old entries, I am adding pictures.  I will try to update our day today in Venice tomorrow.