Sabato, Saturday. Up bright and early for a Vatican Tour.

We took a cab from the rank a few metres from our door. A real cab. You know, the one with the sign on the top that says “Taxi” with a real meter, not a modified TomTom that somehow ticks up a fare. Looking at a map, it was pretty obvious that our “cab” from the airport took us on a bit of a joyride. But what can you do, when he shows you a likely looking licence card, grabs your bags while you race after him so you don’t lose your luggage. The real cabs also have a fixed price from airport, about half of what we paid.

Anyway, we were deposited safely at the gates of the Vatican Museum in time to meet our guide. We soon realised that there were many groups doing an “early start to avoid the crowds”. Having studied a history unit The Age of Christendom at uni I felt I was reasonably familiar with the rise of the Catholic Church and its power, temporal and spiritual. But boy, is it something else to see it, literally in stone and in art. Our guide had a very good sense of art, theology and history and she was very able in explaining, particularly the significance of the art. We came away from the tour (3 hours) with a very clear sense that the Roman Church has a very clear sense of its immense power.

We thought that the crowds, particularly in the basilica, were very large, but our guide assured us that this was the low season and that numbers were vast in the high season. And when we finished the tour and saw the immense queue snaking its way toward the entrance we were glad that a) we got in early and b) our ignorance had unwittingly selected a low season visit to Rome.

Like a badly prepared tourist, we had left home without our map, but we felt confident we could find our way home with our great sense of direction and intuition. Well, I think we left those at home with the map! We finally surrendered and bought another map, and a coffee so we could rest our weary feet. Unfortunately our map did not have one of those stars that says “You are Here”. So we asked a couple of likely looking locals who turned out to be from Dublin, and they were able to pinpoint our current location. We were actually about 400 metres from home, so maybe the intuition was sort of working. Somehow I feel it might have taken a couple more hours to get to the front door of our little flat.

Finally home with our feet up I was astonished to hear the sounds of a brass band and singers marching in the street below, singing, in Italian, the Collingwood theme song. Clearly this would be an impossibility. Collingwood lost. To Geelong!

We went down to investigate, to find the streets swelling with crowds. The Spanish Steps just opposite our digs, and the surrounding streets were packed with people. It was like the whole of Rome had come out. Maybe it is a Saturday afternoon thing. Jenny is slowly morphing into her mother and we found ourselves in a handbag shop (70% off). I had to fight off her impulse to buy two bags.

We limped home amid the jostling crowd, footsore and weary, but not to weary for Jen to check out the gelateria next door. Now for a night in.