Day 75: Vatican & Rome, Sunny, 28°

Finally, Credential & Testimonium! 

Our plan this morning was to go to the Vatican early to get our testimoniums. We were up in decent time and off  to the metro, direction, Vatican City!

The metro was jammed, and yes, we were masking. 

We got into line and it was longer than it was on Saturday. The line moved quite quickly though. 

Once through the police security gates we were directed to the coat room, what? There two sort of cloak room guards (not to be confused with the Swiss Guards) sort of looked at our credentials and gave us two testimoniums to write our names on. I was quite surprised and I missed taking a photo of Rob getting his credential stamped. Oops! Rob was more nimble and snapped a photo. I’d heard there was a better setup from the old poor process. This was pretty much as bad as it gets😂 We bumped into our Icelandic friend Ole and his wife later and they said they had pretty much the same poor experience. Nothing like Santiago! 

Trstimonium. 

More importantly. My Credential!

And then through the door of Saint Peters Basilica!

Some photos from inside:

Rob listening in😂









It’s absolutely immense inside! Even all the tour groups couldn’t come close to filling the basilica. 

Multiple smaller domes. 

I waited patiently by the front doors as hundreds walked in and out. Finally I was able to take this photo of the symbol of St. Peter, the symbol also for the VF which I carried sewn to the back of my pack.

A few more outside photos. Such an impressive square!

Of course, the Swiss Guard were present. Huge honour in the Swiss army. 







Angles Unawares, by Canadian Artist Timothy Schmalz. The first new sculpture to be placed in St Peter’s Square in over 400 years!. About the plight of migrants and challenges in our world today. Very well done and moving. 









This group was in line this morning and we think they had an audience with the Pope and were being interviewed by the press afterwards. 



Then we were off to see Rome’s mainly free and famous sites. We were to find them overwhelmed by tourists! A bit of a shock from my earlier visits. 

I saw many obelisks today!

The Spanish Steps where you can no longer linger on the stairs. They have stair monitors with whistles🙄 They have recently cleaned them and to stop people eating fast food there they now have a ban on eating. A €400 fine! We saw a 385 seat McDonalds just down the street!

The Trevi Fountain was being cleaned. 

Yet we thought there were at least a thousand tourists watching and taking photos and of course selfies. It was a bit disturbing. I just took photos for the show. 

He was shocked by the number of tourists too!

The Parthenon: Massive line to get in. I’ve visited this amazing place in past years where I’ve walked in and there’s just a handful of people. So lucky!



Quite the story about how the Roman engineers made the cement ceiling light enough using pumice in the cement!

Piazza Novona:



Campo de Fiori: Caitlin and I stayed here in 2005. 

Just down here,











A little sweat and a lot of hot sun, but my grandchildren’s names are still just visible. 

David, as requested. Boots at the beginning. 

Boots at the end. Done and dusted!

Almost broken in😂

Tomorrow the Colosseum and the Forum!