Who can? Vatican!

Omigod. The noise last night.

By day our room seemed perfect, overlooking the Basilica Santa Maria di Maggiore. Beautiful to look at. What I hadn't factored in is that the Basilica is in the middle of a high traffic area, just off a major thoroughfare.

What a racket. Every siren, every braking vehicle, every horn... Emma finally went for the ear plugs, I didn't but should have, and ended up having a severely broken night's sleep.

Eventually I woke up and glanced at the clock: 9.37am.

The problem being we were supposed to meet Simon and Robin at Termini at 10. Oops.

I ring Simon, who thinks it's hysterical that this time he's on time and we're late. 

"Can I tease Emma about it?" he asks.

"At your own risk," I said.

We suggest they head off for the Vatican on their own, and we'll catch up in the afternoon. We can see the Vatican after Simon's returned to London.

We head downstairs to the concierge to see if we can change rooms. Again.

They point out we'd been upgraded to one of their best rooms, overlooking the Basilica; we thank them, but explain the noise is horrible. The new room is poor for Internet access; doesn't matter because it isn't working in our current room anyway. The new room only has a view of the courtyard; perfect.

We move, and we're really happy. Much quieter, lovely outlook, and the Internet connection actually works - erratically, but sometimes beats never.

Accommodation sorted we grab a coffee from our new favourite cafe, then it's time to brave the Roma Metro. After a brief period of confusion we work it out. Easy. Basically just a big "X".

The Metro is clean and efficient, and we make it to Lepanto station without incident. Our plan is to catch up with Simon and Robin when they finish at the Vatican, and we'll all go to the Castel Sant' Angelo. We fill our time walking along the Tiber, listening to two guitarists playing Pink Floyd's classics, and grabbing lunch.

The guys ring, and they've finished touring the Basilica of San Pietro. They're keen to check out the Vatican Museum. 

It's around 3.30, and I figure the queues will be a killer. Turns out there's no queue at all.

You're kidding? No? Let's do it.

I've forgotten most of the details from my first and only visit - it was twenty-odd years ago - but I recall it being awesome. That bit was right.

There's an extraordinary collection of Roman and Greek artefacts (I remember those), an excellent Egyptian collection (forgot that entirely), collections of gold pre-Columbian American artefacts, modern and contemporary religious-themed art (which I think was closed when I was there), and amazing gallery after gallery of medieval, renaissance and post-renaissance art, the walls and vaulted ceilings often more impressive than the works along the walls.*

My favourite bits: the four Raphael Rooms, with frescoes painted by Raphael and members of his workshop. And, of course, the Sistene Chapel ceiling painted by Michelangelo. 

Fabulous.

We grabbed some drinks at a great little bar near the Vatican, and then ate at another tripadvisor.com gem called La Fraschetta. It's a tiny little place, fairly new, and the food was a mix of different cuisines done Roma-style; Argentine arebas, Mexican tacos, a variation of a Roman porchetta, along with several Roman artisan beers.

While the food was outstanding the real star was the owner, Marco. A former IT technician with Apple Computers, he made a complete career change and has gone into the restaurant business. He took a liking to us, adding the crackling to our serve of porchetta, then not only giving us free limoncello aperitifs, but leaving the bottle on our table for free refills.

I can't imagine that happening back in Sydney.

Tomorrow we're having a break from touring. It's shopping day in Rome.

Half of us are really excited about this.

* It seems there is virtually no culture, or historical era, that the Vatican hasn't pillaged in building up the collection. Ok, in fairness they did buy much of it, although that raises it's own issues. At least the collections have gone from the private collection of clerics with ostensible vows of poverty, and been made accessible to the public, so I'll stop moaning about it.