DAY103 - SUNDAY JULY 5 - VATICAN CITY

Since it was Sunday it was fitting that we should attend the largest church in the world, St Peter's.  Four stations of Metro and a 500 meter walk brought us to our first view at 9:45.

We followed a priest into the round square and found a queue of more than 100 meters ahead of us so we walked around the colonnade in the shade.  There were four rows of columns all the way around - too many to count.

The police were on hand in a silent electric vehicle which allows them to sneak up on suspects.  It was a Citroen but almost identical to our own Mitsubishi.

Outside there were Roman Centurions touting for photos and inside a few people dressed very traditionally, but not really suited to the 35C weather.

  Yesterday we did not enter a church because shorts were not allowed.

If you needed help you could ask a Vatican policeman.  They were easy to spot.

If you wanted to drive into the Basilica carpark you had to deal with the sentries.

There was a statue of a man holding something in his right hand.

He was too old for it to be a 21st symbol so it must have been Peter unlocking the pearly gates for the faithful.

The National Post Office of the Vatican was closed, as would be expected on a Sunday.

However we were able to buy postcards and stamps at a nearby souvenir shop and post them in a yellow Vatican letter box.

It was getting hotter and the queue was now nearly all the way round the circle but before we moved on we listened to a concert band of Polish High School students, right in the middle of the piazza.  Some police approached and involved the manager in extended discussion.  We were hoping that Papa Francisco might appear and say "Suffer them to come unto me." They will feature on our street music DVD.

We still had not seen the River Tiber (Tevere) so we found the huge Castel Sant'Angelo and walked across the dry moat for a drink and a sit down.

 Continuing on we discovered that there seems to be only one crossing of the moat so we did a complete circuit before reaching the river with its "left bank bookstalls".

There are thirteen bridges on our map and they all appear to be quite old.

We passed the Palace of Justice.

  We found a cheap but nice cafe on the way back and walked into our room at 1pm to cool off for a couple of hours, watching the Tour de France with Italian commentary.  There was a lot of talk about numero uno, Nibali, last year's winner, but we found later that he had a bad day.

Our front door is across the road from the Palazzo Barberini  and we reckoned it should be explored before our departure.  What a bonus!  At 3pm we offered the ticket seller 14 euros for entry of two people, but he gave us two tickets and said "It is free today".  I asked why but he would not say, so never query a freebee.

It describes itself as a museum of ancient art but mostly it has paintings from the 15th Century on.  We walked up 66 steps to the first floor and into the main hall.  There was virtually nothing in the room except a few people but the ceiling was covered with a fresco called the Victory of Providence.  It took us ten minutes to take it all in, but it took 7 years to complete.  It was not the Cistine Chapel, but it was free, uncrowded and to us very exciting.  There were about 20 rooms of paintings with big names such a El Greco, Raphael, Caravaggio and Hans Holbein (Henry VIII).  It was hard to absorb it all.  We were now convinced that the Italians have a wonderful legacy of art.