From the Vatican to the Appian

May 13, 2019

Since this was our last full day as a group before some of us had to travel back, Dave originally thought we should keep this day low key. When we discussed scheduling a bike tour for the morning, he wasn’t sure we should be doing any tours at all that day.

Then the Amalfi disaster happened, and we had to shuffle things around. In order to get Amalfi in, we moved the bike tour to the afternoon and rescheduled a tour of the Vatican for crack of dawn. So rather than one tour, we were doing two.

We met our guide, Sergio, at 7:15 in the morning. Sergio was a walking/talking art history text book who would occasionally throw in cute, nerdy jokes. I thought he was adorable. For a change, it was me who hit it off with the tour guide rather than my husband. I was the only one willing to listen to his non-stop information flow, so he tended to hang out with me. I didn’t pick up on this until my kids pointed it out after the fact.

Let me tell you – the Vatican museums, which include but are not limited to the Sistine Chapel, are crazy beautiful.

Unfortunately they didn’t allow pics in the Sistine Chapel, but Sergio had some pretty amusing stories about Michelangelo. Michelangelo got grief for painting nude figures, and tiny leaves or wisps of cloth were later added to cover up the private parts of the figures in his paintings. In my opinion, the camouflage seems to bring further attention to those private parts. Michelangelo didn’t appreciate the grief he got, so he included unflattering portraits of several of the people he wasn’t happy with into his work.

Saint Peter’s Basilica is also crazy beautiful.

After that it was a quick bite to eat and a quick nap before heading off to the bike tour.

The bike tour was on electric bikes, so I can’t say they were much of a work out physically. Heather absolutely loved them, and she feels she needs one for L.A. However, except for one short stretch over smooth pavement, most of the riding was over cobblestones including a section that is the oldest paved road in the world. Again, I was surprised when a car would come down the road, and I was also surprised when I realized people actually lived on this road.

I’m not the most coordinated bike rider, and I tend to head straight for the very obstacles I’m trying to avoid. It became clear that day that I’m fast approaching the phase of my life where my kids are more worried about my safety than I am about theirs. Though, in the video below, Nicole does appear to be heading directly in the path of an oncoming car.

After biking, the concensus was clear as to what our next stop would be: gelato. Unfortunately, the line for the gelato was very long. So, the kids decided to get tiramisu to tide them over while Dave and I waited in line for the gelato.