The Vatican and other Roman Adventures
We started our day off at The Vatican. Although neither Lauren or I are Catholic, it was still amazing to walk around the city-state with thousands of other people that were coming from all over the world to visit the home of the Pope. We wandered through The Vatican museum and enjoyed the Gallery of Maps which was commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII to decorate The Vatican. It was a standout from our walk through The Vatican on the way to the Sistine Chapel.
In the Sistine Chapel, we were in complete awe of the intricate detail of the ceiling by Michelangelo. We saw so many paintings we learned about in Core at Whitworth and it was so cool to see them in person. We *may* have taken some pictures of the ceiling against the advice of some signs. Here is one for your viewing pleasure.(Shhhhhhh! Don’t tell anyone.)
Next on the list was St. Peter’s Basilica. It was so much bigger than I was expecting and I could not believe how ornate everything was. There is a statue of Peter in the middle of the chapel and people like to take pictures touching his feet, so by now all his toes have nearly rubbed off. We saw the tombs of all the former Popes and the memorial to St. Peter. We kept saying how crazy it was that it was this Peter was Jesus’ Peter.
After a quick lunch, we headed over to the Pantheon which is tucked away in the middle of Rome. It was in a place we weren’t really expecting to see it since the modern city is built around it. I didn’t know that the Pantheon is technically an open-air building (there is a huge hole in the top of the dome!)
In an attempt to avoid a thunderstorm, we went home for a short rest before going out to dinner at Roma Sparita per the recommendation of our friend Ryan Worthington.
“It was the best food I’ve ever eaten,” he said.
Given Ryan isn’t much of an exaggerator, we figured this place was probably for real. After an ineffective bus and some taxi drama, we finally arrived. We ordered Cacio e Pepe which is basically spaghetti noodles with pecorino cheese and black pepper served in a bowl made of parmesan cheese.
Quick side note on my relationship with cheesy pasta: for as long as I’ve been alive, I have absolutely hated mac n’ cheese and most cheesy pasta for that matter. Most people find this horrifying and are even more stunned when they find out that I’m not really that into pasta (I’m more of a bread person if I’m going the carb route). Let me be the first to tell you that this was fantastic. I was unaware that cheese could taste this way. We finished the meal off with tiramisu which was fantastic as well and left the restaurant full, happy and thankful Ryan told us about this hidden gem.
We met some fellow Americans during dinner and they told us that the dish was so famous because Anthony Bourdain ate there during an episode of his show “No Reservations” on the Travel Channel. You can watch the episode below!
Italy as a whole has been so good to us and we can’t wait for more adventures in these last two days of our trip!
