Vatican City

Friday is Vatican day. We had the morning free so decided to go for a walk through the Borghese Gardens, and then along the river Tiber. The Borghese Gardens are home to a flock of parakeets originally released in the 70s and 80s. There are actually two separate species that do not intermingle: rose-ringed parakeets from Africa, and monk parakeets from South America. They are now found all throughout Rome, much like the London parakeets which originated from released or escaped birds from Richmond Park. We wandered through and found the lake, home to the temple of Asclepius – him with the staff and the snake from Greece. The lake is home to geese and ducks, and also a population of turtles, which were sunning themselves on this lovely spring morning.

We left the park and walked down towards the river. The river Tiber is famous throughout history in Rome, so we descended a set of stairs to get down to the riverside. There’s nothing there. Zero. Nada. The riverside is completely undeveloped, there’s just a few houseboats, practically zero river traffic ( we saw a rower practising, and there are rumours of a river tour boat), just clouds of midges. We re-ascended at the next set of stairs and made our way back to the centre city, heading back to our hotel.

We’d plotted our course using the map, but failed to take account of any sightseeing opportunities along the way. Despite this, at the end of one of the streets we walked along we came upon the Spanish Steps. Famous Roman attraction! We took our photos , then decided which was the best way back to the hotel…and discovered that the easiest route back was to actually ascend aforementioned steps. So we did, and admired the views as we ascended. After that it was a short walk back to the hotel. Along the way we encountered one of our fellow guests and accompanied her for the final stretch.

Spanish Steps. Finger included

We were back in time to set out on the main adventure of the day: a visit to another country. That country is, of course, Vatican City, located entirely within Rome. Before we got there, however, we had a slight delay. We’d stopped at some traffic lights and when the lights turned green, a parked driver attempted to exercise his BMW right of way. This is all very well, but you shouldn’t try it against a full-sized tour bus, and particularly not in his blind spot. After the collision our driver pulled over and got out, and 15 minutes of Italian street theatre ensued, as every bystander weighed in with their opinions. This held us up a bit and the delay had repercussions for the rest of our day.

We crossed inside the Vatican walls, which, bizarrely, do not form the border of Vatican City. This is an even smaller enclave within the walls. We had lunch at the Satiricus restaurant: another disappointing set menu. We skipped the antipasto this time and went straight into a pasta course of tomato sauce, followed by meatballs, and the inevitable tiramisu. Maybe when we get out of Rome we’ll get some real actual Italian food.

We visited St Peter's Square, but due to our delay we decided not to queue for 45 minutes in the hot sun for a 5-minute sojourn inside the church; so we mooched around the square taking pictures before setting out for the Vatican Museum complex, there to visit various sites of interest culminating in the Sistine Chapel. I mean, it’s lovely, but your experience of it is not lovely – much like visiting the Mona Lisa in Paris. The whole place is crowded with visitors, and there's a general murmuration, punctuated by shushing from the guards. It would be great to visit it and have it all explained panel by panel, but you’d need several hours for that, which we didn’t have.

Due to the demographics of our tour group (we reduce the average age quite considerably) some members had decided to opt out of this and meet us later. The remainder traipsed through various galleries of interesting artefacts, but had no real time to linger and study them. We then made it into the Sistine Chapel, duly admired the ceiling, and made our way back outside. This whole process took around two hours, over the course of which we managed to lose one of our group. We were further delayed in locating her, so made it back onto the coach and back to the hotel with less than half an hour to turn around and get back out for dinner.

Dinner was nearby at the Il Fellini restaurant. This is a more upmarket restaurant than those we’ve been to so far, themed around Federico Fellini, esteemed Italian film director. But yes, again, set menu. It was much better than any we’ve had so far – genuine carbonara, meatballs of pulled brisket, a better class of antipasto, and a veal main, but still way too much of it, and also sadly lacking in green stuff. The pudding was a chocolate fondant – notoriously tricky to get right. Some were perfect, some underdone (mine) some overdone (Nicola’s). All washed down with a nice Chianti.