We planned to spend Sunday wandering around and exploring Rome, and we did - just not all the places we expected to!
That morning on the spur of the moment, we decided to head to the Vatican to see the Pope's Sunday audience. It was quite a hike but definitely something to see (and hear). St. Peter's square was absolutely filled with people for a service. Although it was all in Italian and so we can't comment on the message, the music was absolutely beautiful. It also appears that everyone takes it seriously - even the armed military guard in front of us took part in the handshake of peace. We did see the Pope (albeit from VERY far away), but once again didn't understand a word he said.
After this we checked out the line for the Vatican Museum, decided it was too long to wait, and headed up to visit a park Patrick found on the map. The beginning to the park was beautiful (and on a steep hill!) and we kept going to try to figure out what the monument in the middle of the park was. About 20 minutes in, we discovered that the "monument" on the map was a big, empty field with a closed off sports stadium underneath! We spent awhile longer trying to find our way back OUT of the park before heading down to see Trevi Fountain, and then spent another 20 or so minutes wandering in circles trying to find the fountain before we realized it was the huge wall we had passed that was under construction! (On the positive side, it was a very painless 20 minutes since we found a great gelato shop!)
At that point, we were pretty far away from the other items on our list, so we started heading back. On the way we took a quick break to listen to a military marching band that we tumbled across, before going back up to enjoy the view from the hotel roof again.
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