Rome - Saturday and Sunday

Ah.....to sit for a moment and rest! Today, we visited the Borghese Museum, in a lovely park like area. They allow two hours in the museum before they let the next 360 people in. Following the museum, Ken and I took the subway back over to the Vaticano with hopes to see the pope from his apartment window. I'm sure every Italian in the world knew he was in South America somewhere - but us! When you can't read the paper, you really miss out on keeping up with the world! We had a blessing from the pope from his location, and by the time he did the English version, I missed hearing most of it. We had hoped to dash in for one last look at St. Peter's Bascilica, but the line stretched forever, and it was beginning to rain. we instead jumped on the Metro and went to St. John's church, another beautiful church. We really like going into old churches and studying the beautiful things inside. We also take time to be thankful for all that is good in our lives, and for the challenges that other family members are facing. Following lunch, we found a lovely Italian restaurant next to St. John's, where we made a reservation to go back tonight with the three other couples.
Yesterday, we visited the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Bascilica. These are all great places to visit WITH a guide. You would miss so much without their knowledge. We had the same guide for two days in a row, and he really has enhanced our experience. Following the tour, we jumped into two cabs (boys in one, girls in the other). The groups voted that those who sat in the front seat didn't have to pay their share - WOW - I found myself narrowing my shoulders together during the tight squeezes between buses and motor scooters! Unfortunately, when Ken exited the cab, he left my back pack on the seat. He has been so fabulous to be the logistics guy for every move that we make, and he was busy paying the cab fare when he inadvertantly left the bag. Fortunately, my camera was in my pocket, but we think we have lost the camera charger, small binoculors, my prescription sunglasses, and some smaller items. It really made our fun afternoon come to a screeching halt, when we had to make numerous calls to the cab company. In our initial calls, it had not been turned in. While the group dined last night (I couldn't eat....a rare occurance for me!) I went into the pharmacy below our apartment (they are our landlords for our short stay) where little or no English is spoken there, and spent about an hour explaining our problem to the pharmacist/doctor, and his son who could barely speak English. They had me on the cell phone to the other son, and he made some phone calls. We are to call back in a few minutes to see if he had any luck with his cab connections. Word to the wise -Always, Always know your cab number. That is the first question I was asked by the cab companies. There are only 3000 cabs here. We are not hopeful that we will get things back intact. We need to deal with finding a new charger, or buying a new camera for the balance of the trip. Things here are pretty much shuttered on Sundays, so we have a few hours on Monday AM before we have a shuttle to the cruise ship. We were very frustrated yesterday after the backpack loss, but we have moved on and we're not beating ourselves up over it. We are having a marvelous trip, and we are looking forward to two more weeks of sightseeing.

Ciao!

Peggy and Ken