Vatican City: A nation in A City

Have you ever been into a country inside a city (which is a separate country)? To me that's Vatican :P. The next day, we woke up rather late-ish.. trying to enjoy our day. Why? because most of the people in the internet says that to enter the Vatican, just do it in the afternoon, by that time, the line to enter is shorter and faster. So we did! We went to a cafe in the city taking a bus which needed to be changed into another bus - which we end up just walking since we don't want to be flat bread in a full bus. I think we should have known the bus in Italy at this point is just something else and accept our fate. We enjoy our brunch in a cute cafe, with despite quite pricy breakfast for the portion given, the coffee was actually cheap.. like.. 1 euro cheap.. hahha.. Me being the non-coffee drinker ordered tea of course :). We enjoyed the morning chit-chat and relaxing after days of intense walking, while admiring the cute cafe with cute biracial (we think he's biracial) waiter. :P

From then, we took the bus - it came and on time!!! At least this time it does, put out our hand to call it (I feel like a local immediately!), got in and sit until we arrived near St. Peter Basilica. Which was hugeeeeee. And from here we saw lots of people trying to sell you the skip the line ticket again. Saying the line will make you wait 4 hours --'. We ignored it of course, being an experience traveler, one must her research properly beforehand :P. The line system was rather similar to the colosseum, you stood there waiting for the security check up, and queued up some for to buy the ticket. Only this time, the locket selling the ticket is only one booth and they only accept cash. We were wondering why only one locket? while deciding to pay for the ticket for elevator (10 euro to 8 euro if you want to take the stairs). Since I've been to some church's domes already, I know that going to the top is something! And after days of intense walking, I'd rather save up whatever energy I have left. It was a wise decision though. The elevator apparently only took you until the dome, where you get to see the inside of St. Peter church from above. However.. if you want to go even more up, where you can see Vatican city + Rome from bird eye view..., you'll need to take stairs from here. And.. we did.

Now, the stairs to the top is very... challenging (I'm definitely getting older or.. lack of work out). It has very narrow corridor which gets even more narrower as you keep climbing the curve stairs, then at the end of the road, you'll meet this endless spiral stairs which... and I kid you not, will feel like forever to climb on, and you can't stop because there are people behind you! After finishing the spiral stairs, we face a very narrow borderline claustrophobic corridor which was tilted, like you have to tilt you body to get through the one person only way. Really if you are claustrophobic, prone to heart attack, suffer from bad knee, don't try this. Having climbed the spiral stairs, running out of breath, I seriously was questioning my own vision when I saw the tilted corridor - Am I okay, is it really tilted or am I getting dizzy for the lack of oxygen?. You think that you're already on the top? NOPE, more straight stairs coming, but this time is rather big... and it get smaller and steeper as you get even higher (by this point, a lot of people were stopping and take their breath, sharing exhausted by understanding look from one to another hahha). Then you'll see the top. Embracing the oxygen, the view, and the heat (it was really hot that day), we got to enjoyed an amazing view of the city (while taking turns in taking pictures, selfies and so on. We stayed for approx 15 min before going down. The going down... though less tiring because you've got gravity helping to pull you down, it's even trickier than going up. Those stairs are basically the same, especially the spiral stairs, I had to keep saying to myself to focus, not get hypnotized by the endless amount of circle steps. It really was never-ending, but we managed to reach until the bottom, get down with the elevator and walk into the church of St. Peter. This church, after seeing it, the size, the artworks, the engravings, the borders, the sculptures, the paintings, it makes all other church I've ever seen in Europe like nothing in comparison. (Sorry St. Paul in London!) There's the tomb of St. Peter in the middle of the church (more like underneath), and if you go down underneath the church is actually tombs for some of the Pope. Mesmerized by gigantic church, I don't think the photos I took can do it justice.

After finishing the church, we went to the Vatican museum where you can also see the Sistine Chapel. To get in, we have to queue in line again. But since it's almost closing time, the queue was not really too long, and it moved really fast. We got in, paid another 17 euro for the ticket. We then get to see tons of Roman sculpture, sarcophagus, statues, etc, before entering the famous sistine chapel. Which I have to admit... it's Beautiful!!! Like really, pay the 17 euro, it's worth it! The museum is pretty huge, as it consists of a few museums. In the end, we didn't get to explore everything since it was closing time already. Nevertheless, I'm satisfied with seeing the amazing artwork especially those in sistine chapel.

From here, we went with Metro to go to the Pasta place we ate the day before. Ordered 2 different pasta than yesterday, I think if we spent more days in Rome, we will be able to try every single pasta on their menu. Then, we went to an area where they have veryyy cuteee night life, there we ate tiramisu and canoli. Both are really nice and pretty affordable. Then, since the shop next to it sells craft beer, we were intrigued to try some of the drinks :P. Now the shopkeeper is VERY NICE! Very chatty definitely hahaha, from him we know that, 1. Public transport in Rome is indeed crappy, even the Romans complain about it. 2. The reason why it took so long for the Metro to expand is everytime they're digging something for the subway tunnel, they'll always end up findings some ruins, which then hinders the progress of the subway line. They'll need to contact some museum, take care the restoration and yadda yadda. The Metro line C development has started since 2008, but even till today it's not yet finished. We really had fun talking with the hilarious guy hahha. He ended up making us sandwich (which looks rather fancy) just because... it's not nice for us to just drink without eating anything! (we're full, hence didn't order any food, but free food is always welcomed of course :P) After that, we walk around the lively area before catching our bus (thank God it came!) and went back home. Need to catch a very early flight the next day to Paris. Oh and, we use the mytaxi app to order the taxi the night before. Our flight to Paris was at 6.30 in the morning, and there's no public transport that early to get us to CIA, hence the taxi. Gotta admit, they came really punctual in the morning, and with pretty fancy car!