The courtyard of the Vatican Museum

The ceiling along one of the hallways in the Vatican Museum

St. Peter's Square, in the Vatican City

The building known affectionately as "The Wedding Cake" for it plain whiteness

The Coliseum

THE BEST ice cream I have ever had!

Ancient Roman ruins

Our full day of Rome sightseeing would be one of the hottest we would experience during the whole trip. It certainly didn't help that we all had to wear pants, as we were visiting the Vatican City this morning with a local tour guide. As with many churches and cathedrals in Italy, the rules stipulated no bare legs or shoulders allowed. For me, I had on a pair of shorts underneath my jeans so at the first opportunity, I could strip down to them.

To the casual visitor, the Vatican City would appear more like a museum than anything else, with Michaelangelo's paintings seemingly covering every ceiling and wall inside, and statues situated in almost every nook and cranny. The most magnificent of these paintings was the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. Unfortunately, photography and video of the Chapel were completely forbidden. Of note is that the Vatican City is actually its own country, the smallest in the world, with its own police and its own postal system.

After our visit to the Vatican City (and after stripping down to shorts) and grabbing a quick bite for lunch, we boarded our motorcoach for a sightseeing tour of central Rome with our local tour guide. At certain points, we departed the coach for a closer view of some of the sights. The most notable one was of the ancient Coliseum. Ruins of ancient Rome could be found almost every area, in some form or another. Quite often when ground is excavated, usually some ancient ruins are discovered underneath.

The tour group then split up with a small number us taking part in the optional excursion to the underground catacombs. The first thing that struck me was that it was nice and cool underground, which was a nice temporary relief from the blistering heat. It was also amazing to see the intricate winding and twisting tunnels where ancient Romans were buried upon their death. Some areas were forbidden from access because of the frailty of some of the foundations and also the fact that it was easy to get lost. Unfortunately, no photographs were allowed here as well.

We then had the rest of the afternoon and evening to ourselves. Much of it was spent rehydrating ourselves with lots of water. A small group of us wandered the city together, braving the street crossings, trying to avoid being hit by traffic. We made it to the Café di Colombia at the Piazza Navona where we had the best ice cream in our lives! It was served with 4 different flavours (of which I could only remember one of them being chocolate fudge). At 17,000 lira, it just had to be good! After wandering around some more, we met the rest of the tour group at our rendezvous point to catch our motorcoach back to our hotel for the evening.

With the evening to ourselves as well, Steve, Helen, Melissa, Shalene, Vincent and his cousin Tony, and myself all went out to a nearby restaurant for dinner. Again, it was in the classic Italian style, but with slightly less courses than our previous night. It was here that I concluded that the only real place to eat Italian food is exactly where it comes from, Italy. No restaurant back home in Toronto could even come close (at least none that I have found yet). After dinner, we wandered around Ostia and found ourselves at a Fair, full of the traditional type fair rides and games. Going back to our childhood, we went on a couple of the rides, including a fairly rickety Ferris wheel and bumper cars. It was interesting that unlike back home, nobody bothered to go around checking that we had the bars or our belts secure before the ride started, so we wouldn't end up falling out and killing ourselves. After that, we wandered down to the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It was fairly busy, with lost of people going to nightclubs in the area.

We then proceeded to do the one thing we wanted to avoid doing - get lost in a foreign country. After some wandering around trying to find something familiar that would lead us back to our hotel, we got some directions from a couple and they pointed out that we were actually just over a bridge from our hotel.

In all, this was definitely our most active day, with Rome overall being one the most vibrant and exciting cities on the whole trip.