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Published: March 20th 2012
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On our last day in Rome, we had to check out of our apartment, get to Vatican City for a previously scheduled visit to the Vatican museum and Sistine Chapel, then go back to Rome to catch our train back to Milan in the afternoon. In order to fit this schedule in one day with kids, we would have to use the Metro to get to and from Vatican City. This required quite a bit of research last night.
First of all, the Metro bus system is very thorough, but very cryptic. There are lots of buses and stops on almost every street in Rome, but because of this, the system map is almost useless, and the website is completely useless (even in English). Secondly, reading travel forums and guides about this tactic, we were warned many times about pickpockets on the buses and subway trains, especially on the often crowded tourist-laden routes that we would have to take. Finally, we also read on travel forums that bags were not allowed in the Vatican Museum, although strollers were (the discussions usually turned into an argument not about whether you should take a stroller, but whether you should take a kid,
haha). To work around all of this, we thought it would be best to check most of our backpacks at the Roma Termini train station, which was an exchange en route to Vatican City, and was our departing station back to Milan. On our remaining backpack with essentials, money, and passports, we locked the zippers and put everything we could inside.
It turned out that the warnings were not in vein. The subway was very crowded not only with tourists, but also locals getting to work during rush hour. We don't know for sure, but there were quite a few eyes watching our bags, so it was reassuring to at least have things secured a little better.
Another advantage of doing some homework in advance was that we purchased Vatican Museum tickets in advance (almost a month ago, actually), which was to avoid some of the lines (similar to the Colisseum). Boy, was this a good decision! We literally walked right up to the group entrance with only one tour in front of us, and bypassed the line wrapping around the corner already at 9:00am. Because of our stroller, we were also rushed to a handicapped entrance by
one of the guards. DO RESEARCH IN ADVANCE AND BUY TICKETS ONLINE WHEN YOUR SCHEDULE ALLOWS! Other advantages of this tactic have been that you can pay with credit card and avoid miscommunication in foreign language.
We did not spent a lot of idle time in the museum because the kids would get restless. Instead we read online that the Pinacoteca contained a good selection of works from Rafael, Da Vinci, and other famous artists which the kids would be able to identify. And, of course, the Sistine Chapel. To say it was a collection of art was like calling the Pope Catholic. The place is huge and we had to try hard to keep on the 'abbreviated' tour which basically ran through one museum hall straight to the Sistine Chapel and returned down another hall. Even so, we took in a lot of incredible paintings, frescos, statues, and tapestries. At the end, we also thought it would be cool to mail ourselves a post card from the Vatican Post Office (Vatican City has it's own postal system) for a souvenir. The simple post card ended up costing nearly 5 Euro after we bought the stamps and the pen
to write our address. Of course we had a pen in our backpack...which was confiscated at the beginning of the tour! They have you by the wallet by this time.
An uneventful subway ride back to the train station got us back with a few hours to spare before our departure, so we had some sandwiches, found a few more souvenirs, and read to the kids while waiting for our train.
Our trek back to the US has officially begun, and we hope to be there in just under 36 hours. We still have to make a few more train and shuttle connections to get to our Holiday Inn Express at Malpensa Airport, but hopefully it will all work out and we'll have our first night in a true big chain hotel. Then it's off to the airport again in the morning!
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