VII. Easter with the Pope

Captain’s Log: Sunday, 1 April 2018

Accommodation: Ciak Hostel, Rome

Distance: To the Vatican and back

Weather: warm and sunny

After breakfast, we decided to take the Metro to the Vatican, since we did not want to walk all the way. Once we were in the Metro, we just followed the masses of people, who were all heading to the St. Peter’s Square. On the way we already saw a lot of police and military standing around, and we had to go through two security checks. At the first they just looked into the bags, the second was an x-ray machine for the bags and I think a metal scanner for us. I mean, it is understandable that they take so many precautions, but I forgot to leave my little knife at the hostel and was worried the whole time that they would take it away. But apparently they did not look out for something that small, so they did not notice it and I was able to keep it.

Anyway, after the whole procedure we finally managed to get at the Square.

As you can see, there have been some other people as well.

We still had to wait about an hour since we were a bit early. But we saw the Pope driving around at the Square through the masses, so we have been quite close to him.

At 12:00 he finally started to speak to the people. Urbi et Orbi was it, right?

I hardly understood anything, I was not even sure if he spoke in Italian or Latin, but anyway, we saw the Pope and we celebrated Easter with him and I do not know how many other people. It was quite an experience.

After he was finished, the masses moved away again, and so did we.

And then we did something I was looking forward to, like, all the time the last couple of days.

Eating Chocolate Ice Cream. That was and will always be the best thing after the fasting period.

Since it was only Midday, and the first Sunday in the month, which means that many museums, historical sites and tourist attractions are for free, we decided to have a look into the Castel Sant’Angelo.

Even if there was a queue, we did not wait that long until we were able to get in.

It was quite windy at some points, I was always scared that Galileo would be blown away if I did not hold him.

They even had a small Café in there. I thought about looking at the prices but then decided that I would not want to know them.

I did not notice how many pictures I actually took.

After quite some time we managed to persuade ourselves to get out again, since we were not able to spend an eternity in there.

We then had a short break, eating our lunch and resting our feet, before we headed to the Forum Romanum.

The sun was already getting low, so we had a beautiful light at the Forum.

And at the Colosseum.

And look at these two little idiots.

Like, both of them are sitting on the head of their own statue.

It was already getting dark once we arrived at the hostel again, where we cooked immediately, since we both were starving already.

And apparently we have two new flatmates, who did not appear until late at night.