When in Rome...

If you read the title you might think the story is about a man and a woman who fall in love. It's not. It's a story of two men and a woman. Haha.. Kidding. No, seriously, it is about two men and a woman but it's not a love story. There is a say: all roads lead to Rome. Well, our characters came on separate ways: one man came from Bucharest with a morning flight, the woman from Bucharest too, but with an evening flight and the other man from London, with an evening flight.

First day started with a visit to Vatican Museums. Lucky us, we bought online tickets and skipped a huge queue at the entrance. I recommend you to do that if you plan to visit it. We planned our visit in the morning to avoid crowds. Many thought the same. The place is amazing if weren't the people. I really hate crowded places. I can't enjoy fully. For example, I didn't find very interesting the Sistine Chapel, mostly because you couldn't move at all once you are in there.

The museum of contemporary art was the area where you could have a little space to admire the paintings. And I think this is most to the fact that the modern art is not for everyone to understand it. We had a long debate on this matter. How could you say that a painting is a bullshit and another one is not. My opinion is, firstly, you can't compare art. Secondly, it's all about perspective.

Too much censorship at Vatican

The whole weekend I was staring at the back and six packs of the male statues. Damn those Romans!

Opulence at Vatican

I was staring all the way at the ceilings. The second day we entered in a random church and we discovered the same grandeur.

A modern painting. It looks like it's a child's painting

My first Dali painting. There were two or three exposed. If the previous one it's very expressive, this one is more complex for the simple viewer. You have to imagine a little bit what's the painter intention.

The exit stairs from the museums. At the entrance there were similar ones, but these are more impressive. I do not regret going there but if I could have known before how crowded it is I wouldn't have wasted my time in there.

From the museums we headed to Basilica di San Pietro. We waited in line for one hour. The entrance is free. There is a security check done before entering the church, the same at the museums. It's stunning inside. It was worth the wait.

Interior of the basilica

Under the basilica there are catacombs where are buried the popes and you can find also St. Peter's tomb. These are accessible to the visitors. From there we went to climb the cupola. To get up there you can take the elevator until one point and then the stairs (~300) or take only the stairs (~500). What the hack? Here starts my nightmare. Adi was talking something about how tight is up there but I wasn't paying to much attention. I should have! I had a claustrophobia attack. The stairs were getting tighter and tighter. I just wanted to get out quicker. But it wasn't getting better. The rooftop is like a cage (for safety reasons).

This is the view from upstairs. Unfortunately I couldn't enjoy it too much because my mind was on how the hell I'm going down.

I managed to overcome my fear and here I am, safe and sane. I'm still affected by this episode. Now that I'm back, I avoid as much as possible the crowds at subway.

We had to call it a day due to the rain.

After a good sleep we were ready to conquer the Rome. I beat my record at walking. My new record is 26.5km walked in a single day. And still there are a lot more to see in this inspiring city.

The evening before we manage to get close to Colosseum area, and we continued the next day to explore it more.