Rome! Capital of the world. We were up early to take a Vatican tour. The line for this was very long when we got there and got even longer as we waited. The art collections are very impressive which was to be expected. It gives the new insight to the history of the Catholic Church by the way. By the time we get to the Sistine Chapel I felt herded like cattle to see something that I should be in awe of. For some reason I just did not have that feeling. I think part of that came from the fact that no pictures were allowed. It seemed some foreign company paid to restore some of the artowrk and in doing so, bought the rights to sell images (photos/postcards/posters) of the art exclusively. After the chapel, We continued on to Saint Peter’s basilica. Now that was impressive. While ornate, I did not feel it was over done. It gave me a feeling of humility and humbleness. We left Saint Peter’s Square and headed to the ruins and the Colosseum. Much to the disbelief of many of us, Christians were not persecuted in there or so Laszlo told us. When running, the Colosseum seated 80,000 and reportedly could be filled with in 15 minutes.  I was still feeling a little ill with sinus problems after the tour we went back to the hotel and I laid down to get some rest. That evening Chad and Chris,  Teresa and I went out on the town. We found the pantheon, then went to dinner at a sidewalk café. It was interesting sitting in a café looking at the fountains and the openness of the square that it was in. We did not realize until afterwards that we were sitting in the hippodrome (the u’shaped route and arena that chariot races were held in). After dinner we wanted to tour some more before we went back to the hotel. It is interesting to look into some of the shops and see the antiques, and then realize that the antique stores in the US held as old as what is in these.