Cynthia's Euro Adventure: Day 16

Thursday, May 27th - The next morning was another early morning as we had to catch an early train for our Vatican City tour. I was lucky and was 1 of the 3 people who managed to get a hot shower before the hotel ran out of hot water. What kind of hotel runs out of hot water? We had a quick breakfast and then we were off. We caught the train and the only way I can describe the train was "ghetto train"; definitely not what I'm used to back in Canada. We arrived at the main metro station so we can switch trains. Sian led us through a complete maze of an underground system similar the to the PATH system in Toronto but was about a thousand times more confusing. It took us 10 minutes to get from one train platform to the next one. Sukhey, Rochelle and I had originally planned to do some shopping in Rome but scrapped that idea as there was no way we could find our way back on our own.

We hopped on the train and then arrived at the Vatican to wait for our tour guide. We had to wait in the tour queue for about 15 minutes, much better than the hours people spend in the public queue! We finally got inside and our tour guide had us all sit down and then proceeded to talk about the artwork of the Vatican Museum, The Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's for 45 minutes. It was probably the most boring 45 minutes of the entire tour, everyone was struggling to keep their eyes open. Finally Sian broke in and reminded the tour guide that we only had a limited amount of time so we ended up racing through The Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica in about 45 minutes. The Sistine Chapel was beautiful but St. Peter's was seriously amazing, it was absolutely huge and the artwork was beyond impressive. I would have liked to spend more time there but we were on a tight schedule to make our train for 1pm. After St. Peter's we hung out in St. Peter's Piazza while we waited for everyone in the group to catch up. The best part of this was Matt F and Jake "ghost-walking" some unsuspecting people, it was hilarious to watch.

We had the option to head back to the hotel or stay in Rome but the idea of trying to get back to the hotel on our own was too daunting, especially since trains stopped running at 6pm. We headed back to the hotel, some people headed to the pool, others napped and Sukhey, Sandra, Alex and I hung out on our patio. The boys were playing with a ball in the pool and somehow it ended up over the fence in the bushes, they spent about 25 minutes trying to get it out - it was pretty funny to watch. They finally got it out only to lose it again a few minutes later. We then all went up to the main lodge for dinner which was again quite horrible although I shouldn't have been surprised given everything else that had gone wrong at this hotel.

By now I was starting to develop the "Contiki cough" as most of the rest of the tour members by now. Sukhey had been treating herself with hot brandy's since Barcelona so Jas, Sukhey and I decided to all get one and take them outside and watched the sunset by the main pool. The bartender was nice enough to give us our drinks for free - wow the hotel actually has perks! The three of us had a good chat by the pool and then they decided to go to bed and I hung out with some of the other tour members by the pool. After an hour or so we all headed to bed as we had a very early start in the morning. Before heading to bed I grabbed a shower which turned out to be cold, I was quite happy to be leaving this hotel.

St. Peter's Basilica