The Piazza side.

This is the piazza where we enter our building.

We made it to Florence.

Nice little apartment. Our window opens on the side of the building opposite the uffizi.  We are definitely still in heavy tourist traffic!

...after we left the Vatican...

....we strolled around that area, got some pics around the river, of a castle that is now a museum, and the Italian Supreme Court.....

 

...and here is Saint Salome on the left below, in a church we stopped in...

pics from Vatican day....

If you EVER think about going to the Vatican museum, I recommend winter time!! The crowd today was unbearable and this isn't even the really heavy time and  Tuesday is supposed to be the best day.

We had a good day, the Sistine chapel was  nice, and the rest of our walk was good.

We crossed the river and made it to the Vatican

Today we got our earliest start yet and headed for the Vatican. The museum was good but too crowded to enjoy.
We followed the herd and finally got to the Sistine chapel and we managed to find a seat where we sat and listened to an audio tour explanation of everything in it.

The Sistine chapel is the end of the museums. You exit back to the street you enter from. We crossed the street for lunch priced like we were inside Disney world.... then we walked around the outside to come into Vatican city in front of st Peters basilica. There were waaaaaaay too many people in line there so we strolled around the area n headed back to our side of the river. Stopped by Spanish steps on way. Next stop is Babbos for our last dinner there on this trip.

Our last dinner at Barbablu

There are two restaurants very near us where we have been impressed similar to Laleyenda and Great Southern Cafe at Seaside.....Barbablu is on the same street as our hotel (via Montebello) and has the most outgoing staff we have ever met. We stopped in there late one night on our way back in to grab a pizza for me and a desert for Steph to take back to the hotel. While Steph was admiring the desert case Francesco came out because 1: his english is the best of their staff and 2: he makes the Tiramisu and is very proud of it! Steph had already ordered a piece of cake that one of the other guys was packing up but she told him we'd be back to try his Tiramisu. We went back two nights later and they all remembered us and Francesco came over to tell me what he wanted us to eat......sooooo when the asst chef tells you what you need to eat, that's probably what you should eat....and we had an awesome dish of mussels over spaghetti.  When we had our last meal there for this trip last night we ordered a caprese (mozzarella and tomato) appetizer and from there we ate what Francesco brought to us..... we now know to only eat about half of everything!! We both hurt when we left we were so stuffed.

I forgot to post the Colosseum at night pics.....

Here are some.....

..this is the   basilica of constatine and other parts of the forum viewed from capitoline hill at dusk, this was all stuff we had been walking through the day before and to get this view was a great and different perspective.

...we didn't know why the riot police were forming but later figured out this was after some big soccer match and they were preparing in case the celebration turned into something like what happens in detroit when their nba team wins.