Rome IV - The Vatican

We then walked back to the bus and drove on to our next stop.

We passed the Tiber, which is rather low this year:

 

We then reached the Vatican parking lot - a very large underground parking garage setup for tour buses of all types.

We then walked to St. Peter's Square. Unfortunately, it was still a hot enough walk that another lady in our tour group dropped out before even reaching the square. I really cannot recommend visiting Rome in August. If you do, stay hydrated.

 We had apparently missed the Pope's appearance by a few hours that day.

The square is impressively large.

 

We also saw some of the walls of the Vatican, click to embiggen and see the many inscriptions on the wall.

 

We saw a few Carabinieri about:

 

And a nice display by the Italian Army by the Vatican wall:

A street vendor saw me looking the vehicle over. and offered to sell it to me for 100 Euro.

I said "If you've got the keys, and it runs you've got a deal".

He didn't, so we both got a laugh out of it.  

There are a ton of street vendors both within and without the Vatican area selling all sorts of stuff - mainly religious items and hats for protection from the sun. Unfortunately, there's lots of pickpockets about as well so you need to watch your wallet.

We then got some free time and the options were to hang around the Vatican, or take a rather long walk over a bridge to a shopping area.  The family's answer may surprise you - they were fried so further long walks and shopping was out.

So we stayed around the Vatican and went to a find a place for lunch.

First we went to the Caffe San Pietro which has been operating since 1775. Yes, 1775.

 

It's a cafeteria-style restaurant but it unfortunately was packed and not even standing room only, so we headed out to try and find somewhere else to eat.

We wandered about and with some Apple Maps help did manage to find a restaurant somewhat nearby with a table available and then had a real Italian lunch.  The place was rather packed, but we had a most delightful lunch of real fresh Roman-style pasta that was amazing.

We then headed back to the Vatican, bought a few gifts in the many gift shops in the area for some Catholic friends of ours, and then went to the pickup point and tried to find some shade and then got on the bus and headed back for the long drive to the port.