"Senatus Populusque Romanus"

Everywhere you go in Rome you see "SPQR" - on noticeboards, engraved into stone plaques, and even on the man-hole covers in the streets. It's an acronym for "Senatus Populusque Romanus" - which translates to "The Roman Senate and People". It is a reference to the original struggles between the senators, the people of Rome and the early Roman Empire. For me it is a reminder of the antiquity of this great city and the historical impact that its leaders (both political and religious) had on much of the western world. It begs the question, where would the world be today without the Rome of yesteryears? I cannot answer this question, but I suspect it would be somewhere very different.

Enough hypothesizing. Today we visited the Vatican. I know from previous visits that the museums and the basilica can get very crowded. But never have I seen so many tourists in one place. The lines for those who had not purchased skip-the-line tickets stretched completely out of sight. And inside it was pretty much shoulder to shoulder along the corridors and halls of the museum. Despite the over-crowding we enjoyed our tour of the museum. Below are some photographs (excluding the Sistine Chapel as photography is not allowed there)...

You see what I mean about the crowds!

And the artwork on the ceilings is awesome!

It seems that every nook and cranny is painted, tiled or covered in some form of art - it's hard to focus on it all.

Oops sorry Michelangelo - Brenda must have nudged me and triggered the photo function on my phone!!

So we managed to escape the museum (without being arrested) and took a stroll around St Peter's Square (though it's elliptical not square)!  Without his holiness addressing the populace from the balcony - it is not so crowded....

The line of people in the foreground (which stretches right around the Square) is for tickets to the Basilica!

A view of the back of the Basilica from inside the Museum

After clocking up our 10,000 steps we hop on a bus to get to the Trevi fountain. A friend of the family who recently visited the fountain sent us a photo (taken at 3am) without a tourist in sight.

At 3pm - it is a bit more crowded!

Well today is our last day in Rome - and we intend to NOT clock up 10,000 steps! So a restful day in our delightful Airbnb with a late start, a chance to catch up on the blog, and do some washing and packing before we head off to France (via Amsterdam thanks to KLM airlines)! Once we get to Toulouse, we stay one night (at another Airbnb) before heading off on the train to Argens-Minervois - where we pick up the boat that will be our home for the next eleven days.