Are apartment is close to the Vatican and a few of us decided to go see the Pope give the Easter blessing.

It had been a relatively early evening so we were up and out by 8:30. I had read that you could get tickets but couldn’t figure out how to do that so wasn’t sure if we would even be able to get in. Turns out the tickets were for the middle section some of which had seats but the sides were open to anybody. We were there an hour and half before it started so we were actually quite close. A band and military type parade went by but otherwise we just watched the dignitaries and church officials come in waiting on the pope. He did start right on time.

I wasn’t sure what to expect but it was a very nice service. There were readings in several languages a lot of pomp and ceremony that I didn’t understand but I was glad I went.

There was a sea of people and our good spots got crowded quickly. At one point these two older Italian ladies pushed their way in. I think they were trying to get to the fence but they didn’t make it. One got stopped right in front of me. She couldn’t have been 5 feet tall so she couldn’t have seen anything but she tried. She would lean back into me and try to balance on her toes to see over the men in front of her. so until she gave up she was basically using me as her wall and I had no where to go. Her friend got fussed out by the lady in front of us and she tried to use tears and be all emotional about seeing the pope but the other Italian lady didn’t buy it and wouldn’t let her through.

The sun was glaring on us we were packed like sardines and the service was going on and on. When I read that there were 100,000 people there I wanted to get out of the crowd. People had began to leave so we followed them out and made our way over a bit to find somewhere for lunch.

Faye and Bob came out and met us and lunch turned out to be another good spot. We had Italian sandwiches with American fries and some of the best calamari I have had.

We went back to the apartment to regroup then some of us headed out to see a few sights on our way to the trastvere neighborhood where we had dinner reservations.

We walked across the bridge to Piazza Navona and the Pantheon. People were everywhere. We decided to wait in line to go into the Pantheon and it wasn’t too bad. It was free but they handed you a ticket and I guess to some extent kept the crowd size down inside. They had it set up for some type of church service. Not sure if they actually had services but since it was Easter maybe they did. It looked different than the last time I was here not sure if it was crowd or if something had changed.

After that we started the long trek to Trastavere. I had read it was a really cute neighborhood but I guess we didn’t explore it enough. We saw a few bars on the Main Street and stopped at one for a drink midway down but it was nothing special. We got to the restaurant a little early and they had our table ready. Faye and Bob arrived in style in a black Mercedes and we started our dinner.

They were out of the wine that we ordered so she brought a similar one in a magnum bottle. It was easily drank and it looked fun sitting on the table. The menu was a little adventurous still Italian but different combinations than we had seen. I went safe with mama’s lasagna but it was kind of plain. I wish I had tried something else.

The taxi driver almost left without me but we made it safely back to the house where we went straight to bed because we had an early morning for tomorrow.