Day eighteen
We wanted to get up early, but slept in because the shutters made the room so dark. We had a full English breakfast. We then looked up the trains for the next part of the journey and had lunch in another local restaurant. By the time we got to the Vatican city it was mid afternoon. St Peters square was a huge round space surrounded by over the top pillars of marble. Luckily most of the queues had gone and we managed to get in quickly. First of all we went to see the tombs of the Popes from the first ones to the most recent. After we visited the tombs we went to St Peters Basilica. It was nice and cool inside with light coming down in three shafts from windows in the dome. The Church was huge with several small chapels within it and loads of confessionals, each one spoke about four languages. The church was lavishly decorated with paintings statues and gold. The pillars where marble clad and roman style. In the centre of the church was the tomb of Simon Peter which was surrounded by hundreds of golden lamps. After visiting the Basilica we went to the top of the dome. The route took us by lift to the first level, then up a spiralling slope to a small spiral staircase. From which we took a staircase which was sloping to the side because of the shape of the dome. Then we took a metal staircase up to the top of the dome, from the top of the dome we took a ridiculously small spiral staircase to a little ledge above the main dome and under the very top one. The steps on the spiral staircase was about a foot wide. Once at the top we had an amazing view of the city of Rome and the Vatican city.
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