The Pope vs. The Gladiator

We have talked up St. Peter’s Basilica for years. About how you can climb the dome and just how huge the inside was. How you can walk out on the roof and just how amazing the frescoes in the dome are when you are standing right in front of them. We’ve climbed clocktowers and bell towers and view points and mountains all over Europe. St. Peters was to be the crown jewel of all the steps we’ve made. We left the hotel early and bought the Italian and Vatican flags on the street along the way.

We showed up to the Vatican to find swarms of police, heavy security and one of the largest crowds I’ve ever been in. There were whisperings of the church being closed. What?!? But we’ve come so far!  We fought our way through the crowds and loaded the kids on our shoulders, which are not as light as they used to be, and watched the Pope come driving by in all his white glory. The kids were just happy to have visited the smallest country in the world and got a big kick out of having one foot in Italy and one in the Vatican. And then said, “This was so cool. Can we go to the Coliseum now?”

It’s amazing how quickly kids will pick up on their parents’ attitude. Disappointment, frustration, stress. I’ve done them all and watched it trickle through the kids.  But we are getting better at this all the time. We stuffed our disappointment at not seeing the church (we saw the pope for crying out loud!), and rocked on. And that was that. They couldn’t have been happier.

I can’t tell you how good it feels to be walking in the opposite direction as the crowds. We made our way to the Coliseum. The kids have seen parts of “The Gladiator” movie as part of their summer of history with Daddy and were pretty thrilled to see it in person. We actually covered their eyes and did a big reveal. They were sufficiently impressed I think.

All big cities in Europe have their panhandlers selling junk and roses and umbrellas but the amount of tour guides that literally accost you on the streets is equally as bad and exhausting to deal with. You are saying no thank you at every turn that your patience runs very thin and your polite turn downs is reduced to walking with your head down trying not to make eye contact with anyone and blurting out “NO!” before they even begin to speak. At one point in the middle of Justin’s talking about the Coliseum with the kids, a tour guide actually interrupted him to try to sell him a tour. I thought he would lose it. We survived it and so did the poor tour guide and continued on our self guided tour of the grand arena. I have seen Rome in it’s busy season but my goodness!

#history #wanderings #vacation #roadtrip #culture #family