St. Peter's, 2017

Our visit to Rome this time was mostly about getting Le Duc ready for winter storage and packing for the next two legs of our current travel campaign, Knoxville and DC (plus there's a Chicago in there for one of us). It has been interesting packing for the two different campers and four different continents we have been on since August. Add late fall and winter in the US to the mix and it really gets interesting. Rachel has assured us we can borrow hats, gloves, scarves, coats.... In any case, we could not be in Rome without visiting a few favorites, and so we set aside two days for this, plus a third if time permitted. We started with St. Peter's since our last several visits there (http://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2013/10/st-peters-2013.html, http://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2011/04/mishap-sunday-i-at-vatican.html) had been less than fully satisfactory. We got to Vatican City without mishap ("follow the penguins!"), stood in line for 40 minutes (exactly the same as buying 5 Italian post card stamps at the PO), and then we were in and rushing to the Canopy to see the head of the church that we had missed the last few tries. We made it, there were no barricades, and we were finally able to see most of the things we wanted to see but missed in 2011 and 2013. Even the dead pope crypt. It was quite a satisfying morning.

In line, beautiful day until the rain came, not too crowded

We're there, looking at all the Bernini stuff

They went that-a-way

Starboard transept, cordoned off for prayer, but, hey, we got
to at least see it

Snapping pix of the Canopy and Dome

Thus

A tour guide demonstrates how to touch/kiss St. Pete's toe

The line of wannabe toe-touchers/kissers; unlike the Blarney
Stone, there is no bottle of spray disinfectant nearby

Tomb of the saint down there

It's a St. Petey sort of place

Required photo opp