Rome Day 4: Wrapping things up in Rome

Exhausted from our long walk home from the night before, Em and I decided to sleep in a bit on Saturday. The sleep felt wonderful, but we ended up with a bit of a late start on the day. We quickly rushed over to a church near the central train station that has one of the most beautiful sculptures by Bernini that you will ever see, the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. Sadly a kind old Nun informed us that the church was closing for mass.

Instead, we rushed over to St. Peter's where we thought we could check out the underground tombs of past popes under the Basilica. We ran into enormously long lines and decided to abort our plans. We did, however, send off some postcards!

Sadly, the Vatican has a much more reliable postage system than does Italy. On a side note, I remember that almost ever letter my mom sent me in Italy was torn on the side. Mailmen apparently recognized the neat, feminine penmanship from the States and decided there was a good chance something valuable was inside. Too bad all they found was treasures of wisdom written in English! I digress…

After the our semi-failure at St. Peter's we went back to visit St. Teresa's. Before the church opened back up we went by a bar (trust me, they don't exactly resemble bars in America) and bought a Magnum bar and chatted it up with an old Sicilian gentleman who told us a woman stole his heart and convinced him to move up to Rome.

Just around the corner Emily and I went into the National Museum of Rome. It is a little treasure that many tourists often overlook because there's just so much to tackle in the Eternal City. We loved it especially because the museum had air conditioning and lots of comfy seats for us to rest on (by this time our feet were swelling from our long days of walking). Of the many sculptures we saw, we liked

this sculpture that looks like the thinker, but he's actually a Greek boxer,

and you have to love the discuss thrower. Nice form.

Emily bought this maxi dress especially for our trip. I think she picked out a winner.

The day was starting to wind down, and Emily and I didn't quite know where to go. Em read somewhere about having a picnic in Italy and really wanted to do it, so we set out to accomplish that goal. On the way we took a quick break and enjoyed some Coca Cola light (see prior Italy post) and Chinotto. I love that drink. I love it so much that I took a picture of it right next to a Fiat 500!

Shortly after that we stopped in at an alimentari (grocery store) to get some grub. We had stopped by before and gotten to know the owner a little bit. We spoke with the butcher and explained to him that we had 15 Euro to spend on dinner and we needed the nicest assortment of salami and cheese possible. While he sliced up our dinner of antipasti I found out that our butcher was an NBA basketball fan and loved Mike D'Antoni (former coach of the Suns). He lauded D'Antoni's intelligence (to which I politely disagreed).

We finally found our way to Piazza Navona and ate our delicious meal. Below is a video in which Emily summarizes the evening picnic. I figure since she can't blog she can at least make an appearance this way!