2014 Day 3 Rome Junior Age Volleyball Tour

2014 Junior Age Volleyball Tour Day 3 Rome

Due to the time differences between Italy and various parts of the USA… the daily blog is written at the end of each day… that means it will always be about 1 day behind… the readers in the USA… 

This morning we are going to the Vatican Area, St Peters Church and the Vatican Museum.
In the afternoon we will meet our tour guide for a walking tour of the Ancient Roman Forum.
On the way to the Vatican.... we discovered that the SUBWAY (METRO) was having a problem due to all the rain last night... oh ... did I forget to tell you that last night / early this AM... the end of the world came and went.... after dumping several inches of water on ROME .... the sky was alight with lightning and the thunder was so loud that we could feel it in our chest..... POW... KABOOM....

CRACK..... The bottom line was.... the Metro was running intermittently.... and no one knew it it would get better or not... 
So.... there we were standing about 1/2 down to the platform... with about 2-3000 of other folks all trying to get on the METRO.... that may or may not arrive...
The tempurature, humidity.... and the fragrance of 2000 less than hygenic people made it an easy decision... "Lets go to plan B"... which was to take a bus..... Great Idea..... but about 2-300 other people also decided to do the same thing..... The first bus was full and John told us to all get on the next one... and to

not be polite or we would be left at the curbside ... Not wanting that to happen... we lost our shyness and elbowed our way onto the bus like a true ITALIAN... We did not have to worry about falling over as there was no possibility of that to happen... The ride to the Vatican area was only about 15 minutes... but is seemed longer... once we got off the bus we all felt like we should take a shower in the hand sanitizer lotion.... Ah.... the life of a TOURIST....
We were only a couple of blocks away from the St Peters Church... and the Vatican ....
We all went to the Church first... John gave us the instructions on where to go and how to get in and where to meet.... and after our group photo we all headed in different directions to make the most of our time here... 
Within 15 minutes the end of the world ... part 2 happened... The skies opened up and rain began to fall.... Some of us were luck as we had made it inside the Church or inside the museum... others ... not so much... they were between locations and were ducking for cover where ever they could find it... (oh did I happen to mention the 10,000 other people that were doing the same thing...)
Some people were thinking of maybe not going on the walking tour as the weather was not cooperating.

The rains came and went... the sun came out and warmed us up .... and our time to visit was almost up so we made it back tour our meeting point to get ready for our WALKING tour of ANCIENT ROME....
We had a 15 minute walk to PZ NAVONA along the way we went past Castelo St Angelo, across the Tiber River, and into PZ Navona.... We had about 50 minutes before our guided tour so most of us went to lunch..... and made it back just in time to meet our guide Rahul.  He gave us head phones so that when we was walking we could hear all that he was saying about the area or things we were looking at... He spoke English very well.... and it was very interesting to hear.
We went to PZ NAvona, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, PZ Venetzia, the Ancient Roman Fourm and back the the Colloseum.  
Russ met us at the Colloseum and brought us back to the hotel... WHEW.... a full day in Rome....
Being a tourist is WORK.... but ... FUN WORK...

Tomorrow...we go to Ladispoli for another game, Lunch and then go to Marina di Grosseto