Sunday in Vatican City with the Pope

Vatican City is the holy city of the world.

Each Sunday at noon the Pope addresses a crowd at St. Peter's Basilica to give his weekly blessing/message/prayer.

The walk to St. Peters

St. Peter's square.

The colums of the colonade

There are 2 fountains in the square

the infamous dome of St. Peter's Basilica

The Pope at his window. The window is about 15 stories up. From the other side of the square he is very small, but his voice is clear and it is projectly loudly throughout the entire square. No one could miss hearing the blessing.

Not being very religious, I was still grealty moved by the entire situation. It was amazing to be part of something so big. To see so many people from so many places are listening intently, or waving their flags, even shouting their own message at the Holy Father. He even speaks in 5 languages.

After the very moving experience of the Pope, we decided to walk through Rome. We found...

one of the many beautiful bridges that span the Tiber river

and the Piazza Del Popolo, which is a gorgeous circle that for some reason has a lot of Egyptian statues surrounding the circle.

a gorgeous fountain in the square

this is my art shot of a rose in the fountain

Two of the most entertaining forms of raising money that I've seen in Rome. Note the rose man, who follows you around and gives you a rose and then wants you to pay for it. My favourite is the man in gold who is dressed as an Egyptian pharoah and just stands there. We saw him sitting at the Colisseum and I was shocked that someone put on a costume and sat around and expected to make money. Why didn't we think of that??

Here, the pharoah prepares

and a child then enjoys the shin

and the pharoah is appreciative

From Piazza del Popolo we walked to the sprawling hills of Villa Borghese which is the home of many museums, a cinema, several cafes, a lake, children's playground and a zoo.

The Museum of Modern Art

The lake (more like a pond) with cute boats

pretty mallards

police riding horses in the middle of palm trees

It was a bright sunny day, we were in Rome, we saw the Pope and walked throughout a beautiful city. It was warm and perfect. An absolutely amazing day.