Our last full day in Rome started very early. We had booked the 'Waking up the Vatican Tour' of the Vatican Museums back in July, and even then were only able to get a booking on our last day here. It's limited to 20 people per day, starting at 6am and going through each room with the clavigero (key keeper) as the rooms are opened up for the day. As an added bonus, pictures are not only allowed, they're encouraged.
So we were up at 4:30am (!) to make sure we were there on time. The tickets said to be at the entrance to the Vatican Museums at 5:50am, even providing the exact latitude/longitude to make sure people went to the right spot. We got there around 5:45am, and were the second-last to arrive of our group. Looks like we weren't the only ones making sure we were there on time :) We waited eagerly for the key keeper to open the doors, saw the sliver of light under the door at 5:59, and at 6:00 he opened the door and welcomed us in.
During normal hours this is the exit to the Vatican Museum, at the bottom of the Bramante staircase. We took the old elevators up and started our tour! Our tour guide said that we would be going through most of the rooms with some pace, in order to maximize our time in the Sistine Chapel, so to please stay with the tour! First the key keeper picked up the giant 8-inch diameter key rings with dozens of keys on each. Then we went through the museums, at each door the key keeper gave one of us the key to open the door and then turn on the lights. Our guide had mentioned that the tour is more impressive in the winter, because it's still dark outside. The early summer sun ruins the impact of turning on the lights :)
Passed through the Egyptian and Etruscan museums, Octagonal court, Raphael's rooms, the Gallery of Maps and Tapestry Gallery, maybe not in that order. There were four of us in the tour who were keen on photography, lagging behind the group to get our tourist-less pictures. There was a lot to take in, and the time seemed to fly by. Heather felt it was similar to seeing the gorillas, it seems like you could blink and miss it all, even though it's a couple hours. Finally we were at the door to the Sistine Chapel, the grand finale of the tour. One of the tour participants unlocked the door, and we all entered by the key keeper's flashlight. Then, the lights came on and the full Sistine Chapel was before us! Everyone went camera-happy. Another couple took a timed selfie from their phone on the floor pointing at the ceiling, with their fingers lined up to touch Adam's and God's. It was silly enough that we took a similar pic.
The tour finished with a brunch. As we had read earlier in a review, you're not going on this tour because of the food.
Bought some souvenirs at the gift shop, and then took a whole lot of pictures of Heather walking down the spiral staircase. Luckily at this hour, there was no one else leaving (the early-access tours were just congregating in the lobbies to start their tours), and so we were able to get a few takes in without worry about other people on the staircase. It was one of the two pics I was looking forward to taking in the Vatican Museums (the other being God reaching out to Adam).
We were back at our hotel by 10am, in time to catch the tail end of breakfast. So had our 2nd breakfast of the day :)
We had originally thought we would spend more time at the Vatican Museums after our tour (the ticket allowed us to re-enter and wander at our own pace) but part of the magic was seeing the Museums tourist-free and that would have been ruined if we went back through.
So instead we took a taxi back to Via Appia Antica and to see the Catacombes that were closed a couple days earlier when we attempted to visit. Stopped in at Catacombe di San Callisto and bought our tickets. It's only possible by organized tour (our timing was good, we arrived at 11:20 and the next tour was at 11:30). I had hoped to not have to take a tour, but oh well. The mandatory tour made more sense when we we got down there -- it's a maze where one could easily get lost. Our guide was not the greatest, and it was cold and damp in the catacombs. We were shivering at the end. Also, pictures aren't allowed at all. The catacombs themselves were cool to see, but we didn't feel the need to see Catacombe di San Sebastiano just down the road. Even walking along Via Appia Antica wasn't the experience we had hoped, but that's because it was much colder today with a biting wind. At least we had brought our toques along.
Walked back into town and went to Vinando's for lunch. We had had lunch there last week and really enjoyed their artichoke and pecorino pizza the last time. So ordered it again, along with a charcuterie platter. They messed up the order and brought us lasagna instead of the charcuterie. The service went downhill from there so we just finished up and went back to our favourite cafe by the turtle fountain for dessert, and some craft beer.
I was starting to hit a wall, having woken up at 4am. Both of us took a short nap and then later went to Gino 51 for dinner. We had eaten there our first day in and enjoyed it. It was also one of the hotel manager's recommended restaurants. We discussed what we wanted, but then the restaurant person provided her suggestions for us (the benefit of name-dropping our hotel manager). Her suggestions were actually similar to what we had discussed, so that worked out well. Started with the zucchini flowers (stuffed with cheese and anchovies, battered and deep-fried, very yummy) and battered squid. We then had the zucchini and shrimp tonnarelli. For the main we had sea bass with sliced potatoes, and contorni of roman artichoke, and roman salad. We misunderstood the sea bass and potatoes -- when the dish arrived, we thought it was a plate full of scalloped potatoes. But the sea bass is actually baked in a pocket of sliced potatoes. Also very yummy. The roman salad had greens that we couldn't identify but were excellent, I think we had seen people prepping them in the market. We were stuffed so just had espressos. It was an excellent way to finish our tour of Roman food.
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