Day Seven: Dead Popes

Set the alarm for early this morning to make sure that we got into St Peters as soon as it opened at 7:00am to avoid the queues and go see the grottoes where all the dead popes are buried (the pontiffs that is...not the band) only to find that the grottos didn't open until 9:00am. So rather than miss the chance we hung around the basilica for a couple of hours watching the various services being held, the nuns moving in and out of the sunbeams and going about their devotions.

Later on a couple of us went to the Spanish steps (via a toyshop which we seemed to have cleaned out of anime figures), followed by another trip to Castroni for coffee, ice cream and granita. This evening we are off out to eat (again) at L'Isolla della Pizza. Tomorrow we pick up a hire car (in the center of Rome, wish me luck!) and drive up to Lake Garda.