Vatican!

We woke up to our last morning in Rome. Today's plan - Vatican City and St. Peter's Basilica! We left our apartment at 8:45 am and walked to the Basilica and got in line at 9:00 am - our apartment was really within walking distance of everything, which was great!

Swiss Guard!

The middle door, known as "The Filarete Door", is the oldest door.

Probably the most famous door at the Vatican is "The Holy Door" - unfortunately I didn't get any good pictures of it. We weren't aware that it would be open during our visit, but it turns out that it's kind of a big deal that we were able to walk through it. Apparently, they are usually sealed with mortar and cement from the inside so they cannot be opened, except for every 25 years!

Michelangelo's Pietà

Unfortunately our visit at the Vatican was somewhat rushed, as we had to get back to our Airbnb apartment to check out and then catch a train to Naples. Here's some photos from inside St. Peter's - we definitely want to come back to Rome and visit another time!

They had several confessionals open in various languages. Mary and Joey both wanted to go to confession at the Vatican - it was a really memorable experience.

We visited the gift shop at the Vatican and the kids each picked out something. Mary chose a rosary, and also bought one for Grandma, Joey chose a crucifix for his bedroom, and Lily chose a miniature nativity set. Then we had to run back to our apartment and catch the train to Naples.

The kids loved the giant pink snail outside the train station in Naples!

We are nearing the end of our grand European adventure! For the last leg of our trip we booked a hotel room instead of Airbnb, as we wanted to guarantee we would be nice and close to the train station for our early morning plane flight home. We'll have two nights in the hotel - tomorrow we will visit Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius, and the next day we will fly home!