Vatican City + The 17th Chapel

I believe it was my father who jokingly asked me what about the 17th Chapel when I told him we went to the Sistine Chapel. I miss that humor!

Our hotel provided breakfast but we slept through it so we grabbed cappuccinos and I got a chocolate croissant from a cafe down the street. We checked out and packed up the car then headed toward the Metro so we could go over to the Vatican. We made it there and the line was pretty small so we made it up to the front door fast and were instantly turned away because my dress wasn't long enough. Stupid California outfits. I wore my longest dress too! But it was just above my knees and needed to be way below them, which I'm pretty sure doesn't exist in my wardrobe. So we went back up to the shopping area and bought some leggings. It worked out perfectly actually because we grabbed lunch right as it started to pour hard. Once it cleared up we worked our way back to the Vatican and this time made it inside. The line moves fast because they turn away a lot of people for dress code, thats a huge thing for them.

In the round "square"

St. Peter's Basilica

There were two fountains outside in the square

You do this a lot once you are inside all these churches. Everything is covered in detail, mass amounts of it too! The guide books said to bring a mirror with you and look at the ceilings that way, I completely forgot that I had one in my purse the whole day. Our necks are super sore from staring up all day long!

Bernini's work, The Baldachin of St Peter's Basilica, one of my favorite bronze pieces of all time, it is so much bigger in person than all the books LCAD threw at me describe it to be.

These were what really struck me, the tapestries. To me it is so insane that someone could sew something so detailed as these beautiful pieces of work.

So much detail in every inch of the ceiling all the way down to the floors.

View of Rome from inside the Chapel

Dad this peace sign is for you

♥ Mae

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Building a table

So these are some of the things I do all day while I'm home alone when Kyle has to work. I usually go down to the corner cafe then go over to the markets and get what I need for dinner that night or any other random things we seem to need. If its not raining I'll go walk around the neighborhood and get lost and find my way back. This all needs to be done before 1 or 2 because thats nap time over here for everyone. All the shops close up for a few hours and go have huge lunches then sleep till its time to open up again for the evening. So today I built a table during those hours! Kyle bought this table from the NEX (the Navy Exchange on base) because the table he had barely fit the two of us, let alone a crowd if he ever had one. Plus his kitchen is big enough and he had gift cards so might as well! They delivered it around 9am and just put it in the kitchen then left. So it was up to us to build it. Well that was a bigger task than I expected when I started opening up the box.

Capri

It was such an early morning this morning! I'm used to waking up early every day but usually I get to go back to sleep after Kyle leaves for work. This time we both had to get up and leave because we were going to Capri! The second we saw who our tour guide was I got so excited because it was Aldo from Pompeii!! We knew then that it would be a good trip and well worth it! First we took a bus down to the docks where Aldo worked it out for us to board an hour early so we got an extra hour on the island. Nice! We got on a catamaran called SNAV that reminded me of the Catalina Flyer. The boat ride to Capri from the bay of Naples is about 50 minutes, I think. I actually wouldn't know because I slept the whole ride over. Capri seriously is the Catalina of Italy. It's really pretty and they have a main tourist harbor where everything is then residential on the back side. We went on this tour once we got there that took us to the Blue Grotto. You took this motorboat o

Wine Tasting in Avellino

Today we went wine tasting with Aldo today in Avellino! The tour started at base and headed up the mountains towards Avellino. They made a stop at a rest area for café! My favorite! It didn't take too long to get up to the winery. The name was Colli Di Castelfranci. Castlefranci is a small village in the heart of Irpinia which is in the Province of Avellino. This logo on the wall their son created. He seemed pretty young and was the one who has started to take over production of the place. Grandpa and dad still lived there and worked but the son did most of it. The winery is very organic and they try to use all natural everything when they can. They even reuse willow tree branches and things like that for ways to hold up the vines or to tie things together instead of using plastic or metal objects. Aldo is holding some dried branches that when you soak in water they become soft enough to tie into a knot. Inside is where they store the wine in huge

Mae Abroad

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