Day 4

After an early breakfast, we went straight to the Vatican. The Pope wasn’t home (he’s in Australia), but there were plenty of other things to see. Our tour guide led us through some of the Vatican Museums, where we saw statues, frescoes, tapestries, and paintings of unimaginable beauty. The Museum tour ended in the Sistine Chapel, which has just been newly restored. The colors and figures were stunning (sorry, no photos allowed). Then we went inside the largest church in the world: St. Peter’s Church. Then we spent a while shopping near the Vatican before boarding the bus to Assisi.

The ride to Assisi was beautiful – the hills and villages of Umbria are just what we imagined. We stopped before we got there at a ceramics factory, where we saw a short demonstration of how ceramics are made and had a chance to peruse the store. Once we got to Assisi, we had 2 hours or so to tour the Basilica and its surrounding town. It’s a charming location – so much so that four of our girls got a photo with some of the local boys!

Finally, it was on to Florence, where we’re resting after dinner for a long day of sight-seeing and shopping.

I ran out of time to post today's photos, so look for them in the coming days. Also, I'll have the full photo album open to all members of this e-mail list once the trip is over (it currently has over 400 photos!)

JVH