{"id":4105,"date":"2019-03-27T11:03:06","date_gmt":"2019-03-27T10:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/?p=4105"},"modified":"2019-03-30T11:04:00","modified_gmt":"2019-03-30T10:04:00","slug":"the-last-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2019\/03\/27\/the-last-day\/","title":{"rendered":"The Last Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Leaving day, so we took our time in the morning. Got everything packed and ready to go, checked out and left our bags at the hotel while we had a last walk around Rome. The day was cloudy and wet \u2013 showers mostly.<\/p>\n<p>So we headed out to the Basilica di San Pietro in Vincoli, which we had tried to go by Monday afternoon on the way back from the Vatican but managed to go past the road and didn\u2019t want to go back (also it\u2019s up a steep flight of steps and we just weren\u2019t up to climbing more steps!) More Michelangelo, this time his tomb for Pope Julius II and the sculpture of Moses. Joe was looking forward to lighting it up; you put in a donation to contribute to the lightening of the sculpture but one website implied it was put money in to turn on the light. Joe was picturing a diorama or something, I think, and was quite disappointed it was just another renaissance statue. But what a lovely statue. We also had a look at the chains the basilica is named for \u2013 supposedly the chains used to bind St Peter in Jerusalem fused to the ones used to bind him in Rome.<\/p>\n<p>We then headed for the Santa Maria in Monserrato degli Spagnoli (the Spanish Church in Rome) where Alexander VI (Borja\/Borgia) is buried.<\/p>\n<p>We then decided to finish our tour of Rome where we started \u2013 at the Pantheon. As we were heading there we heard thunder so we hurried along and got in just before the skies opened. And we sat and watched the rain fall through the oculus. The floor and drainage are apparently original and work very well. The floor has a slight incline to the edges, but even so remained dry as the rain goes through the holes to the drainage underneath the centre.<\/p>\n<p>When the rain stopped we headed back out, had a very early lunch (pizza!) and then got our bags, walked to the train station, and off to the airport. They didn\u2019t move our seats, but we were across the aisle from each other so not as bad as we had for our flight out. In the end however, the two seats next to Joe were empty so I moved over there. And the bloke who was trying to get Joe to move so he could sit closer to his partner ended up in my seat and she ended up in the middle there (musical chairs!) So it wasn\u2019t as bad a flight as I feared (the bloke originally next to me was a spreader and kept jabbing his elbow into my side, ugh. He ended up in the woman\u2019s aisle seat \u2013 musical chairs on the plane!) Home very late and very tired.<\/p>\n<p>Good things:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Walking all over Rome!<\/li>\n<li>The weather (in the 20s and sunny every day except the last)<\/li>\n<li>Lots of ruins and great art!<\/li>\n<li>Parks!<\/li>\n<li>The food \u2013 we did not have a bad meal. Some indifferent meals, some good meals, some great meals, but nothing that we would say \u2018ugh don\u2019t eat there!\u2019 (though some of the coffee wasn\u2019t very nice \u2013 surprisingly)<\/li>\n<li>Early morning in the Vatican and seeing the Sistine Chapel with very few people in it. In fact, getting to see the Chapel three times with different levels of crowding.<\/li>\n<li>The top of the Colosseum away from the crowds and wonderful views.<\/li>\n<li>Very, very good coffee at Casina Valadier, in the park overlooking Rome.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Not so good:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Sore feet<\/li>\n<li>The stack of laundry that needs to be done<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Leaving day, so we took our time in the morning. Got everything packed and ready to go, checked out and left our bags at the hotel while we had a last walk around Rome. The day was cloudy and wet \u2013 showers mostly. So we headed out to the Basilica di San Pietro in Vincoli, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4T97-14d","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4189,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/30\/to-melbourne\/","url_meta":{"origin":4105,"position":0},"title":"To Melbourne","date":"Monday, 30 December 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Lazy start to the day, up late sorted and out. Drove up to where we'd had dinner and found a 2 hour parking lot and went to have breakfast. Wandered back by the library which had some nice sculptures, though Joe wouldn't let me go in. Decided to head into\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Travel&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":35,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/20\/san-francisco\/","url_meta":{"origin":4105,"position":1},"title":"San Francisco","date":"Friday, 20 October 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Right, the California Zephyr was a bit over 4 hours late. So we packed our stuff, checked our little roomette, and made sure we were ready to leave. The train stops in Emeryville and you then get a coach over to San Francisco - our driver told us that in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Travel&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1425,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/17\/kathleens-reason-for-being-in-madrid\/","url_meta":{"origin":4105,"position":2},"title":"Kathleen&#8217;s reason for being in Madrid","date":"Tuesday, 17 June 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"We did art crap. Lots of art. And this was just the first day of art. Editor : \u00a0By that Joe means we went to the Prado! And saw lots of very nice stuff. Got up early due to noise in the hotel (it's a nice hotel, very clean and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Travel&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":52,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2005\/12\/20\/continuing-update\/","url_meta":{"origin":4105,"position":3},"title":"Continuing update","date":"Tuesday, 20 December 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Back again! Right we were on Franz Josef Glacier, weren't we? And having a great time. Cloudy overcast day with a little bit of drizzle now and again. But having a great day. Trying to climb huge ice steps and go down steep icy bits. They didn't tell us we'd\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Travel&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":548,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/05\/ice-cold-in-beer\/","url_meta":{"origin":4105,"position":4},"title":"Ice Cold in Beer","date":"Friday, 5 July 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"So today was a walking day. Joe had done Seaton to Lyme Regis yesterday and said it wasn't as nice as you don't really get any sea views, so we decided to go the other way to Beer Point. Making jokes about being in Beer the whole time (Beer Sailing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Travel&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":51,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2005\/12\/13\/due-south\/","url_meta":{"origin":4105,"position":5},"title":"Due South","date":"Tuesday, 13 December 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Now in south island and so far so very very good. The ferry is nifty and the trip over is lovely. I kept hearing that Cook Strait was nasty but it was quite calm. We did see the big dark clouds over the south island though. Going through the sound\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Travel&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4105"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4105"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4106,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4105\/revisions\/4106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}