I am just so freaking far behind....

Ah Rome... it was big and dirtier than Florence and very crowded. It was not charming nor was it metropolitan as say NYC or Paris might be. To be honest, you get the idea that the whole place is overcrowded - thereby offering a much lower standard of living than the capital of a country should. It has definitely slid since it's heyday.
We did the Vatican Museums. It was like a cattle feedlot... we moved in a large mass of humans down what seemed like a mile of exhibits (a long, long, long corridor) and then started to descend. You have to go down two damp, dank flights of stairs to get to the entrance of the Sistine Chapel. The chapel is an ego-monument to Pope Sixtus (I think the 16th). He wanted someplace that was a monument so he choose this narrow spot with tiny little windows - high high up near the ceiling.
It is the place where the Cardinals hold the conclave to decide who will succeed a recently deceased Pope.
Anyway, Michelangelo didn't want to paint this thing... architecturally it's a hideous space (and has BAAAAAD Feng Shui - which I cannot spell right). So he did what he could to work with what he had. The reason he didn't want to paint it was cause he was OLD. He died at 84 and had to have been in his late 60s for this project. And he painted laying down with his arms over his head... you try it. IT SUCKS.
Michelangelo was a sculpter and an architect as well as a painter. In fact, his sculpture is magical. These paintings, are, truly amazing.
But standing two stories below them, checking your guide book, begin herded along by the dank, smelly masses, is not inspiring. Nor is it peaceful.
You leave the chapel, climb the stairs to the ground level again and the return to the back of the Vatican via another mile of galleries. The only room I stopped in was the one with Maps painted on the walls. That was cool.
When we exited, we went back around the perimeter to the front of the Vatican and sat in St. Peter's square. You've seen this.... this is where thousands throng to see the Pope if he appears in a window. Some art history students offered us a tour of the Church, but I could not do more than sit outside in the square and soak it all in.
Then, we made another mistake. We decided to walk to the Coliseum.
Opps.
This is not Florence and we walking for almost an hour and 45 minutes before we made it to the Venetian Palace. It's a marble mausoleum built by a Venetian Pope as an ego monument to his Papacy. It's huge and today, it houses the Eternal Flame for the fallen Italian Soilder.
So... white marble, bronze Chariots, full-sized horse and riders... all there. We turned the corner.
And there was the Coliseum. And the ruins of the Roman Forum.
Mike and I found a place to sit down and eat some lunch... we fed Pigeons.
And then we looked at the depictions of the Forum and maps... we figured out where things were once and were now. We walked a little further and touched the Coliseum.
We decided to visit the remants of a Roman Circus (where the chariots raced). It's a pathetic, garbage-strewn ditch now. How totally and completely sad.
Next, we went to a church that has a huge bronze plate by the entrance. The plate (used to be a manhole cover like 800 years ago) has a face and a mouth in it. It's said that if a liar sticks his or her hand in the plate (remember, it's like 6 feet across) the hand will be bitten off....
Nothing happend.
After that, we caught a bus and found a cafe for dinner. We rested and sat until we had to board the train. 2 hours and we were back in Florcence - exhausted but amused by the Priest who sat across from us and took no less than a dozen cellphone calls during the trip. I wish I spoke some Italian.