So I'm not sure these photos actually took place on Day 29... it's all kind of a blur. At this point, I'm just throwing in images from Italy from days 25 - 36. They all happened somewhere in that time. Here's some of the images from our stop at the Vatican to see the Pope. Apparently he was too busy playing a Wii boxing tournament to come out and greet us personally, but we stayed anyway and took a look around. I was blown away by the grandeur of this place (as evidenced by me actually using the word "grandeur"... that may be the only the 2nd time ever.). The architecture, artwork, sculptures and scale of this place was breath-taking. Honestly, I was kinda ho-hum about visiting the Vatican going in... I've got a limited window of attention when it comes to museums, and so I just wasn't sure I was going be into it for the entirety of our 3 hour tour, but it ended up being one of the highlights of the trip for me and it went by in a blink. I was blown-away by the visual wonderland this place is. Here's an image of St. Peter's Basilica. This place was e. nor. mous. You'll see more images from inside the basilica further down.

I think this is a sculpture of Asclepius, the god of Medicine. I can't be sure, though, I was busy adjusting my exposure and firing off a couple images while our tour guide was explaining this one.

Another important guy back in the day. Honestly, I was more in awe of the statues and their detail and the work & skill it took to create them than who the statue was actually a depiction of. I still can't fathom what it took to create one of these.

Every ceiling in the Vatican was so ornate.

Random museum-goers.

I hope this image needs no explanation. I'm actually pretty proud of this image simply because I secretly fired it off with out even looking through the viewfinder to avoid being accosted by the photo police. I just kinda nonchalantly wandered to the middle of the Sistine Chapel, looked up, mimmicked an innocent whistling wandering tourist, tilted my camera up on my hip, discretely fired off a couple images and moved on. Actually I probably coulda just raised my camera up and taken a photo as I normally would since at one point after the Photo police called out "No Photos!" for the 5th time, I looked around and saw no less than 10 people firing away. Anyway, I'm slightly amazed and very pleased at how well this one came out.

We weren't allowed to go down this hall, and it was roped off since this is the hall the Pope travels through when coming up to the Sistine Chapel. Pretty majestic from what I could see while leaning over the rope.

Here's Kylie making fish faces in the middle of St. Peter's Basilica.

Looking up through the dome in the basilica.

Check out this throne in the basilica. The intricate details are insane.

One of many enormous statues within the basilica.

Even the grates on the floor were amazing. No details were spared in this place.

Loved the way the light was spilling through the windows in one of these "mini-chapels" along the the outside edges of the basilica.

Actually this last photo was taken outside the Coliseum, but it was too funny not to include in a post. I was just trying to get an image of this horse with the Coliseum in the background and he serendipitously gave me this look.