Mausoleum of Hadrian, known as Castel Sant'Angelo. Jets trail brightly colored smoke in the sky in honor of the Festival of the Republic.
We landed in Italy with an extra hour than expected, but still too late to do much. We took a shuttle to our hostel, Mosaic (it shared the same building as Alessandro’s, where we originally wanted to stay). Wednesday we had tickets to the Vatican Museum so we decided to just go to bed and wake up early. I highly recommend buying tickets in advance, the line just gets way too insane. Also, don’t forget to print your ticket; luckily the icon worked on my iPhone so we were able to get in paperless. Old Bridge gelateria is right near the museum entrance, a perfect treat for the hot wait (and cheap too!).
Apparently the Pope addresses the public every Wednesday morning, so we couldn’t go into St. Peter’s until later in the afternoon. But we did manage to cram in the Ara Pacis, the Spanish Steps, and the Borghese Museum. For the Borghese make sure to buy tickets in advance as well; we were lucky and got squeezed in, but the people behind us weren’t so fortunate – our time slot just sold out.
