Day 9: The Consequences of Bad Planning

Before I get into anything about what happened during my travels today, I want to take a moment to honor the person who helped me plan this entire trip. Without him, his support and excitement, this trip might not have happened. I owe it all to you, and I can't thank you enough for that. You know who you are. Happy Father's Day.

Now onto today's travels.

I think the universe had a plan for me today: to make sure I appreciated a good plan. It certainly wasn't a coincidence that it happened today either, the day in which I celebrate my father, the excellent planner.

I woke up late, which is a bad start, but bound to happen now and again. And if it was going to happen, this was the perfect city for it to happen in. I have a lot of time in Rome, so sleeping in one day wasn't going to make me miss anything. In fact, even though today was poorly planned, it won't really have much of an affect on my ability to see everything I want to see.

Anyways, today I planned to go see the Vatican. That was the extent of my plan. When I woke up late, I knew that I had an hour long walk ahead of me and I debated if I should save the Vatican for tomorrow and find something closer for today. But I decided to just go for it, what's the worst that could happen?

I found out the worst that could happen. I walked all the way to the Vatican, to find out that it was closed on Sundays. I didn't think much of today being  a Sunday because my schedule is so far from weekdays / weekends, that I didn't even consider this a possibility.

But I had come all the way here and I wasn't about to let the whole day go to waste. Fortunately, St. Peter's Square was still visitable, so I spent some time there admiring the enormity of it.

Panoramic view of St. Peter's Square.

After a short time, I realized there was not much left to do but find some dinner and head home. I found a nice restaurant that let me sit outside and have some pasta while I read from my book. That was probably the nicest part of today, even though the pasta was just ok.

On the way home I stopped by the capital building (at least I think it was the capital building) and climbed up an enormous flight of stairs to get a great view of the city.

Something about Roman sunsets.

Finally on the way home I had to walk by the Colosseum, AGAIN. After seeing it three times it starts to get on my nerves. Put a tarp over it at night or something Rome, come on.

So not a lot to report today, but I have two more days left to try to get to the Vatican again. So I'm sure I'll get it done. On Wednesday I leave for Zurich. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I am excited for that city.

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you tomorrow.