After the late, late night out at the club (we got in around 3:30 am...) we slept in and missed breakfast at the B&B, so we went out to the square just steps away at the Campo dei Fiori and had pizza at one of the many cafes there. Afterwards, we made our way to the Vatican. We took the metro, but probably could have walked.
St. Peter's Square was large and majestic, but lucky for us, there were far fewer tourists than I imagine there usually are. The line to get in was only about 20 mins. long. One thing to note is the free bathrooms outside the basilica. The toilets in Italy were generally a bit disappointing, in that barely any public toilets I found (whether actual public toilets, or in shops or restaurants) had an actual seat (it wasn't that they were built without them, they were simply gone). The irony in the pristine Vatican toilets was, that this was my first experience at a "squat toilet" (I wasn't even familiar with the concept until the past few years, when Alex told me that most of the toilets in Asia would be squat toilets). Well...at least they were clean.
St. Peter's Basilica was incredibly over the top. Having grown up Catholic, I used to dream about seeing the Vatican some day. It didn't disappoint in its grandeur. But I couldn't help but think that this place had to be about as far from what Jesus would have wanted as could be. The man who threw the money changers from the temple and lived a life of poverty, now had the most famous church dedicated to him full of marble and gold. It makes me wonder how the irony has escaped people over the millenia.
We were disappointed to find out that the Vatican museums and the Sistene Chapel were closed that day, so of course we'd have to make our way back again the next day. I wasn't going to go all the way to Rome and not see the Sistene Chapel.
After our tour we walked outside the Vatican and had some gelato (I probably had gelato at least twice a day). The place we went to struck me as having especially bad customer service. One thing I can say for the US is that businesses will generally treat you fairly well. Not every single one, of course, and I've had my share of bad customer service experiences in the US, but in Italy, I didn't get the impression that most people were very conscious of customer service in their businesses. Having lived in Europe in the past for several years, I was used to this,
but I look forward to the day when politeness and customer service take over continental Europe.
Nearby was the Castel Sant'Angelo, a castle that housed former popes. It did allow a nice view of the city. After touring it (yet another free museum!) it was late afternoon and we made our way back to the B&B to relax for a bit before heading out for dinner.
For dinner, we picked a gay-friendly restaurant in the Trastevere neighborhood, a neighborhood known as being especially gay friendly. The restaurant featured Chinese cuisine, and the food was excellent, check out our review here:
http://outadvisor.com/content/view/6806/32/#user_reviews.
Suffice it to say, we had a good, atypical Roman meal. With the late night from before, we were tired, and headed back to the B&B to sleep soon after dinner. The next day would be a long one with a drive to central Italy in the afternoon.
Hundreds upon hundreds of attendees, including Candace Gingrich and Deacon Maccubbin (founder of iconic local DC GLBT bookstore Lambda Rising) , stopped by to be educated on the 7,000+ worldwide listings of GLBT owned or friendly hotels, B&B's, bars, clubs, restaurants, etc. at Outadvisor.com -- as well as enter into a raffle for a Southwest Airlines gift card (Congrats, Bryan!). And a heartfelt thanks to our Outadvisor Boy, Steve, who worked it all afternoon to make sure that everyone passing within a radius of 50 feet was aware of us.
