Rome take two

The alarm woke us early the next morning. On the agenda for the day- St. Peter's, The Vatican, and then down to Napoli. Fueled up on caffeine and pastries, we were ready for the long lines that awaited us at St. Peter's square. Arriving in St. Peter's square, we were thrown off by the lack of tourist. We thought it may be an Italian holiday we were unaware of. There seems to be a lot of holidays n Italy, so we would not have been surprised. Assured that it was open by the small line of people going into the church, we joined the line. It took a mere 2 minutes of waiting in line before I was covering my shoulders and we were in the door of St. Peters. What an incredible sight. The statues, paintings, architecture, and stained glass was a vision of greatness. It is difficult to comprehend the amount of vision, work, and dedication it took to create such a magnificent masterpiece.
After picking up out jaws we walked over to the Vatican. Hoping, but not expecting, the line to be just as short. To our pleasant surprise, the line was nonexistent. The longest line we stood in all day was the line to the bathroom.
Thanks to the sparse crowd at both St. Peters and The Vatican, we were able to depart Rome for Napoli earlier than we originally had planned. We arrived at the train station 20 minutes before the departure of our train. Taber sprinted back to the hotel to fetch our luggage while I bought the tickets. The combination of the heat and running with luggage caused him to overheat. His body covered in sweat. His white t-shirt turned see-through making him appear like he was competing in a wet t-shirt contest. Once the train started moving he cooled down and his t-shirt transformed back to a solid white.
Before going to Napoli we had been warned of the chaoticness we would find ourselves wrapped up in. Each Italian player on the team suggested we bypass the city. Having no choice (we were catching a boat to Sorrento) and being curious about the big city, we stopped there anyways. They were not exaggerating about the madhouse of Napoli. It was dirty, dense, and loud. The streets did not seem to have any order or form to them and in order to cross you had to play leap frog. We traveled directly from the train station to the marine to catch the boat. I imagine if we had taken time to explore the city, we would have appreciated the craziness of it. One thing we were able to appreciate from the city was the pizza. Wow, was it delicious. It is all in the tomato sauce. So sweet and delicious.

The boat ride to Sorrento provided us a glimpse of the colorful city of Napoli. It looked beautiful from the water, but we were glad to be heading towards a town of rest and relaxation. The moment we stepped off the boat into Sorrento our blood pressure dropped and remained dropped for our entire 4 day stay.