Hadrian's huge circular ramp
Dad’s Health Tip – Don’t wander around a Roman world heritage site in the pouring rain if you want to remain able to speak to people or, at the very least, don’t be so pig headed as to ignore your wife when she insists that you take and use an umbrella!
A relatively quiet day with Dad’s throat not permitting much in the way of communication! After a late start we header for the Vatican. We weren’t really intending to visit the Vatican museum as it would clearly take several days and by the time we arrived we wanted lunch anyway. The queue was huge and basically it wouldn’t have been worth while.
We looked round St Peter’s square. Dad loved the fountains and as usual expressed the view that something similar would look good in the garden. Amazingly, the square is infested with the same annoying selfi-stick sellers as the rest of the centre of Rome. It is astonishing that the pontiff puts up with them!
The main event of the day was a visit to the Papal castle at Castel Sant Angelo. This turned out to be an excellent and well worth while visit (14 Euros each and free for Sophia). The castle was originally the mausoleum of Emperor Hadrian and for Dad the most spectacular part was the huge roman spiral ramp which you descend to exit. It is an amazing piece of roman civil engineering constructed purely for Hadrian’s funeral cortège.