Today, though, we had a full day of sights & sounds. After our 7:30 breakfast we boarded buses towards the Vatican for a guided tour, only to be stopped cold by Monday morning Rome traffic. Our tour guides were undaunted, however, and we stopped the buses short of Vatican City to walk the remaining distance much faster than we could have driven, arriving in time to meet our tour guides at the Vatican Museum and be escorted through. It's a huge place, full of not only Catholic but also other historical art & artifacts (lots of mummies, for some reason. Who knew?). Of course the highlight is the Sistine chapel, and we were pulled through the museum by tour guides eager to get us to the final destination. The Vatican Museum was so popular today, in fact, that I think all of Rome (and perhaps much of Spain) was in the Sistine Chapel at once. Despite the crowds it's still a beautiful sight to see. We finished our Vatican sight-seeing by once more visiting St. Peter's Basilica, and then headed for Piazza Navona to prepare for tonight's concert.
As this was the final Rome performance, the choir rehearsed at the beautiful church of Sant'Agnese en Agone (Saint Agnes in agony; wikipedia is your friend here) at the piazza from three to five, and the remaining time (until dinner at 6:30) was spent shopping, sightseeing or snacking around the piazza. For me, mostly snacking and some sight-seeing. From the bags coming back with the kids it seemed that shopping was more popular among them. Piazza Navona is very beautiful (if you've read Dan Brown's 'Angels & Demons' you'll remember it as the place where the cardinal is dumped into a fountain near the beginning of the story) and our weather charm has continued to hold. Even though the forecast had called for rain, it was cloudless and warm all day long (I packed for rain, but apparently sunscreen would have been a smarter bet).
After rehearsal we strolled over to Pastarito, and had a four-course (!) meal - salad, pasta, roast beef & tiramisu (there were vegetarian options of course, but not for me). If I had known it was going to be four courses I would have gone lighter on the rigatoni. There are lots of pictures of the kids at the restaurant (see next post).
After dinner was over it was back to Sant'Agnese at Piazza Navona, for change into concert attire & the concert at 9PM. It was very well attended - the church faces the square, and lots of bystanders came in when they heard the music. It was standing room only, and included some families who weren't traveling with the choir but were in Rome for the concert. Among them was the previously mentioned Karen Salveson, whose birthday was today and whose gift from the choir was a wonderful performance of her song 'Surrounded'. Even she couldn't get a seat in the audience, though, it was that packed (should have arrived earlier, Karen!) All the numbers went over well with the audience but 'Surrounded' got the biggest applause, and lots of admiring visits to Karen after the show (we had to hustle out quickly, though, they locked up pretty fast!)
The concert was wonderful; the church acoustics were perfect and the light was dim (wonderful for atmosphere, not so great for photos & videos). I'm still collecting photos from other chaperones but don't have too many to post tonight; hopefully when we're in Florence we'll have a chance to edit down some of the audio & post that too.
From the concert it was straight to be buses, back to the hotel & to bed. We're up early tomorrow (6AM) and off to Florence - it sounds hectic but we're all looking forward to a few relaxing hours on the bus after the non-stop activities of the past few days.
Anyway, some pictures...
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