Rome- day 4

Admission to the Vatican is free every last Sunday of the month. And we just happened to be in Rome on the last Sunday of the year. Sweet!

Little did we know that the rest of Rome was probably thinking the same thing. There was a very long line! So long that Chad & dad decided they'd rather skip it to explore some nearby castle with the boys.

We also learned that the Sistine Chapel was closed & we would not be able to see the gardens of Vatican City because the pope was back there & they had that area secured off.  Bummer!
Max's cheesy smile just makes my heart smile.
St. Peter's Basillica. It was beautiful, ginormous and very ornate!
This was new for me- so apparently they embalm popes that have died & display them in different cathedrals.  I think this was the last pope that died.
This list was interesting to me. It is a list charting the succession of the priesthood keys. You can see Peter (Petrvs) at the top. My dad, brothers & husband have a similar list charting where they received their priesthood. Their list is much shorter though because we believe that there was an apostacy where the church that Christ organized was lost from the earth. But it was restored again, for these the fullness of times, through the prophet Joseph Smith- he receiving these priesthood keys from John the Baptist (the Aaronic priesthood) & Peter, James & John (the Melchizedek priesthood).
My mother-in-law got this guard to crack a smile briefly...unfortunately I wasn't quick enough with my camera.
And one last time with gelato.
And here's us at the train station. We have a makeshift corral made from suitcases. Liam loves seeing the trains. And here's us happy on the train, but there's more adventure to shortly come...