rome by day

got out of the hotel and walked to the station to find a non existent tour operator that offered a tour with both the St Peters Basillica and the vatican museum in one tour, as we could not find it we ended up at Appian tours.
after a visit to the Trevi fountain and some photo ops we walked to the Pantheon. A great building built in both greek and roman style. There is this huge opening in the center of the dome that is the largest in the world. Even the floor is sloped and contains under ground channels for water collection. the structure is well preserved and is a church now.

we then went on to the Vatican City, entered the basilica and walked around. You are allowed to climb up onto the dome but there was a huge line up so we skipped it.
We had some local pizza for lunch from a trailer and walked to the entrance of the museum where we joined a tour guided by an englishman who was quite well versed with the art.
we admired the final judgement by michaelangelo. interesting bit of trivia, some of the bodies that were originally nude were partially covered up on the request of various popes.So depending on whether the pontiff was concerned about the presentation they sometimes brush on clothes, the present pope I gues prefers the original art forms and therefor we saw the painting in almost the pure original form.

after about 2 hours we left the museum and headed back to Rome. after a nice italian dinner we boarded the bus to take us on the 1 hr journey to the airport for a flight to frankfurt.
at the airport we learnt that a lot of the flights were being cancelled becaus of air traffic problems, after some anxious waiting we learnt that our flight was going to take off only about 1 1/2 hours late. we arrived in frankfurt hahn airport at about 2 am took the shuttle to the hotel we had booked, and collapsed onto the bed.

Friday morning we had breakfast at the hotel and took the bus to the frankfurt main airport for our flight to chennai ( india). Had a uneventful flight to Chennai where we arrived on friday night at about 11 30 pm.

i couldnt update the blog because of logistical problems wil finish the notes in the next couple of days. am back home now trying to recharge the batteries.