Today our party divided for the morning, so after a very early start (leaving the hotel at 07:30) whilst some attended the General Assembly with the Pope, the rest of us visited the Vatican Museums, culminating of course with a visit to the Sisteen Chapel. As a first time visitor to Rome, this was simply a “must see” experience and it did not let me down. Even with the build up through the corridors and rooms full of art and sculpture, including the Raphael rooms, on entering the Sisteen Chapel, no matter how full of people, it immediately registers as something special. Whilst through most of the museum photography is permitted (although without flash), because the Sistine Chapel has been recently restored, the sponsors of this do not permit it here.
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Wandering back through Rome to the Borgo Pio, we enjoyed a relaxing lunch (pizza – we can now compare pizzas with those served in Rome) and had a brief unscheduled visit to the church of St Spirito in Sassia before joining the rest of our party for the afternoon.
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We next visited the Catacomb of Callixtus where an underground tour of the catacombs was followed by mass.
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Finally for the day we visited the church of St Gregory at the Monastery of St Andrew and Gregory. This was the Gregory who became pope and sent Augustine to us to become the founder of our church and effectively become the first Archbishop of Canterbury, so we prayed there for Francis and Justin their two respective successors, in front of a painting of St Gregory and by the stone chair in which he used to contemplate.
iangraydon 