When we decided that we wanted to plan a trip to Italy, it had a lot to do with the reasonable price of the plane tickets for direct flights from Atlanta to Rome. Although the majority of our trip was in the Southeast corner of Italy, we were both interested and excited to see Rome for the first time. We agreed that we also didn’t want to miss seeing The Vatican. We decided to make Vatican City, and all that it had to offer, the first stop on our trip! Shannon went online and got us digital tickets to St Peter’s Basilica, tickets to go up into St Peter’s dome, tickets to visit the Vatican museum, and tickets to visit The Necropolis underneath.

• Side note – 2025 is/was a Jubilee year. This is something we knew nothing about prior to planning our visit, but learned a lot about leading up to it. I linked it there, but here’s a brief synopsis; In the Catholic church, The Year of Jubilee is a biblical concept deeply rooted in scripture and tradition, offering the faithful a time of renewal, forgiveness, and celebration. The 2025 Jubilee began on 12/24/2024 and ends on 1/6/2026. During this time, special blessings are available to the faithful who participate in designated pilgrimages, prayers, and sacraments. The Pilgrimage specifically, is where many of Catholic faith will journey to Rome or other designated local churches. During Jubilee years, Holy Doors are present, which are a symbolic passage signifying conversion and a new life. Each Jubilee has a theme, and 2025’s Theme, celebrating the 2025th anniversary of Christ’s Incarnation, is “Pilgrims of Hope”.

Being of protestant faith, we were uncertain about whether or not to register as Pilgrims, but in doing pre-trip research, I decided to register us. I thought it may be good to have our Pilgrim cards to gain access to some of the churches and activities? Anyway – here’s my very own 2025 Jubilee Pilgrim Card that I got BEFORE getting married and changing my last name:

What I learned about the Jubilee Year timeline, is that the previous one was in 2016, known as the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy. The next one will be in 2033, known as Extraordinary Jubilee: Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ and Birth of the Church. After that, the next one will be in 2050.

We landed in Rome at about 7:30 in the morning, and were able to take a taxi from the airport strait to our hotel, The Dopodomani Suite . They were kind enough to store our bags for us while we explored Vatican City, as check-in wasn’t until 3pm. Although the proprietress spoke almost no English, and I’m still very low-skill in my Italian, somehow we communicated well enough. She was able to show us around and give us our keys to get in and out of the main door to the street, and into the large suite where our bags were stored. True to her word, when we returned from a day of sightseeing, our bags had been moved into our room. The location of the Dopodomani Suite hotel is excellent, and we were very happy with our 2-night stay here!

As usual, I was hungry and needed to find breakfast.

We were able to walk from our hotel to the Vatican, as it was only a little over a mile walk, and very nice weather. After walking a few blocks through the city streets, we eventually made it on to a nice sidewalk along the Tiber river. It was a beautiful mid-morning walk.

Here’s an interactive map I found that will help you discover which buildings are what in Vatican City. The big main building that I think of when I think of The Vatican as an entity, is actually St Peter’s Basilica.

At this point, I was kind of itching to use my Pilgrim card. Because I had it and I thought it was going to be important. Walking in the direction of St Peter’s Basilica we noticed some temporary trailer-type buildings set up with large crates of green drawstring backpacks. Everyone walking out of the trailers were picking up the drawstring backpacks, so I did the same. I thought that they were for the registered pilgrims! With the cards! My new drawstring backpack had: 2 (tiny) t-shirts with the jubilee emblem, a prayer bracelet, a green bandana with the jubilee emblem, a bucket hat with the jubilee emblem, and a water bottle with the emblem. Although I am STILL very excited to have gotten one of these treasures, I am pretty thoroughly convinced now that they were meant for the groups, and not for just anyone-with-a-pilgrimage card. There really wasn’t any way to give it back once I’d gotten it and then become encased in the crowds. As it happens, both of our mothers are pretty tiny and they each got a pilgrimage t-shirt for Christmas so surely Jesus is happy about that. We were actively trying to figure out which entrance to use with our digital tickets and that took some doing.

We eventually found our entrance, and also found ourselves in a large crowd of people packed in tightly. Our 11:00am entrance time was approaching and there were hundreds of people with printed off pieces of paper with the same entrance time, all around us. It was kind of a mad-house. We were a little bit miserable for about an hour. But eventually the crowds started to slowly inch forward and we found ourselves in front of the entrance.

St Peter’s Basilica is beyond words. It is ornate and beautiful and interesting, and the skill of the people who built it is completely beyond our comprehension. One of the things that I was really excited to see inside of The Vatican, was a piece I’ve heard about for years and years – the Pieta. The Pieta di Michelangelo , from that link” ‘Our Lady of Pity’, is a Carrara marble sculpture of Jesus and Mary at Mount Golgotha, representing the Sixth Sorrow of the Virgin Mary by Michelangelo Buonarroti in Saint Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, for which it was made. It is a key work of Italian Renaissance sculpture and often taken as the start of the High Renaisssance”

I could have taken thousands of photos inside of St Peter’s Basilica, but here are just a few of my favorites.

The climb to the top of the dome was no small feat, but it was absolutely worth the effort! There were some very long lines waiting for elevators to take people up, but after having waited in the line to get in, we opted to take the stairs all the way up and all the way back down. Halfway up, there’s a nice view, and a small store with refreshments which we were thrilled to find. We had cokes, and collected some water at the fountain in my new Jubilee water bottle.

We wandered around this mid-level stop long enough to get a drink and catch our breath. Then began the adventure of figuring out which door to take to go the rest of the way up. We found it eventually, and found ourselves in some tight stairwells with steep stairs.

We left St Peter’s basilica, and walked back through the courtyard. I noticed this sculpture that I had read about called Angels Unawares. I’ve linked the info there, but I like that it’s a reminder of the evangelical challenge of hospitality, Inspired by a verse in the bible, Hebrews 13:2 that says “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares”

We spent a few hours in the Vatican museum, and unfortunately, I did not take a lot of photos there. There’s SO MUCH ART and so much to see. We were really there to see the Sistine chapel ceiling, which we did. There are no cameras allowed inside, but a quick google search will show you plenty of photos of it. Next, we headed to our last ticketed event, our tour of The Necropolis below the Vatican.

Probably our favorite thing we got to see at the Vatican, was The Necropolis, which I’ve linked there. There were no photos allowed inside, however, there are a few photos on that linked website so you can get an idea of what it’s like. It.was.so.COOL! It is an entire city that is buried underneath Vatican City, containing tombs dating from the 1st to 4th century AD. Originally a burial ground built near Caligula’s circus, in accordance with Roman law because it was forbidden to bury the dead within the city walls. Separate “cities” of burial grounds were built outside the city walls, and this is one of them. This is where Saint Peter was said to have been crucified and buried, and part of the tour was getting a glimpse of Saint Peter’s tomb. ASTOUNDING!

By the time we’d toured St Peter’s Basilica, Climbed to the top of the dome and back down, walked to the Vatican Museum, Walked back to and through the Necropolis, and then walked back along the Tiber River to our hotel, it was about 3 in the morning at home and we were operating on very little sleep. We did not have the energy to find a restaurant much less sit upright in chairs and order a meal. What we did instead ended up being one of our favorite meals in our 2 weeks in Italy. We went to a little local market around the corner from our hotel and picked up some groceries and a bottle of wine.

The can of tuna we had at this meal, pictured at the bottom of that photo, ended up being Shannon’s favorite Italian food. We brought some home for a family dinner when we got back and it ended up being Shannon’s sisters’ favorite food as well. Evidently, you can ONLY get this tuna in Italy. Believe me, we have about 50 cans of tuna in our pantry right now trying to replicate it and it’s been a failed endeavor. The infamous canned tuna is Esselunga brand, which is actually a chain of Italian grocery stores.

Besides every morsel of this grocery-store dinner being fantastic, it only cost us about 16Euro/20 bucks. An absolutely fantastic first day! Our 2nd day in Rome was also fantastic and I’ll tell you all about it, next!