It was delightful to find a shop with a wide selection of souvenirs. The bus stopped near the Vatican so that the group could walk around St. Peter's Square or shop. I chose to shop, as it was nice and cool inside and very warm and sunny (and crowded) outside. We had about an hour for this stop, so I knew that I didn't have enough time to dash over to see the Sistine Chapel. So....I will shop if I must!
Our very Italian tour guide Andrei (so cute with well groomed hair, stylin' sunglasses and a cool two day beard) told us where to meet and when. He pointed out the gift shop with the discount for Princess Cruise customers. We were heading to "Vacanze Romane" (Roman Vacation?) for Italian treasures.
The gift shop is located just east of Piazza San Pietro (St. Peter's Square) on Via Rusticucci. The red arrow on the map below shows the location of the shop.
Street vendors had a lot of choices for religious memorabilia, mostly key chains and rosary beads.
This is the entrance to the shop. Yes, it was a wee bit crowded.
The inside was filled with many choices. There were scaled replicas of famous Italian statues and paintings.
You could add to your growing collection of shot glasses, coffee mugs and plates.
More replicas of Roman statues. Ohhh, I wish I would have picked up a "David's head" and "Pieta"!
Plenty of crosses. You could mix and match your wood tone and material for the Christ figure.
There was a selection of Venetian Jester masks in a wide assortment of colors.
My favorite, and on my list to purchase on my next trip, is beautiful glassware. I, of course, would bring home the red ones and ask my sister to pick blue or green.
You have your choice of the character and style of your favorite figurine.
Plus, a wide variety of sizes and styles of crucifixes.
Magnets from all of the sites in Rome, plus some creative magnetic bottle openers to conveniently store on your refridgerator door.
I thought that these sunny looking souvenirs were quite eye-catching.
Interesting view of the items in the shop. A person on our tour bought several Pope bottle openers, "Popeners" and handed them out to the group. He gave one to Joe, and that was our only souvenir to bring home from Italy. Joe was worried about getting through customs with it, but I told him his real worry should be getting through to heaven with it! Our customs claim form looked pretty stupid when that was our only thing to declare...
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