It had been a while since we’d seen Pope Francis. Our last time was pre-pandemic, when we went to the Maundy Thursday service with our friends Jim and Tess, when the Pope walked by just a few feet from us.

Besides special events like Maundy Thursday or Easter or Christmas, the “usual” times to see the pope are either the Wednesday papal audience or the Sunday Angelus. The Wednesday papal audience has seating — if you get tickets, which are free. It takes place at 9:00 a.m. and lasts about an hour.  The Sunday Angelus has no seating, there are no tickets, and is at noon; the Pope gives a blessing from his balcony that lasts about 15 minutes.

We decided to attend a papal audience. So, a few weeks before our trip we requested tickets from the Prefettura. A few days later, we received an email confirming we had tickets and directing us to pick them up from the Swiss Guards either the day before, or the day of, the papal audience. We didn’t want to make a trip to the Vatican on two separate days as we were busy. So we dutifully arrived at St. Peter’s early on our appointed Wednesday. We were ushered into a very long line of people going to the papal audience.

The main choice in attending the papal audience is whether, like us, you have tickets. Having tickets means that you can get a seat — and that you will be at the front of St. Peter’s Square, meaning closer to the action. Otherwise, you will be standing — and further back. After walking through security, we continued on to pick up our tickets from the Swiss Guards (which is always fun!) at the “Bronze Doors” located just after security in the colonnade of St. Peter’s Basilica. Only one person can go, so David went up the stairs to get the tickets. A Swiss guard sorted through the well organized labeled envelopes and handed over our tickets.

Here are our lovely, very yellow tickets:

Our tickets in hand, we walked to the front section of the square, where there were hundreds of seats set out in the open. We picked a pair and made ourselves comfortable, wearing our hats as the sun was beating down.

 

 

Pope Francis appeared exactly on time — 8:45 a.m. — and rode around the square in his Popemobile.  The crowd, understandably, went completely nuts.  Here’s a video:

Cameras followed the Pope as he rode around, projecting their images onto the big screens set up around the square.

 

As you can see from the photo at the top of this post, the Pope drove down the corridor that separated the seated area and the standing-room-only area.  Like everyone else, we were waving like crazy as il Papa went by.

To our surprise, after circling the square, the Popemobile actually drove up the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica.  We didn’t know it could do that, but it was very cool. Those must be some sturdily built steps.

A couple of people carefully settled the Pope into his seat, and the audience began promptly at 9 a.m.  A number of speakers stepped up to the platform. The format of the audience comprised a person stepping up to the microphone speaking one language followed by a new speaker repeating the same message but in a different language; making for few messages equally presented in several languages. Among the languages we heard were Italian, Portuguese, Castilian, Polish, English, and German.

Somehow, it went very quickly. The Pope spoke very briefly, followed by the interpreters one at a time. At the end, some people carefully helped him into a wheelchair, and off he went.

We then went for a nice lunch nearby before visiting the Vatican Museums. One of the several parts of the museums we had not seen before was the Carriage Museum, the historical collection of papal vehicles. Good to its name, it started with carriages.

Then it moved to cars.

 

 

Then there were the white Popemobiles.

 

Love the papal license plates and Vatican sticker!  The last little Popemobile is perfect for driving around Rome, although somehow I think Pope Francis could always find a parking spot no matter how large his car was. But I don’t think the little car can drive up the stairs like the current Popemobile can.