Fast Facts:
- Country: Vatican City
- Location: The size of a golf course, Vatican City is located within the city of Rome, Italy.
- Language: Italian
- Currency: Euro
For this trip:
- Month of Travel: October
- Weather: 19 to 22 deg C
- What to Wear: Wear modest clothes, your best behavior plus an eager heart especially if like us, you’re meeting the Pope!
After our recent travel to the Holy Land, we couldn’t help but feel God actively driving this trip so that it continued to revolve around discovering His works and wonders. Without us intending for it, our itinerary magically worked out so that we arrived in Rome on Monday night, giving us enough time to prep for the Papal Audience in the Vatican City on Wednesday morning.
Exploring Vatican City
Vatican City may be the smallest country in the world, but it is a religious and cultural superpower housing the St. Peter’s Basilica and St. Peter’s Square, the Sistine Chapel, and the Vatican Museums.
The Vatican Museums contain some of the most important masterpieces in history collected by Popes throughout centuries. Apparently, out of the 70,000 works, only 20,000 are on display.
On the visitor route through the Vatican Museums, you’ll find the Sistine Chapel. It is known for being a work of art in itself with “The Last Judgement” by Michelangelo on its ceiling and other frescos by revered painters such as Boticelli and Raphael. Today, the Sistine Chapel is the site of the Papal conclave.
St. Peter’s Basilica is regarded as the most renowned work of Renaissance architecture, the largest church in the world, the burial site of St. Peter and one of the holiest Catholic shrines.
Designed to accommodate the crowd that come to receive the Pope’s blessing, the St. Peter’s Square is a large plaza located directly in front of St. Peter’s Basilica.
Meeting our Catholic Rockstar
The Papal Audience attracts over 80,000 people of different faiths at St. Peter’s Square every Wednesday. While the ticket to enter is free, obtaining it, which we read involves sending a fax, is not the simplest to organize. You can instead conveniently purchase a “tour” online, which would include a pre-booked ticket.
We arrived to meet our tour group outside St. Peter’s Square at 7:00am. Though the program was expected to start around 10:00am, thousands were already lined up with us to go through a tight security check. While in the queue, sellers of religious articles approached, and we bought some rosaries and bracelets to be blessed.
After over 30 minutes, we reached security check. Carrying a small bag helped make this quick and seamless. As soon as we got inside the square, that was when the “tour” we paid for became worth it. Our guide ran to get us seats. She reached the first row of one of the boxed sections where she knew the Pope would pass and blocked it for our group. And ta-dah! We got two of the best seats in the house. Our anticipation quickly grew!
While waiting, we assigned responsibilities on who would take pictures and videos and who would handle which device. But when Pope Francis arrived, we lost it (especially Tim who screamed his lungs out). Pope Francis is our favorite Pope. It was like meeting the Rockstar of the Catholic Church and nothing could be cooler! We wished we had a baby as Pope has the habit of stopping and blessing them (should we have borrowed a baby from people behind us?). After passing once and missing the shot (Tim wasn’t able to press the record button), we had another chance as Pope’s mobile returned. We missed that too (of course), and got semi-decent shots, but who cares! This goes down as one of our many you-just-gotta-be-there moments.
As the address started, Pope delivered his homily. The service also included readings in different languages, blessing of some newlyweds (we thought, hey why weren’t we part of that? We were married just eight months ago?) and blessing of all religious articles.
After the ceremony, we hoped Pope’s mobile would pass again (we could use a third chance to take proper pics), but it didn’t (and that’s okay!). Surrounded by the Swiss Guards, he left the square and us with reinvigorated Christian hearts and spirits.
Check out our video: