homeitalycroatiaistanbul: Conclave 2

Tuesday 6th May 2025

Today is a good day to have a rest after a nice breakfast at our local café.

Paul is keen to go to the Vatican but I am less so. Long way and huge number of cobblestones. But we cannot do anything until Paul can confirm the details of our rental car pickup on Thursday. They are to ring. Alas they do not.

So what to do? Lets go to the Vatican with everyone else. I decide to go as I am unable to leave the hotel on my own due to cobblestone surrounds and hills and traffic. And I am bored.

So off we go on the long walk which I determine is not as long as the walk to the Fontana di Trevi. That is the good news.

We walk along the Tiber River and there are beautiful bridges. Today we stay on our side of the bridge but a great guide to where we are going.

famous female saint, Catherine

maybe a fountain

St Peters

It was not as busy as we thought but we chose not to get too close.

We bought some souvenirs from a shop as it was playing the song Halleluiah. Really nice. I wondered if perhaps it was on a loop to play the song over and over. Surely not but we had to wait till the end to find out. And there it was, again. Nice.

Nice scenes including a group of pilgrims from Mexico paying their respects.

There were also news crews set up everywhere with photographers getting ready for tomorrow for the start of the conclave.

And finally it was time for our family dinner to catch up with my cousin Tiziana and her husband Carmine who we had not seen for two years. They both speak ok English, particularly Carmine. Together with my brother John and his wife, Christina, we had a lovely dinner. It was 35ish years since John had seen Tiziana so it really was a special reunion.

The fountain near our first bar.