I initially thought that I would not be able to add much to the discussion in regards to the sites I visited in April 2025. I mean, what can yet another American tourist say about something as heavily visited as the Vatican? I did decide to visit during the year of the Jubilee, which I thought would add another layer to the experience, at least in an anthropological manner. 

However, the day before I was about to leave, the world received the sad news that Pope Francis had passed away. Even though I am somewhat distant from the faith my parents raised me in, I felt emotions for his passing that I had never really felt for the death of any public figure (except for maybe david bowie, that was pretty rough). Regardless of what faith you do (or don't) follow, I think we can all agree that the late Pope really lived for serving his fellow man. He was a rare example of really practicing what you preach. 

Now that I have gotten my obligatory waxing about Pope Francis out of the way, I can turn to my visit to Vatican City. I started my visit with a trip to the extensive Vatican Museums. Luckily, I preloaded my brain with the information about the artworks I really wanted to see because it was packed with both incredible works of art and a whole bunch of other humans. We started with the Pinacoteca first so we didn't forget about it after getting through the main museums, which I recommend. It was a great appetizer for the rest of the art and artifacts in the main body of the place. We made it into the Sistine Chapel before they closed it for the Conclave (guess which inflight movie I watched on the way over?). 

After a quick trapizzino break, we headed to St. Peter's next. We prepared for the worst as we had heard that St. Peter's had stayed open all night the night before to accommodate everyone paying their respects to the Pope. We were joined by more and more people as we walked towards St. Peter's square, until we were completely stopped outside of the square to wait for security inside of a huge crowd. After we passed through security, the whole experience was crowd controlled. The crowd was channeled into one fenced-in lane so we did not have freedom to wander in the square or the church. We noticed the chairs and giant TVs up for the Pope's funeral in a few days. After waiting in line for a surprisingly short amount of time, we entered St. Peter's. The interior of St. Peter's was both awe-inspiring and familiar, as I had grown up watching Christmas mass broadcast from the Vatican as a kid. We all shuffled forward in the line that led to the center of the cathedral, where Pope Francis was lying in state. As we approached the bronze canopy, there was a sense of gravitas, like I was somehow part of a process that started before I was born and will maybe continue after my death. How many people get to pay their last respects to a Pope?

And then the moment passed, with the Swiss Guard standing alert, and a zealous attendant shooing people away from taking pictures of the Pope's earthy body. It was a simple coffin for a good man, matched with a good cry from a simple barely-catholic silly enough to wait in line to say goodbye to a pope she never met.