Tony Parrini - Carlisle

We had been planning a visit to Florence to attend the opening night of Tosca since last October and decided that having travelled that far, we should include Rome on our itinerary.
We duly arrived in Rome with our friends and decided that our first full day should be spent touring Rome in an open topped bus - as many tourists do. We ambled at a leisurely pace to St Peter's Square after a late breakfast, aware that Papal Audiences took place on Wednesday's, and a kind nun gave us an entry ticket and 2 of us went through the barrier to stand at the back of the vast crowd. To our absolute astonishment his tour included travelling the roadway right where we were standing - if he was 5 feet from us as we received his blessing, that's all it was. We felt so privileged to have been present at Pope Benedict XVI's first Papal Audience - even our non-Catholic friends were totally overawed by the experience.