papal audience

Are you catholic? That might be a factor on if its worth it or not to you. We went to a papal audience a few years ago and thought it was interesting. Some people think the Vatican Museums are less crowded those mornings since many go to the audience instead of getting in line, the early afternoon lines can suddenly swell though as the audience comes to an end. We just buy the reserved time entry tickets for us so we don't have to worry about the lines. The Basilica will probably be closed until after the audience is over.

I'm not sure what the crowds will be like in September, but in April (during Holy Week) the Papal Audience crowds weren't bad at all. We figured it would be packed, but there were many empty seats and the square wasn't full at all. For us it was worth it, we were 20 feet from the Pope when he drove by in the Popemobile! You could tour St. Peter's afterwards. It's closed until after the audience, but you could grab some lunch & come back to see it.

Wife and I were in Rome for a Papal audience early May of last year. Beautiful day and quite a thrill to actually see the Pope but have to admit our experience was deminished by all the teenage kids there who seemed to be oblivious to the solemnity of the event. We had kids actually smoking, texting and generally acting like they were at a concert instead of being in the presence of an historic individual. All in all, it was a memorable event and glad we went.

I had to laugh at the last post because there was no way I would describe a papal audience as solemn. There are different groups that start yelling and creaming when he starts speaking in their language or if he mentions their country. That is probably something people should be aware of, in many ways, it's almost like a celebrity event, there will be different groups cheering, yelling and screaming at different points during the address. We expected something more solemn as well and were surprised, but we also kind of understood the cheering. I would not expect solemn though.