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Vatican rail link to summer estate opens
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AN antique train pulled out of the Vatican rail station yesterday to inaugurate a new weekly train service to the papal summer estate in Castel Gandolfo now that Pope Francis has decided to open it to the public.
Starting today, the general public can visit both papal estates — the Vatican Museums in Rome and the gardens and restored portrait gallery of Castel Gandolfo — thanks to the weekly service launched by the Vatican and Italy’s railway, Ferrovia dello Stato.
The service will feature modern trains. But for the inaugural press run yesterday Ferrovia produced its century-old, coal-burning locomotive to pull historic passenger cars.
One was the car in which St John XXIII traveled to Loreto and Assisi on October 4, 1962, on the eve of the Second Vatican Council. John’s trip — immortalized in photos of the smiling “good pope” waving from the train window — was historic given it marked the first time a pope had left the Vatican since 1857, when Pope Pius X declared himself a “prisoner” of the Vatican after the loss of the papal states.
Subsequent popes continued Pius’ self-imposed isolation, until John began what became the globe-trotting papacy.
Luigi Cantamessa, head of the Ferrovia foundation that owns the historic train, said the new run is the first regular train service between the Vatican’s tiny station and Castel Gandolfo.
The Vatican Museums, home to the Sistine Chapel and other papal treasures, runs the Castel Gandolfo estate, which at 55 hectares is bigger than the Vatican City State (44 hectares) and is located on a hill overlooking Lake Albano about 25 kilometers south of Rome.
Popes past have always used it as a summer getaway, but Francis, a workaholic and homebody who hates being alone, has decided not to use Castel Gandolfo, preferring to spend his summers at the Vatican hotel where he lives.
Last year, he decided to open Castel Gandolfo’s gardens to the public.
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