Renovations have left Rome in chaos. Now 35 million visitors are about to descend

By CNN Newsource

Published December 11, 2024 3:57 am

By Antonia Mortensen, Christopher Lamb and Alessandro Gentile, CNN

Rome (CNN) — Anyone visiting Rome in 2024 could be forgiven for being disappointed. While the city has no shortage of ancient treasures to explore, many of them have been buried under scaffolding amid extensive renovations.

The city’s historic center has resembled a building site, with construction crews working round the clock on hundreds of infrastructure and restoration projects. Traffic, tricky at the best of times, has been abysmal.

The good news is that, when it’s all over, the Eternal City will hopefully emerge more beautiful than ever, served by a newly revamped metro system that will whisk tourists to some of the star attractions.

The bad news is, just weeks away from a yearlong Roman Catholic celebration expected to bring up to 35 million to the city, much of the restoration work is yet to be finished.

The jubilee celebration is a regular Catholic Church event, instituted by Pope Boniface VIII in 1300 and held every 25 years since 1470. It pulls huge numbers of pilgrims to Rome and the Vatican seeking forgiveness.

During celebrations, the “holy doors” of Rome’s major basilica churches, normally cemented shut, are opened. Visitors who pass through the doors and carry out spiritual acts will receive plenary indulgences — forgiveness for their sins.

Race against the clock

The forthcoming jubilee will begin on Christmas Eve — December 24 — when Pope Francis opens the holy door in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City. It’ll run until January 6, 2026.

In that time Rome, already one of Europe’s most visited cities, is forecast to be inundated with record numbers of visitors at a time when many destinations in Italy are buckling under the strain of overtourism.

For Italy’s capital, the jubilee has been seen as an opportunity to upgrade the city’s tourist attractions and facilities. The city has received $2 billion in special jubilee funding from the Italian state along with over $3 billion from post-pandemic funds from the EU.

The disruption involved in overhauling Rome will prove to be worth it, officials say.

But it’s been a bitter pill for locals and tourists to swallow over the past year. Frustration at seeing the attractions they came to visit swathed in scaffolding and tarpaulins has frequently boiled over onto social media.

Some worry the work — including infrastructure projects unrelated to the jubilee — won’t be finished in time.

Numerous visitors have poked fun at the city by posting videos as they made their way around the city’s historical hot spots, only to find one building site after another.

Piazza Navona, home of the Fountain of the Four Rivers; Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano; Fountain of the Four Lions; Ponte Sant’Angelo; Piazza Pia; Piazza Risorgimento; Piazza della Repubblica; Piazaa dei Cinquecento — the restoration list is long.

Last month, a temporary pool erected in front of the under-restoration Trevi Fountain was mocked for the underwhelming experience it offered visitors. A new ticketed entry at the fountain has also proven divisive.

Piazza Venezia, one of Rome’s most famous squares, is now a construction site for a new Line C metro station. Looming over the space is machinery for digging down 85 meters and installing reinforced concrete.

The station will be 45 meters underground, with eight floors, each with an area of 4,500 square meters.

This being Rome, removing 66,000 cubic meters of earth is as much an exercise in archaeology as it is excavation, adding complications to the construction. Artifacts found in the dig are to be displayed in the station when it’s finished.

‘Romans are mad’

Near the Vatican, another ambitious project is underway to create a pedestrian area between Castel Sant’Angelo and St. Peter’s Square specifically for the jubilee.

The Rome mayor’s office has confirmed to CNN that this will be ready before Christmas Eve.

There are, however, doubts that the city is prepared for what’s about to hit it.

“Rome is not ready, it is chaotic,” says Sylwia Wysocka, a journalist who has been covering the Vatican and Italy for the Polish Press Agency (PAP) for more than two decades.

“Romans are mad. I hear it every time I get on the bus.”

Riccardo Abate, a guide who shows visitors around on the back of his Vespa scooter, says that he and Scooteroma, the company he works for, have found traffic caused by the works to be challenging.

“It’s been busy, it’s been chaotic, it’s been a little bit frustrating — especially for the everyday traffic,” he says. “Being in a car is no fun.”

But, he says, the jubilee deadline is at least pushing the city to complete projects that could otherwise drag on.

“Many of the works would have taken much longer without a deadline,” he adds. And the “changes mean that Romans will benefit from these improvements long after jubilee, so the pain is worth it.”

Eugenio Patanè, Rome’s deputy mayor of mobility, says whatever the readiness of various parts of the city, it will be able to cope.

“Like all capitals, we are constantly under the pressure from tourism and frequent mega events,” he says. “Rome is a city where we embrace these challenges and welcome visitors, so these big events don’t scare us. We know how to adapt to the pressure.”

Meanwhile, Rome’s mayor, Roberto Gualtieri, insists everything is running to schedule.

“Yes, we are working very hard for the Jubilee and all the construction sites that are supposed to be ready for the jubilee and finished by December will be finished by December — so there will be new things to admire in Rome next year,” he tells CNN.

A time to forgive

If it isn’t ready, at least the city will be in a forgiving mood.

Pope Francis has called for the jubilee’s spirit of absolution to be extended beyond Rome, calling for richer countries to forgive the debts of poorer nations, and for governments to issue pardons or amnesties for individual prisoners.

On December 26, Francis will become the first pope to open a holy door in a prison when he travels to Rome’s Rebibbia detention facility.

The Vatican is also planning special events with an array of groups including sportspeople and “digital missionaries and Catholic influencers” and has created a special jubilee mascot, Luce, a cartoon character dressed as a pilgrim, to try and better engage the church with pop culture.

Meanwhile, St. Peter’s Basilica has partnered with Microsoft to offer a range of Artificial Intelligence-enabled services to allow people to better experience its treasures remotely and in person. A live webcam has also been set up to livestream the tomb of St. Peter.

This is not Francis’ first jubilee. In 2015-2016 he held an “extraordinary” jubilee of mercy which began, for the first time, with the opening of a door in the cathedral in the conflict-ravaged Central African Republic.

That jubilee saw visitors of over 21 million to Rome while the last ordinary jubilee in 2000 saw an estimated 25 million visits to the Eternal City.

Despite this coming year’s expected crowds, locals say non-religious tourists shouldn’t necessarily think twice about visiting the city, especially as it begins emerging, freshly cleaned, from under its current covers.

In recent days, the fountain in front of Rome’s Pantheon reopened, giving a taste of what’s to come. Restoration works — including cleaning, waterproofing and metal and stucco repair — have restored the structure’s original color, and the difference is startling.

And as scooter tour guide Abate points out: “There is never a bad time to visit Rome.”

Antonia Lenhert contributed to this report

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