Tourists who have booked to visit Rome in the coming weeks will experience the city during a rare historical moment.

Following the death of Pope Francis on 21 April, a series of religious rituals and procedures will be enacted that might impact travel plans.

The Argentinian-born pontiff died on Monday of a stroke, which triggered a coma and “irreversible” heart failure, the Vatican announced.

Crowds and queues are expected to be particularly heavy, especially given the celebrations for the Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year are already drawing an increased number of visitors.

Here’s what to know about expected travel disruptions in Rome, or, if you’re planning a trip to witness some of the religious traditions, where you can participate in them.

Rome travel warning: Attractions closed and long queues

Travellers to Rome in the next few weeks have been warned to expect closures, visitor restrictions and crowds at some of the city’s main attractions.

Rome’s key tourist sites within the Vatican – the heart of the Catholic Church – will now be absorbed by mourning and reelection procedures.

Tourists should expect limited access to St Peter’s Basilica, where Pope Francis’ body will lie in state from tomorrow, 23 April.

As mourners flock to pay their respects, tourists wanting to visit the church should expect lengthy queues and heightened security.

Some areas of the basilica may not be accessible, including the dome. Guided tours to the basilica are suspended as access is via the Sistine Chapel.

Pope Francis requested to be buried in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, a majestic UNESCO-designated sanctuary containing a piece of the Holy Crib and a venerated icon of the Virgin Mary as the protector of the Roman people.

Access to the church is likely to be restricted due to funeral preparations and the burial.

When will the Sistine Chapel be closed?

Around 15-20 days after the pontiff’s death, the conclave will begin, a storied process to determine the next pope.

This strictly confidential gathering sees Roman Catholic cardinals locked inside the Sistine Chapel until a decision is made.

As such, the room adorned by Michelangelo’s frescoed tour de force will be closed for about a week before the conclave begins and will remain closed for the entire duration of the process.

It will likely open again a couple of days after the conclave ends, as it has done after the death of previous Popes.

The exact dates for the closure have not yet been announced.

The chapel is accessed through the Vatican Museums. These will remain open to visitors with all other parts accessible, including the Raphael Rooms, according to tour operator Through Eternity Tours.

Tours of the Vatican Gardens will be suspended for security reasons, however, as the cardinals are bused back and forth from the chapel to their accommodation through the grounds.

Millions expected in Rome for Pope’s funeral

While it may be disappointing to forgo seeing the Sistine Chapel or St Peter’s Basilica, a visit in this period can also be a once-in-a-lifetime experience (the Italian expression for ‘once in a blue moon’ is ‘every time a pope dies’).

Visitors from around the world are expected to descend on Rome in the coming weeks for a chance to witness this monumental event for the Catholic Church.

“Historically, during the passing of a pope – as we experienced firsthand in April 2005 during the death of Pope John Paul II – travellers witnessed a profound moment of history,” James Ridgway, CEO of Christian travel specialist ETS, told Travel Weekly.

“While some sites around St. Peter’s Basilica and Vatican City experienced closures or restricted access, many travellers were able to participate in public gatherings, memorials and prayer services, creating a deeply meaningful experience.”

If you are planning a short-notice trip to participate in some of the funeral and reelection events, you should expect higher flight prices.

“We’ll definitely see an increase in flight prices to Rome and to Italy over the next few weeks, as the faithful flock to pay their respects and potentially to see the announcement of the new Pope,” Angus Kidman, travel expert at Finder, told Australian site news.com.au.

Hotel prices in Rome are also likely to rise as demand increases, says Tim Hentschel, the co-founder and CEO of travel company HotelPlanner, while some shops and restaurants may be closed as a sign of respect.

The Pope’s body will be lying in state for public viewing in St Peter’s from tomorrow until Saturday, 26 April, when the funeral will take place in St Peter’s Square.

The funeral is expected to draw huge crowds, possibly larger than that of Pope John Paul II in 2005, which was attended by approximately four million people.

Where to witness the announcement of the new pope

When the conclave begins, St. Peter’s Square will remain open, but it will be packed with visitors and media.

The outcome of voting rounds is indicated via smoke released from the chapel chimney – black for inconclusive, white for the successful election of a new pope.

According to the National Catholic Reporter, you can see the smoke from the chapel twice daily – around noon after the first two ballots and again at 7 pm after the last round of voting.

White smoke might appear earlier, at around 10.30 am or 5.30 pm.

Not all roads lead to Cracow. In fact, getting to this town in the heart of the Outback requires careful preparation.

Halfway there, the GPS signal disappears. And, as there are no petrol stations along the route, you need to bring an adequate supply of fuel if you don’t want to get stuck in the middle of nowhere.

Cracow, however, rewards the traveller’s effort. After a long, pothole-laden journey, you finally see a town that — although it does not resemble Kraków, the better-known Polish city — has its own subtly charming, albeit austere, character.

The town’s ties to Poland remain unclear.

Some say that the founder of the first settlement in the area had a Polish wife and was moved by her compatriots’ struggle for freedom in the 19th century.

But others believe that the name comes from the rustling of dry branches (or crack), which are abundant in this harsh climate.

Either way, what is beyond doubt is that this place has long attracted people with an explorer’s spirit and a desire for something more than an ordinary life.

Cracow was one of the last towns to emerge during the gold rush of the 1930s. At its peak, it had a bustling population of around 10,000 people, and almost 20,000 kg of gold was mined locally.

Eventually, its good fortune came to an end — the gold mine closed and Cracow turned into a ghost town.

The population dropped to around 50, and its centre was filled with rusty buildings no longer reminiscent of its past vibrancy.

Prominent among these dilapidated locales, however, is the Cracow Hotel and Pub, run by Stuart and Nikki Burke along with their two children, Brophy and Chilli.

Although the local gold mine has resumed operations after being deserted for years, the town is far from revived.

Euronews headed to Cracow to find out how a pub in the middle of nowhere works, and to tell the story of the people who have decided to breathe life into this forgotten place.

A magnet for adventurers

Cracow Pub and Hotel owner Stuart Burke is one of those rare free spirits willing to choose the Australian wilderness as his home.

Stuart was part of a troupe of tent boxers in his youth and participated in fights under the nickname “Kid Goanna”. He and other fighters travelled from town to town, offering a rare moment of entertainment for hard-working farmers and miners in the Australian Outback.

The Cracow Hotel had been in the hands of another boxer before — for many years it was owned by legendary boxer Fred Brophy, an icon of the Australian tent boxing scene.

It was with this troupe that Stuart Burke first came to town, and the Cracow pub is where he met his future wife, Nikki.

When Brophy announced that he was going to sell the property, the Burkes immediately decided to buy it — to ensure that the Cracow story continued.

“Twenty-three years later, we’re married, have two children and run the pub where we met,” says Stuart.

But life in the Australian wilderness is far from perfect. Parcels cannot be sent to Cracow, and the nearest shop is a 3.5-hour drive away. The Burkes do what they can, but at the height of the tourist season they have to travel this route up to once a week.

Stuart isn’t complaining, however: “We didn’t even have a road until 10 years ago.”

Despite the obvious challenges of living in Cracow, the family cannot imagine living anywhere else. They agree that Cracow is their home, and running the pub is their way of life. As Nikki recalls, since its founding in 1938, the pub has showed its “ability to survive” even through the worst of times.

‘You have to get lost’ in order to get to Cracow

Stuart stresses that there are two ways to get to Cracow. “You either have to be very meticulous to get to us or get very, very lost!”

The spiritual atmosphere and reputation of the last town of the gold rush era attracts a particular type of visitor.

“All types of people visit us, but especially vagabonds, travellers and even rock stars,” he says. The walls and ceilings of the pub, covered from top to bottom with visitors’ signatures, are an archive of all those who have managed to reach this remote place.

But Cracow values loyalty above all: the area’s permanent residents visit the pub regularly, and the staff know their orders by heart. It is a place to exchange good and bad news, overhear local gossip and complain about the weather.

The pub’s owners are particularly proud that they manage to attract customers despite not having the poker machines, so-called ‘pokies’, that are booming in popularity in the Australian Outback.

Gambling addiction is one of the country’s leading public health challenges. Australians lose more than $25bn (€13.9bn) each year on legal gambling, making them the world “leaders” in terms of per capita losses.

The Cracow Pub is resisting these trends by trying to build a local identity around other activities.

The owners recently became involved in organising a rally of Cracovians — both descendants of former miners and those whose ties to the town are purely emotional.

Residents also recognise the role played by the reopened mine. Although it has not contributed to significant population growth, it is sustaining the local community.

The Cracowians stubbornly refuse to let their town disappear from the map.

Is it haunted?

In recent years, the town has gained yet another face and one straight out of a horror film.

A film crew has moved into the abandoned hospital in Cracow, and the town has grown into a mecca for independent horror films.

Special effects creator and make-up artist Kadey Platt, who works as a bartender in the Cracow pub after hours, explains that although she ended up in the town by accident, she has now lived there for two years.

“I’m a city girl. I never imagined myself in a place like this,” she says.

Platt and her team were looking for a location for a horror film about a zombie kangaroo. The strangeness of the Cracow pub seemed ideal, and she later decided to stay on.

Along with her crew, she bought a nearby abandoned hospital and turned it into their command centre. As she recalls, “the quietness that Cracow offers is conducive to creativity. There are no distractions, instead you can find a kangaroo mum relaxing by the threshold”.

Platt emphasises that the contrast between the quiet town and the lively pub never ceases to amaze her. “These walls are full of history,” she says.

Small-town ghosts

The spirits of Cracow are particularly looked after by Brophy, the 20-year-old son of the pub’s owners, who was named after the legendary boxer through whom his parents met.

Together with his mum, Brophy has been researching unmarked graves in Cracow. Thanks to their efforts, they were able to restore the cemetery and commemorate the miners and locals buried there whose names are no longer remembered.

As he points out, although no one has found gold in Cracow on their own for years, the ground here hides other stories.

Brophy is interested in the fate of the indigenous inhabitants of the area — their culture, customs and tragic fates. He explores the traces of massacres perpetrated on Aboriginal people by white settlers in pursuit of gold. “It’s an unwritten chapter,” he says.

Just as we were about to leave Cracow, a car pulled up in front of the pub.

One of the locals came up to Brophy with a box full of old newspaper cuttings, found somewhere in an attic in Cracow. “I’ve got some new stories for you,” he said.

And so we saw with our own eyes how a pub in the Australian wilderness had become a custodian of the memory of a small town and its intricate history.

“That’s the way it is with Cracow,” says Stuart. “It may not be on the way, but you can’t stop coming back to it!”

Flying into Inari in the far north of Finland felt like landing at the end of the world.

In every direction, trees and snow. Now and then, we got a glimpse of warmly lit cabins, and occasionally sprawling resorts, dotted amongst the trees.

It was snowing, and the temperature hovered around five degrees below zero. As we touched down on the icy runway, I’ll admit I felt a flicker of concern about the stopping power of the Finnair Airbus A321 that had brought us up from Helsinki.

But Ivalo Airport was well prepared, and the landing was smooth and uneventful. We rolled gently to the end of the 2,500-metre runway, slowing steadily as the pilots avoided heavy braking in the snowy conditions.

An up-and-coming destination

Ivalo Airport is the gateway to Inari, Finland’s largest municipality by area, but also the most sparsely populated. Part of Finnish Lapland, it offers a wealth of winter experiences, just without the elves or the man in red.

This is a winter wonderland for the more discerning traveller: fantasy-level snowfall, breathtaking landscapes, and endless possibilities for activity—or inactivity. Husky sledding, snowmobiling, skiing, snowboarding, reindeer herding—Inari has it all, and then some.

If you prefer to relax and simply soak up the scenery, you’re in luck. Saunas abound in this frozen land. At the beautiful Star Arctic Hotel, where we stayed, some cabins featured private saunas, while others had full glass ceilings for aurora watching right from your bed.

Here in Saariselkä, accommodation options are plentiful, but the Star Arctic is super convenient for the ski slopes and for the entrance to the longest toboggan run in the country. Plummeting down Kaunispää hill, it descends 1.8 km deep into the forest, dropping around 180 metres.

However you choose to get out of your resort, as soon as you do, the landscape will take your breath away. Inari is wild, exhilarating, bleak, terrifying and jaw-droppingly beautiful all at once.

Unlike more popular Lapland destinations like Rovaniemi, it has not suffered from overtourism. In fact, it’s probably one of the most unspoiled places left in Western Europe.

“That’s Russia over there,” my snowshoeing instructor noted, pointing at the endless sea of pine trees stretching as far as the eye could see. “Of course, you can’t see the borders from here,” she chuckled.

Inari has become a rising star for adventure seekers wanting to experience the real Lapland. Last winter, nine international airlines operated seasonal services to Ivalo Airport, including a new route from British Airways – its most northerly destination to date.

Finnish Lapland, in general, is becoming increasingly popular year on year. Across the Finavia-managed airports of Rovaniemi, Kittilä, Ivalo, Kuusamo, and Kemi-Tornio, 1.8 million passengers arrived in 2024, up almost 20 per cent on the year before.

How do they keep the runways clear?

With average temperatures plummeting as low as -18 degrees and around 200 days of snow a year, how can these airports safely handle all these flights?

Back in Helsinki, I caught up with Finavia’s Pyry Pennanen, head of airfield maintenance, to find out more about what goes into keeping airports operating in such extreme conditions.

“We basically promise summer-like conditions in our runways year-round,” says Pennanen. “But in Helsinki, winter is a very real thing.”

Helsinki is a different proposition from Ivalo. Handling an average of 350 departures a day, it’s an important international hub, with several flights landing and taking off every hour. With around 100 days of snow a year, keeping the runway clear is essential to maintaining Helsinki’s reputation as an airport that runs like clockwork.

“To keep the aircraft on schedule, we have 13 minutes to clear the runway, but we can do it in 11,” Pennanen explains. “The most we have to do is around once per hour if it’s really snowing, but on the worst days, it can be once every 20 minutes.”

Delivering this speedy clearance is a team of around 15 machines that all head out together to make the 3,500-metre runway safe. The crown jewels of this bizarre ballet of beasts are the Vammas PSB 5500 sweeper blowers, developed in partnership with Helsinki Airport.

These 31-tonne monsters stand 3.7 metres tall and stretch a massive 25 metres long. They can clear a 5.5 metre span of runway in just 11 minutes, thanks to their unique trifecta of snow-clearing features.

Designed to plough, sweep and blow (hence the PSB in the name), the process begins with a spring-loaded cutting edge on its nine metre plough, keeping contact firm on uneven surfaces. Behind that, a dense broom made of stiff metal bristles sweeps up any stubborn ice on the ground. Finally, the powerful jet air blower shoots loose snow and ice away from the runway at speeds of more than 400 km an hour.

Joining the convoy is a terrifying-looking machine, a self-propelled snow blower made by Overaasen in Norway.  A towering 4.5 metres tall, this 1,500-horsepower behemoth can smash even the most stubborn ice off surfaces, clearing up to 10,000 tonnes an hour and casting the snow 35 metres away from the runway.

“The most challenging conditions are when we have freezing rain,” says Pennanen. “When it’s minus ten and the freezing rain is still falling, it’s very difficult to deal with.”

In these conditions, the expansive de-icer comes into play. Spraying potassium formate on the runway surface will melt the ice in under an hour, and keep the surface ice-free for several hours beyond. The chemical is readily decomposed and contains no nitrogen, making it safe for the environment.

Smaller beasts like wheel loaders, tractors, lorries and chemical sprayers also help keep the runways clear.  In all, Finnaiva’s fleet in Helsinki spans around 200 vehicles that work from October to May. In the months in between, the team carries out essential maintenance on the vehicles to keep them mission-ready for the coming winter.

In the Arctic Circle, conditions are even more extreme

In Finnish Lapland, snow usually covers the ground from early November to late May (although it was worryingly late to arrive in some parts last winter). Across the region, you can expect from 25 cm to as much as a metre of snow on the ground throughout the winter.

With over 200 days of snow in a typical year, Finavia’s Lapland airports have their work cut out. Yet, as a company, Finavia has never had to close an airport due to inclement weather, and the number of cancelled or delayed flights is minimal.

Up in the Arctic Circle, Ivalo Airport sees more snow than most.

“We operate in winter conditions for seven months,” says Jarmo Pyhäjärvi, Ivalo Airport manager. “We are the most northerly airport in the European Union, and we operate in Arctic conditions.”

Like Helsinki, Ivalo Airport has a fleet of machinery to keep the runway and taxiways clear. These include plough-sweep-blow units, high power snow blowers, tractors, brush blowers and more.

Because the airport is so small, its staff headcount is low. In the winter, it doubles from its summer level of 25 employees to around 50. Fifteen of these people will be trained to work on maintenance, keeping the airport clear of ice and snow.

“Many of the staff will have a double role,” says Finavia’s communications manager Elina Suominen. “One minute they might be checking in a bag, the next they’re doing security, or driving a snow plough.”

Seeing these big snow-clearing beasts in action was astounding. The sheer power of the vehicles and the incredible volume of snow they move is incredible, with clearing operations performed not at a slow plod, but at speeds of 40 to 50 km an hour.

Across all its airports, Finavia uses sunken sensors to monitor the conditions on the runway. Tiny changes can be tracked, giving the operator early warning of incoming weather, sometimes six to eight hours in advance.

As with Helsinki, it is not so much the snowfall that’s a problem, but rather the temperature itself. When the freezing rain hits in Ivalo, the lower number of flight arrivals means their strategy for clearance is slightly different.

“We do what we call precision management maintenance, which means that the runway is cleared just before the flight comes in,” explains Suominen. “The snow protects the runway from the freezing rain, and we let it work as a shield and only take it off at the last moment. This way we don’t need to use any chemicals.”

Pyhäjärvi recalls a winter in 1999 when the temperature dropped to an eye-watering minus 50 degrees. The most recent extreme temperature event, in 2023, saw the mercury drop to minus 35. Even then, the airport cancelled just one solitary flight, maintaining all other operations as normal.

Amazingly, Ivalo Airport does all this with net-zero emissions. In the last 10 years, the airport has cut its emissions by 98 per cent through the use of renewable energy. The remaining two per cent is offset through approved programmes. Its snow-clearing machinery all runs on biofuels.

Innovating for even safer Arctic Circle flights

Companies like Finavia are essential in developing the technologies and equipment required to keep the world’s most extreme airports open all year round.

Most recently, Ivalo Airport has worked with a number of Finnish companies to test autonomous snow-clearing operations. Working with Nokian Tyres, snow removal equipment manufacturer Vammas (Fortbrand), energy company Neste and machinery manufacturer Valtra, they developed a new concept for optimising snow removal at remote airports.

The vision is that, when airports like Ivalo are closed for the night, or running on a skeleton crew, and the snow starts to fall, an autonomous tractor will spring to life. Using optimised, predefined waylines, the tractor will clear the runway of snow, making it safe for the next plane to land. If it’s running low on fuel, it will refuel itself using low-emission biodiesel.

Pilot projects have been very promising, although the autonomous tractors aren’t being used yet. Nevertheless, Finavia is confident of success in the longer term.

Also testing autonomous operations is fellow Arctic Circle operator Swedavia, manager of Sweden’s airports. This winter, it has tested eight PSB machines in autonomous mode, and it is keen to roll this out to actual operations.

“We are still in the testing phase, but this winter we have made major steps forward,” says Ali Sadeghi, chief asset officer of facilities and systems at Swedavia Airports. “These additions to our snow clearance fleet are a strategic step and will help us make Swedavia’s snow clearance more safe, efficient and predictable as well as climate friendly.”

Like Finavia, Swedavia has not had to close an airport because of bad weather for a very long time. “Stockholm Arlanda Airport has an excellent record of dealing with snow,” adds Sadeghi. “We have never closed the airport due to snow or bad weather in over 60 years.”

Next door in Norway, Oslo Airport undertook intensive testing of autonomous ploughs for over a year, deploying them in daily operations in 2021. Up to six enormous machines move simultaneously, all with no driver onboard, controlled either from a command vehicle or from the comfort of an office desk.

Powered by cloud-based software known as the Yeti Autonomy Service Platform (YASP), developed by Yeti Move, the vehicles are connected so that they know where to go and what to do. There are high hopes that such advancements could make snow clearance operations even more eco-friendly in the future.

“YASP ultimately cuts fuel consumption and emissions,” John Emil Halden, COO of Yeti Move, tells Business Norway. “Our solution optimises power use by ensuring operations are consistent at all times. Also, well-planned operations with autonomous vehicles will reduce the driving needed to complete the job, and fewer vehicles are needed overall.”

As a traveller, I remain in awe of these incredible airports and their ability to keep flying regardless of the conditions. And I am thankful, because without airports like Ivalo, it wouldn’t be so easy to discover the wonders of the truly unspoilt corners of the world.