Friday, 24 May, 2002, 15:59 GMT 16:59 UK Travelling with the Pope
The Pope increasingly needs help to move
As ever, the "Bible" for those of us covering Papal tours is a 40-page booklet produced by the Vatican which details the Pope's itinerary and engagements minute by minute.
But even the "Bible" could not plan for events in Azerbaijan.
As the press corps bus – a brand new white Mercedes juggernaut – careered at 149km an hour to the Pope's first engagement, it smacked into a low concrete bridge, slicing off part of the roof.
The driver was not fazed. He continued the journey as if nothing had happened.
Perhaps he feared he would lose the police escort which preceded us.
Once the dust and smoke had cleared we realised that we had lost the entire air conditioning unit on the top of the bus.
No one seemed to care, not even our Vatican minder who calmly continued to distribute our press credentials.
We arrived on time to see the Pope sitting in a chair front of a memorial where he was to lay a wreath in memory of the victims of the war against neighbouring Armenia.
Top traveller
Back to the "Bible". Without this confidential and complicated small print document, available only in Italian, anyone trying to fathom what is happening would be lost.
There are 183 events on this tour, the 96th for the most travelled Pope in history.
During his 24-year reign, John Paul has collected more flight miles than to the moon and back.
We ought to have guessed when Karol Woytyla took the name John Paul at his election that he was planning to become the greatest traveller in history, in the footsteps of Saint Paul, the first serious international propagator of the Christian message.
Strict timetable
The first listed event each day takes place at dawn in a room of the five-star hotel wherever the Pope's itinerant Press Corps happens to be staying.
At the risk of appearing smug, I have to record that in Baku, where for the first time the Pope had no suitable Vatican embassy accommodation for an overnight stay, he and his retinue were quartered in a new four-star hotel.
That was slightly down market from where the scribblers were staying.
An unsmiling Vatican aide distributes the embargoed texts of the Pope's speeches for the day, usually at some unsocial hour like six o'clock in the morning.
The window of opportunity is narrow, the "Bible" informs you, unless you stumble from your sleep into the correct room at the correct time.
After 15 minutes, the door will be locked, and you will never know what the Pope is going to say, until he actually speaks.
The Pope's growing immobility has reached the point where he has to be winched into and out of his plane, and on the ground can only stagger a few steps at a time on the arm of his devoted secretary.
The trolley on small wheels on which the Pope is moved around at public ceremonies inside Saint Peters has now become an essential part of the baggage of the travelling Pope.
Next stop Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
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