The return of the Pope to Castel Gandolfo.
On 5 July 2026, after twelve years of silence, the great door of the Apostolic Palace opened to receive a Pope once more. Robert Francis Prevost, Leo XIV, gave the papal town back its deepest identity: that of the summer residence of the successor of Peter.
It was half past eight on a July Sunday when the papal car crossed Piazza della Libertà, almost in silence. People had been gathering for hours. There were the townspeople, those who still remembered the last summer of Benedict XVI, back in 2013. There were the visitors, who had come for the occasion. And above all there were the children, who had never seen a Pope pass this way.
In twelve years of pontificate, Pope Francis never took a holiday in Castel Gandolfo. The town had lost a piece of itself. The rooms of the Palace had become a museum — since 2016, under Francis himself — but the gardens, the square, the cafés: everything remained in waiting. Like a house that waits.
The 400th anniversary
The return of Leo XIV falls in a symbolic year: four hundred years since the first papal residence in these rooms. It was Urban VIII who, in 1626, acquired the palace from the Savelli family and began a tradition that would last four centuries with only three interruptions: Pius IX, Paul VI and Francis.
«This is not a return to nostalgia», the director of the Vatican Museums explained. «It is the recovery of a function. The Pope needs a place to think, to write, to meet people. Castel Gandolfo has always been that place.»
“The Pope needs a place to think, to write, to meet people. Castel Gandolfo has always been that place.”Director of the Vatican Museums
What changes for the town
On the Sundays of July — the 12th, 19th and 26th — the Pope will recite the Angelus from the loggia of the Palace, as tradition dictates. Piazza della Libertà will fill again with the faithful, with banners, with parish groups arriving from across Italy. Hotels in the town have already recorded occupancy rates unseen in the past ten years. Bookings for July 2026 were close to sold out four months in advance.
But this is not only economics. It is something older. It is the return of a role. In the evening, when the square empties and only the wind rising from the crater remains, the Apostolic Palace has a lit window again. And, for the first time in twelve years, that window is the Pope's window.
Visiting the Pontifical Villas
The Palace remains open to the public as a museum, with some seasonal changes. During the papal residence the private apartments cannot be visited. The library, the throne room, the chapel and the courtyard remain accessible. The Pontifical Villas — fifty-five hectares of gardens with Domitian's villa, Borgo Laudato Si' and the Bergantino nymphaeum — can be visited by shuttle train with a booking, with the combined ticket at 26 euros for full-price admission.
The advice for visitors is simple: arrive on Sunday morning, attend the Angelus, have lunch in one of the town's fraschette, then head up to the gardens in the afternoon. It is a day that conveys what Castel Gandolfo really means.