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 are being enacted that might impact travel plans.

Cardinals from around the world will meet under Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel on May 7 to elect a new leader of the Catholic Church after Pope Francis’s death. Dating back to the Middle Ages — when the idea of sovereigns being elected was somewhat revolutionary — the gathering,