St. Peter’s Square is a massive plaza located directly in front of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City, the papal enclave surrounded by Rome.

At the centre of the square is an Egyptian obelisk, erected at the current site in 1586. Gian Lorenzo Bernini designed the square almost 100 years later, including the massive Tuscan colonnades, four columns deep, which embrace visitors in “the maternal arms of Mother Church.” A granite fountain constructed by Bernini in 1675 matches another fountain designed by Carlo Maderno dating to 1613.  Half way around the square is where the line stretches to get into St. Peter’s Basilica.  We thought about not even bothering with it because the line up was literally half way around the square.  However, we persisted in the heat of hell and truth be told the line up only took about 25 min which was great.  St. Peter’s square is absolutely massive.  It can host up to 50,000 people for a mass which we found out was being set up for tomorrow morning.