ROME — A chorus of honking horns arises from a gridlocked road almost in the shadow of St. Peter's Basilica. Sidewalks are clogged with tour groups doggedly following colorful plastic flags waved by their leaders.
In this Easter season in this millennial year, Rome is all but bursting at its ancient seams with visitors.
Many are Roman Catholic faithful heeding Pope John Paul II's call to come to the city during what the church has proclaimed a Holy Year, a 700-year-old tradition dating to Pope Boniface VIII.
But plenty of others are in town for pilgrimages of a decidedly secular sort, lured by the Eternal City's eternal seductions: sumptuous meals, designer Italian goods, eye-popping art and architecture, a cool and sunny Roman spring.
"I'm an agnostic — I'm here because it's beautiful," said Jane Forbell, a 52-year-old Canadian visitor heading into the Vatican for a look at the Renaissance paintings in its opulent museums.
The devout, too, are making their mark. In the four Rome basilicas designated as sites where pilgrims who visit this year can obtain plenary indulgences — wiping out or lessening punishment for sins — crowds of faithful light candles, bow their heads in prayer and head into booths to make confession in one of half a dozen offered languages.
On a recent day at one of those basilicas, St. John Lateran, pilgrims waited in a long line to climb on their knees up the adjoining marble Scala Santa, or Holy Staircase. Tradition holds that the staircase was trod upon by Jesus. So the Empress Helena, the religiously industrious mother of Constantine, had the whole thing packed up and brought to Rome from Jerusalem.
Sister Katya, a young Romanian novice nun who arrived in Rome only last week, had tears in her eyes when she reached the top. "I am so fortunate to be in a holy place at a holy time," she said softly.
Heading into one of the year's most crowd-drawing seasons — Holy Week, commencing with Palm Sunday and ending with Easter — it wasn't yet clear whether official forecasts of up to 30 million visitors to the city this year will prove overblown.
Some hoteliers and restaurateurs grumble that millennial hype has actually scared away would-be tourists. And shopkeepers say that crowds of visitors don't necessarily translate into booming business.