CASTELGANDOLFO, Italy (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI arrived yesterday at his summer residence near Rome after spending nearly three weeks on holiday in the Italian Alps.
The 80-year-old pope intends to stay in Castelgandolfo until late September but return to the Vatican by helicopter every Wednesday to hold his weekly general audience, according to the ANSA news agency.
On Sundays he will recite the Angelus from the balcony of the papal residence overlooking a lake some 30 kilometers (18 miles) southeast of Rome.
The Feast of the Assumption, on August 15, will see Benedict celebrating mass at the town's parish church.
The pope will leave Castelgandolfo to attend an Italian Catholic youth rally in the central Italian city of Loreto on September 1-2, and again September 7-9 for a trip to Austria.
Another pastoral visit will take the pope to Velettri, a town near Castelfgandolfo, on September 23.
Benedict's stay in the mountain village of Lorenzago di Cadore was quiet, "practically monastic," according to his private secretary Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, quoted in the daily Il Giornale.