Passetto di Borgo

Yeah.

So that guy, Pope Nicholas III, also may have been the guy who created a very interesting structure known today as the Passetto di Borgo.

This is a crazy enclosed and elevated passageway that sits on top of older fortifications and connects the Vatican with the Castel Sant'Angelo.

Way back in the 6th century, during the fighting between the Goths and the Romans over control of the city, the Goths built a defensive wall through what is now the Borgo neighborhood.

And on the way back down, the path will give you the option to exit or to divert to explore the bastions.

There is a walkway that will take you all the way around the top of that outer wall and bastions.

And if you want to do the Passetto di Borgo, if you wanna walk that walkway between the Vatican and the Castel, you access that from the San Marco Bastion.

Now, I will note, if you wanna do the Passetto, it is an addition to the basic ticket, so you have to pay more.

I mean, that was originally the Hadrian's Mausoleum.

And then its adaption, its adaptation into a much more conventional castle during the Middle Ages and the papal fortress and the building of the Passetto, which joined it to the Vatican.

So the popes could escape there when Rome came under attack, as it did, particularly from, you know, French and later from Spanish people.

Monarchs.