LONDON: King Charles III arrives in Italy on Monday for a four-day visit where he will become the first UK monarch to address Italy’s joint parliament, but will not meet Pope Francis due to the pontiff’s health issues.
The trip comes 10 days after Charles, 76, had his own health scare, being admitted to hospital after experiencing temporary side effects from his cancer treatment.
Royal sources cited by the UK media said the king was “raring to go” on the trip, during which he will also celebrate his 20th wedding anniversary with wife Camilla.
Charles, who is the head of the Church of England, was scheduled to meet Pope Francis on Tuesday.
But the 88-year-old head of the Catholic Church is recovering from life-threatening pneumonia at his Vatican home, where doctors say he will need at least two months of convalescence, forcing the king to reschedule his plans.
“Their Majesties send The Pope their best wishes for his convalescence and look forward to visiting him in The Holy See, once he has recovered,” said the royal family’s official X account.
Francis made a surprise appearance Sunday as he mingled with crowds at the Vatican, two weeks after leaving hospital.
Charles, who is making his first visit to Italy as king, will instead spread his Rome engagements over two days, allowing “the programme to breathe a bit”, according to a royal source.
The couple will visit the Colosseum Archaeological Park in Rome, where they will be met by Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli, his ministry has announced.
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Charles will also meet Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and President Sergio Mattarella, and is set to become the first British monarch to address a joint sitting of the Italian parliament, according to Buckingham Palace.
‘Minor bump’
The king and queen are expected to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary on Wednesday at a state banquet in Rome.
Following a decades-long affair, the couple married on April 9, 2005, at a ceremony in Windsor, followed by a religious blessing in the grounds of Windsor Castle.
Charles announced he had cancer in February 2024.
Just six weeks after came the news that his daughter-in-law Catherine, Princess of Wales, had also been diagnosed with cancer and had begun chemotherapy.
Catherine, who is married to throne heir and Charles’s eldest son, Prince William, said in January that she was now in remission.
Charles returned to work within two and a half months and gradually ramped up his duties during the rest of 2024, making several foreign trips that took him as far as Australia and Samoa.
But the Italy trip was thrown into doubt on March 27, when the palace announced Charles had been hospitalised due to side effects from his weekly treatment.
Officials said the stay of a few hours was a “minor bump” in his medical journey, and he resumed engagements last Tuesday.
Charles and Camilla will also visit Rome and Ravenna in northern Italy to celebrate “the strong bilateral relationship between Italy and the United Kingdom”, the palace said.
While there, they will attend a reception marking the 80th anniversary of the region’s liberation from Nazi occupation by Allied forces on April 10, 1945.
