Notebook: Moving Slow

In a reporter's notebook filed exclusively for CBSNews.com, CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey provides an insider's look at traveling with the new pope.

Instead of a grand departure from Rome's main Leonardo da Vinci airport, the Alitalia Airbus for the papal flight took off from the old airport, Ciampino. That may have been due in part to the fact that Benedict XVI was at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, in the hills above Ciampino, but it also fit the tone of the new man in the seat of St Peter's. Ciampino is now used mainly by low budget, no-frills airlines.

Benedict has been described as suffering from stage fright. Maybe his quick visit to the front of the economy section, where the 60-odd hacks of the Vatican press corps rides, was a way to warm up. He spent a few minutes before takeoff, facing a rugby-like scrum of cameras and reporters standing on the seats to get a glimpse and hear a few anodyne words, then bolted for his first class seat.

Traveling with the pope is actually fun. The service is first class, even if the seating is not. The Alitalia crews especially are tolerant of journalists jamming the aisles to swap quotes, ideas and yarns. In the midst of it all a Vatican press official hands out the embargoed speeches so we have an edge when we land and have to file.

Most of us assumed this one would be an easy trip -- German efficiency and all that. Wrong.

As part of a pool your correspondent found himself outside Cologne cathedral, with passes to be in two different locations at different times. The problem was, no one seemed to know which came first. We worked it out, but the only way to get to the second spot was to follow a policeman and force our way through the packed masses of young pilgrims, with tripods and other gear held aloft.

As we squeezed through the sweating, heaving mass, cultural differences came to the fore. Italians, used to crowds and not intimidated by being close-packed, merely laughed and squeezed in to make space. Spanish speakers grinned and did the same. American youths, being more protective of personal space, informed us loudly that among other things, "We've been here for hours, find someplace else to go," and, "Are you like, nuts, trying to go through this many people?"

The streets of Cologne have been turned into pedestrian areas, one-way mazes and no-go zones to cope with the half a million or so youngsters who have come for this four-day Catholic Woodstock. As a consequence, our usual privileged use of car-free lanes for the press bus to whiz along under police escort did not happen, and after the cathedral event even camera crews with loads of gear had to straggled and sweat their way for almost an hour to get back to the press center.

And what of Benedict? Well, he did laugh when his hat blew off as he exited the plane. He did not kiss the ground, and seems less than comfortable with the exuberant youth whom he must reach, woo and win to meet his aim of using them to "reinvigorate" the church.

For their part, the youngsters are more than willing to embrace him, even forgive him for not being their beloved John Paul II, the only pope most of them have ever known.

The problem is that the new man seems unsure of how to hug them back, as it were. That may be why so far the scenes have been more like a small-time dignitary visiting a parochial venue, rather that the world stage event of the last papacy. But there are three days to go, so we shall see.