“You are so lucky, kid,” I told my youngest sister Meg as we stood in St. Peter’s Square, the basilica looming over us. “You will never see it like this ever again.”

It was January, 2022.

By this point, we’d taken COVID tests in three different countries.

In the coming days, we’d stand in an equally-vacant St. Mark’s Square in Venice, dine in a nearly empty Venetian restaurants, visit shops where we were the only foreigners they’d seen that day, that week.

When people asked where we were from and we said the US, they’d ask, “But how did you get here?!”

Much of Europe had opened to American tourists during the summer of 2021, but had clamped down again as the colder weather pushed people indoors and COVID cases rose once more.

But it was still possible to travel.

Spain had an app–one had to submit their COVID test results and show the app upon arrival in the country. In Germany we went to a testing station–a free-standing metal booth the size of a small bus plopped on the side of a street. Later we would sit in a centuries-old Venetian courtyard, trying to pull up their app in order to get the results of the COVID tests we just took that would allow us to get back to Spain.

Meg had never been to any of these countries. She’d never been to Europe. Due to her seasonal ice cream business, she has to travel in the winter. Winter in Europe finds me snuggled in my warm apartment. But Meg? She doesn’t let anything stop her. And I’m so grateful.

I remember sitting in our room in our pension in Rome the night before I was going to take her to see St. Peter’s Basilica. I hadn’t been there in more than ten years so wanted to see if the process to get in had changed. Blog posts talked of long lines at security, then more long lines to climb up into the cupola, to get into the basilica, how you’d get in quicker if you had a ticket.

You need a ticket to enter St. Peter’s Basilica? I’d paid to enter many a church and cathedral over my years of travels in Europe, but one of the most important holy places in all of Christendom?

I finally learned that no, you don’t have to pay to enter the basilica. But, like so many things in life, those that paid the money could get in more quickly and easily.

I started looking into purchasing tickets, but the number of options was mind-blowing and frustrating.

Yes, it was January. But I was in Rome 20 years ago, also in January. And I remember being surprised at how many tourists were there back then.

“We might have to get there early,” I told Meg. She could hear the stress in my voice.

“Becky, the only time I get up early on vacation is to get a chair at the beach. Don’t worry about it. We’ll get there when we get there. Stop reading and let’s go to bed.”

Have I told you yet how happy I am that my parents had a fifth child? And how happy I am that she turned out to be such a great little sister?

So the next morning we took the bus over to Vatican City. Passing through the colonnaded archway I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was empty. I laughed to myself. Becky: who is coming to Rome in January during COVID?

Meg and I stood there taking pictures. There was no rush.

We walked through security with hardly a pause.

We climbed up to the cupola, went out on the roof, sat at the counters in front of the gift shop windows to write postcards and drop them into the Vatican mailbox outside.

Hours passed before we even walked into the ground level of the basilica.

We ate a late lunch outside on a sunny sidewalk, generous cups of wine, a delightful waitress joking with us in between taking care of the few other customers seated outside. I remembered the last time I was in Rome thinking, “I’ve seen this city enough times. I don’t need to come back.” But seeing it like this? It was sad but at the same time almost nostalgic. And I was grateful that Meg had given me reason to return and to experience it in a way that will probably never be repeated.