from the airport, providing him with fleeting glimpses of the Circus Maximus and the Largo di Torre Argentina, where Julius Caesar was stabbed.

Before he left, though, after much speculation about whether he would receive an audience with the pontiff, Pope Francis came through for him. Sanders got a five-minute audience with the pope early Saturday morning, just when it seemed he would be leaving without any face time with the spiritual leader of American Catholics — a high percentage of whom live in New York.

The campaign, and the pope, insisted there was nothing political about the get-together. There were no cameras present (not even the campaign videographers brought along for the trip), but Sanders found time for a round of post-meeting celebratory interviews with the networks.

There was stillone more adventure before returning to the pressure of the New York primary, and the grind of the campaign trail — which included a planned Brooklyn roundtable on Saturday evening.

Halting Roman traffic dead in its tracks as the Sanders motorcade sped to the airport to make its noon departure time, Jane Sanders stopped the caravan to finish up the family vacation portion of the trip. With confused Romans looking on, trying to figure out who, exactly, was in the buses suddenly blocking the city’s busy intersections, she made an executive decision — departure schedule be damned, the Sanders grandchildren were going to find some Roman gelato.

The family eagerly piled out of the bus, but to no avail. The store was closed.