This is not an invasion. Not a concert. Not the Grand Prix.
A thousand volunteers arriving from all over the world, one by one. Two hundred thousand visitors expected in a week. And a Pope — the first American in history — crossing the threshold of the Rimini Fairgrounds.
August 2026. The summer nobody saw coming.
But maybe, if you think about it, Rimini had earned this for a long time.
The city that has seen 2000 years of history
There is a church, a stone’s throw from Piazza Cavour, called the Tempio Malatestiano. It is not just Brunelleschi and Leon Battista Alberti’s masterpiece. It is the place where the history of Rimini and the history of the Church intertwine in a knot nobody will ever untie.
The Tempio was born as a Franciscan church. Then Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta — the lord of the city — turned it into a mausoleum for himself and his beloved Isotta. Inside are Piero della Francesca’s frescoes. Giotto’s Christ. The tombs of the humanist poets.
On the outside, an inscription reads in Latin: “Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, son of Pandolfo, for his city. Day of dedication, 1455.”
Rimini has always lived between God and the world. Between faith and flesh. Between the convent and the nightclub.
Maybe that’s why the American Pope chose her.
Robert Francis Prevost, the Pope from the lake
Chicago. Lake Michigan. Freezing wind in winter, sweltering heat in summer. Neighbourhoods of low houses with wooden porches. The city of Al Capone, of modern architecture, of blues, of Irish parades.
Robert Francis Prevost is born at Mercy Hospital on September 14, 1955. The family comes from far away: his father Louis is a veteran of the Normandy landings, son of Italian and French immigrants. His mother Mildred is a Creole woman from Louisiana, a teacher and librarian.
Chicago in the 1950s. A boy playing in the street, attending Catholic school, and at eighteen choosing the Augustinians. Not the easiest path, not the most glamorous. The truest.
He becomes a priest in 1982. He leaves immediately for Peru. He stays there almost thirty years. Lima, the poor neighbourhoods, the missions. He teaches theology, becomes provincial prior. When Pope Francis appoints him bishop in 2014, Prevost is Archbishop of Chiclayo, on the northern coast of Peru, a difficult diocese where the Church is the only stronghold amid violence and poverty.
Then the leap. 2023: cardinal. 2024: Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops in Rome. May 8, 2025: white smoke.
The first American Pope in history. The first Augustinian. He speaks five languages. He has the smile of someone who has seen too much to still be surprised. His motto is “In Illo Uno Unum” — in Him alone, one single thing. Unity.
He is not the Pope of impromptu press conferences. He is the Pope of silent decisions, of spot-on appointments, of carefully considered journeys. An administrator, yes. But also a man who chose to stand on the side of the least for half his life.
The Meeting: an idea born in a room downtown
1980. Rimini. A group of young people from Communion and Liberation rent a hall on Via Dario Campana, 150 seats. They have no money, no sponsors, no support from the diocese. They have only an idea: that dialogue between different cultures is possible — indeed, necessary.
Forty-six editions later, the Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples occupies the entire Rimini fairgrounds: 300,000 square metres, 350 conferences, 1,300 volunteers, 200,000 visitors. Past guests: Mikhail Gorbachev, the Dalai Lama, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Romano Prodi, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus. Scientists, philosophers, economists, artists. Believers and non-believers.
The Meeting has also hosted two Popes: John Paul II in 1982 (back when it was just a five-day event) and Benedict XVI in 2009. For Leo XIV it will be the first time. But it is no ordinary visit: it is the new Pope’s first official trip outside Rome. A political and pastoral statement.
Rimini is the right place because the Meeting is where differences are not flattened out. They meet. They clash, sometimes. But they meet.
The week Rimini becomes the capital of dialogue
From 21 to 26 August 2026, the Rimini Fairgrounds will be the centre of the Catholic world. But not only.
Because the Meeting is not a religious event in the strict sense. It is a festival of ideas. You will find the debate on artificial intelligence and the exhibition on Leonardo’s Codices. The conference on peace in the Middle East and the contemporary dance performance. The workshop for children and the meeting with the Nobel laureate in economics.
And this year, amid all of this, a 70-year-old Pope speaking Spanish to the crowds, shaking hands, listening. Leo XIV is not coming to dictate truths. He is coming to talk about unity. His motto, as it happens.
The Pope’s presence will give enormous visibility to the event and the city. International media will follow. Pilgrims will arrive. The hotels will fill up. The restaurants will be sold out every night.
But the most important thing is something else: Rimini, for one week, will be on the world map not for its nightclubs or its beaches. But for dialogue.
Alberto Marvelli and the saint’s bicycle
Maybe you didn’t know, but Rimini has a saint on a bicycle.
Alberto Marvelli was born in Ferrara in 1918, but it is here that he left his mark. Mechanical engineer. Diocesan president of Catholic Action. He rode his bicycle from one parish to another, from the city to the countryside, never stopping.
During the war he organised relief efforts. When the bombings of 1943-44 devastated Rimini, Marvelli was everywhere — in the shelters, on the streets, among the rubble. After the war, with the Allies in the city, he prevented the destruction of the Ponte di Tiberio. Then he coordinated the reconstruction, working to get the city back on its feet.
He died on October 5, 1946. Twenty-eight years old. A military truck hit him as he was returning from a meeting. On the wet asphalt of Via Flaminia. The people of Rimini placed him in a glass case, dressed as an engineer. He looks like he’s sleeping.
John Paul II beatified him in 2004. Every year on October 5, the city remembers him with a Mass at the Tempio Malatestiano and a bike ride through the streets where he used to race.
Today, in the square that bears his name, there is a statue: a man on a bicycle, in a jacket and tie, pedalling toward the future. Stop by, if you come to Rimini. It is a way to understand this city beyond the postcards.
Religious tourism: a market Rimini didn’t know it had
The Meeting has always brought people to Rimini. Two hundred thousand visitors in a week is no small change. But the Pope changes the scale of the phenomenon.
In Italy, religious tourism moves over 10 million travellers every year. The classic destinations: Rome (St. Peter’s, pilgrimages), Assisi (the cradle of Franciscanism), Loreto (the Holy House), San Giovanni Rotondo (Padre Pio), Padua (St. Anthony).
Rimini has never been on that list. Perhaps because Rimini is the city of the beach, the clubs, the nightlife. A destination for seaside and conference tourism, not for faith.
But a Pope visiting the city reshuffles the deck. Pilgrims are a different kind of tourist from beachgoers. They travel in groups. They book months in advance. They spend more on ancillary services than the average tourist. And above all, they come back. Not just for the next religious event, but also for holidays. They have discovered the city and grown attached to it.
For Rimini, Leo XIV’s visit could open a tourism channel that didn’t exist before. North American market? American Catholics are 65 million, 20% of the US population. It is the third-largest Catholic community in the world. Many will follow their Pope to Italy. Latin American market? Leo XIV speaks Spanish, comes from Peru, knows those communities like the back of his hand. Italian market? Italian pilgrims are the most faithful and the most generous: they spend on average 30% more than beach tourists during religious trips.
The Meeting week with the Pope is not just about August 2026. It is about the next ten years.
Leo XIV and Peru: the other half of the Pope
There is a side to Leo XIV’s story that few people know. Before becoming cardinal and Pope, Robert Prevost spent almost thirty years in Peru.
He was not just any missionary. He was an Augustinian who learned Spanish on the streets, in the poor neighbourhoods of Lima and northern Peru. He worked as a parish priest at La Recoleta, in Lima’s historic centre. He taught theology at the Universidad Católica Sedes Sapientiae. He was the Augustinian provincial prior in Peru, responsible for a region stretching from the desert coast to the Amazon rainforest.
Then the archbishopric in Chiclayo. Not an easy diocese. Peru’s northern coast is a land of violent contrasts: poverty, drug trafficking, corruption. Prevost put his face on the line. He denounced, he built, he listened. He opened soup kitchens for the poor, shelters for women victims of violence, schools for children working in the sugar cane plantations.
Peruvians remember him as a bishop who showed up without secretaries, who answered the phone, who always said “yes” when someone asked for help. When he left for Rome in 2023, Chiclayo wept.
This is the Pope arriving in Rimini. Not a diplomat. A man who has seen poverty up close, who has shaken hands dirty with earth, who has blessed malnourished children. This is the Pope who will speak at the Meeting. And when he does, he will not speak of doctrine. He will speak of what he has seen.
Beyond the Meeting: what to do in Rimini during the Pope’s week
If you come to Rimini for the Pope, don’t spend the whole week at the fairgrounds. The city has much more to offer.
The Tempio Malatestiano. You have already read about it above. Go there. Free entry. Look at Leon Battista Alberti’s façade, go inside and find Piero della Francesca’s fresco — Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta in prayer before Saint Sigismund. It is an absolute masterpiece.
Ponte di Tiberio. Walk across it. It is Roman, 2000 years old, still standing strong. Boats pass under it, tourists pass over it. The Germans wanted to blow it up during the retreat of ’44. Marvelli convinced them to spare it.
The City Museum. During this period it hosts the exhibition “Bellini and Mantegna in Dialogue” — the restored Pietà by Bellini next to Mantegna’s Saint Sebastian. A unique comparison between two giants of the Renaissance.
Borgo San Giuliano. The fishermen’s quarter, with Fellini-inspired murals and real taverns. In the evening, August is full of life. Have a piadina at C’era una volta, overlooking the canal port. With the illuminated Ponte di Tiberio as a backdrop.
The sea. Don’t forget you are on the Riviera. The water stays warm until mid-September. If you are staying in the north or south area, take a dip between conferences. The people of Rimini have always done it: leaving a debate, slipping into a swimsuit, twenty minutes in the water, then coming back to hear philosophy with the salt still on their skin. It’s our way of being in the world.
Piada and Sangiovese. If you come to Rimini and don’t eat a piadina stuffed with fossa cheese and rocket, you’ve failed. The right places: Piada e Cassoni in Marina Centro, or La Piadina del Borgo in San Giuliano. For wine, ask for a Sangiovese from the Marecchia Valley — there are wineries that make serious stuff.
The Augustinians in Rimini: the thread connecting Chicago to the sea
There is one more detail linking Pope Leo XIV to our land. Robert Francis Prevost is an Augustinian. And in Rimini, the Augustinians have been here for centuries.
The church of Sant’Agostino, on Via Cairoli, is one of the oldest buildings in the city. Built in the 1200s, remodelled over the centuries, it preserves a wooden crucifix from the 1300s and a fresco from the Rimini school. It was the heart of the Augustinian presence in the city for hundreds of years — an order of preachers and scholars, connected to both intellectual and popular life.
They arrived here in the 13th century, when Rimini was a crossroads of trade and cultures, and stayed for centuries. Their convent was a landmark for the city: they taught, they preached, they welcomed pilgrims heading south.
Today the church of Sant’Agostino is open, less known than the Tempio Malatestiano, but just as precious. If you come to Rimini for the Pope, stop by. It’s not on the standard tourist guide. It is the exact point where Pope Leo XIV’s Augustinianism meets the history of this city.
Maybe the Pope knows this. Maybe it is another reason why he chose Rimini.
The Pope’s visit comes in a summer that is already packed. And packed is an understatement.
The countdown starts on May 30 with Vasco Rossi at the Romeo Neri Stadium — the zero date of his tour. Then on June 7, Achille Lauro arrives, already nearly sold out. From June 19 to 21, it’s the Notte Rosa: the seafront becomes a 15-kilometre stage, with the RDS Summer Festival and hundreds of thousands of people dressed in pink.
The Meeting with the Pope comes after two months of fire. July: Cartoon Club (12-19 July, over 200,000 attendees), the Rimini Summer Pride (25 July), the Terrazza della Dolce Vita by Simona Ventura and Giovanni Terzi. Then August with the Meeting. Then September with the Grand Prix of San Marino and the Riviera of Rimini (11-13 September, MotoGP), the Festa de Borg and the Bailamondo.
A summer of 600 events, according to the official municipal calendar. 250 organised directly, +350 by committees and pro loco.
The tourism bookings speak for themselves: the municipality recorded +22.7% in May 2026 compared to the previous year. And the Pope wasn’t even here yet.
What a Pope in Rimini means for those who live here
In my life I have seen a lot. I have worked in Rimini’s hotels when German tourists arrived with cars full of luggage and Milanese families rented the same room for 15 years straight.
I have seen Rimini change. The end of élite tourism, the arrival of young people, the nightclubs, the decline, the rebirth. The city that reinvents itself every ten years.
But I had never seen an American Pope. I had never seen the Rimini Fairgrounds become the centre of world debate for six days. I had never heard the Rimini dialect mixed with Peruvian Spanish and Chicago English.
For those who live here, the Meeting week is a breath of fresh air. Not just for the numbers. For the idea that Rimini is not only deckchairs. That there is another city, beneath the city. The one that debates, that listens, that engages.
And if the one bringing it to light is a Pope who came from 8,000 kilometres away — well, maybe that is the sign that Rimini hasn’t finished surprising us yet.
How to live the Pope’s week
Some practical advice, from a Rimini local to a tourist.
When to arrive. If you can, come on the Saturday or Sunday before the Meeting starts. On Monday the influx begins to rise, Wednesday and Thursday are the peak days. The Pope’s visit will likely be mid-week.
Where to stay. My advice, as a local: Aqua Hotel. Ten minutes from the fairgrounds by car, seven by bus 9. Parking included and someone who knows Rimini better than any guidebook.
How to get around. The Meeting is at the fairgrounds, a stone’s throw from the Rimini Nord motorway exit. In the city, shuttle buses connect the station and the centre. Avoid the car: the fairground parking is big but on peak days it goes into meltdown.
How much to spend. The Meeting is free in the exhibition areas. The main events may require a ticket (usually between 5 and 20 euros). The biggest expense is accommodation: August is the most expensive month in Rimini. With the Pope, expect full high-season rates.
What to bring. Comfortable shoes. The Meeting has 300,000 square metres of space. A water bottle — it’s hot in August. And plenty of patience: the queues for the main events will be long.
And the sea. Yes, the sea is there. The beach is a 10-minute bus ride from the Meeting. The trick is to alternate: mornings at the conferences or the Pope’s visit, afternoons in the water. There is nothing better than leaving a debate on world peace and diving into the Adriatic.
If you are looking for a comfortable base for this special summer, you know where to find me. At Aqua Hotel, ten minutes from the fairgrounds. By car or by bus 9, seven minutes and you are at the Meeting. The summer of the Pope, the Grand Prix, and swims until September — it doesn’t happen every year. And we are ready to welcome you, as always, with our backs straight and our doors open.
Frequently asked questions about Pope Leo XIV at the 2026 Rimini Meeting
When does Pope Leo XIV arrive in Rimini?
The visit is scheduled during the Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples 2026, from 21 to 26 August. The exact day will be announced on the official website meetingrimini.org.
Who is Pope Leo XIV?
Robert Francis Prevost, born in Chicago in 1955, is the 267th Pope of the Catholic Church and the first American Pope in history. Elected on May 8, 2025, he is an Augustinian who lived many years in Peru and served as Cardinal Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops.
Will the Pope be accessible to the public?
Participation includes events open to the public with accreditation. For exact details, the official programme published by the Meeting will need to be consulted, but traditionally the papal audience is accessible by reservation.
What is the Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples?
A cultural festival founded in 1980 by Communion and Liberation, held every year at the Rimini Fairgrounds. Over 350 conferences, exhibitions and performances with international guests from all over the world.
Is Rimini fully booked in August during the Meeting?
Yes, August is the peak month for Rimini tourism. With the addition of the Pope, demand for accommodation will be very high. Booking well in advance is recommended, especially for the week of 21 to 26 August.
