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WMTW Channel 8: Maine residents who visited Rome before Pope Francis' death find news 'hard to process'

​It was a trip of a lifetime for Justin Chenette and his husband, Eduard. The Chenettes did a two-week bus tour in Italy and found themselves in the middle of Rome's St. Peter's Square.

​"Just to be in Vatican City for Holy Week and Easter Weekend, it was just a surreal feeling," Chenette said.

Chenette and his husband have plenty of pictures from their tour of Italy. Little did they know last weekend how special this trip would be.

They spent part of Holy Week in Rome. Good Friday and the Saturday before Easter.

"We were seeing all of the setup to the pope's arrival for Easter Sunday, and as a result, there were a ton of people, you could not move in that Basilica. You could not move in Vatican City. I mean, it was wall-to-wall people. I can only imagine what it was like on Easter itself," Chenette said. "It was just a beautiful experience to be able to go up into the Vatican dome."

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