ROME  -  Anyone visiting Rome in 2024 could be forgiven for being disappointed. While the city has no shortage of ancient treasures to explore, many of them have been buried under scaffolding amid extensive renovations. The city’s historic center has resembled a building site, with construction crews working round the clock on hundreds of infrastructure and restoration projects. Traffic, tricky at the best of times, has been abysmal. The good news is that, when it’s all over, the Eternal City will hopefully emerge more beautiful than ever, served by a newly revamped metro system that will whisk tourists to some of the star attractions. The bad news is, just weeks away from a yearlong Roman Catholic celebration expected to bring up to 35 million to the city, much of the restoration work is yet to be finished. The jubilee celebration is a regular Catholic Church event, instituted by Pope Boniface VIII in 1300 and held every 25 years since 1470. It pulls huge numbers of pilgrims to Rome and the Vatican seeking forgiveness. During celebrations, the “holy doors” of Rome’s major basilica churches, normally cemented shut, are opened. Visitors who pass through the doors and carry out spiritual acts will receive plenary indulgences — forgiveness for their sins. The forthcoming jubilee will begin on Christmas Eve — December 24 — when Pope Francis opens the holy door in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City. It’ll run until January 6, 2026.  In that time Rome, already one of Europe’s most visited cities, is forecast to be inundated with record numbers of visitors at a time when many destinations in Italy are buckling under the strain of overtourism. For Italy’s capital, the jubilee has been seen as an opportunity to upgrade the city’s tourist attractions and facilities. The city has received $2 billion in special jubilee funding from the Italian state along with over $3 billion from post-pandemic funds from the EU. The disruption involved in overhauling Rome will prove to be worth it, officials say. But it’s been a bitter pill for locals and tourists to swallow over the past year. Frustration at seeing the attractions they came to visit swathed in scaffolding and tarpaulins has frequently boiled over onto social media.

Some worry the work — including infrastructure projects unrelated to the jubilee — won’t be finished in time. Numerous visitors have poked fun at the city by posting videos as they made their way around the city’s historical hot spots, only to find one building site after another. Piazza Navona, home of the Fountain of the Four Rivers; Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano; Fountain of the Four Lions; Ponte Sant’Angelo; Piazza Pia; Piazza Risorgimento; Piazza della Repubblica; Piazaa dei Cinquecento — the restoration list is long. Last month, a temporary pool erected in front of the under-restoration Trevi Fountain was mocked for the underwhelming experience it offered visitors. A new ticketed entry at the fountain has also proven divisive.

Piazza Venezia, one of Rome’s most famous squares, is now a construction site for a new Line C metro station. Looming over the space is machinery for digging down 85 meters and installing reinforced concrete. The station will be 45 meters underground, with eight floors, each with an area of 4,500 square meters. This being Rome, removing 66,000 cubic meters of earth is as much an exercise in archaeology as it is excavation, adding complications to the construction. Artifacts found in the dig are to be displayed in the station when it’s finished.