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Pope Francis stunned tourists and passersby on the Via del Babuino in Rome on September 3 by dropping into an optician’s to buy eye-glass lenses.
“I don’t want a whole new set of frames, just new lenses,” the pontiff told Alessandro Spiezia, proprietor of the eyewear shop in the heart of the Spanish Steps area.
“Please, Alessandro,” Francis then whispered in his ear, “charge me whatever it costs”.
The Pope insisted on paying for the glasses himself.
Mr Spiezia told The Associated Press he had made the Pope new glasses last year, and that Francis had liked them so much that he asked him to fill a new prescription.
“I was supposed to go to the Vatican yesterday to bring them, but the Pope told his secretary, ‘No, I don’t want Spiezia to come here, I’ll go to Via del Babuino’.”
After 40 minutes with Mr Spiezia — including an eye exam — the Pope left the shop with his new lenses and returned to the Vatican in a Ford Focus, accompanied only by his driver and some plainclothes police.
Pope Francis has previously lamented that what he really misses about being pope is being able to go out for a pizza without being recognised.
But he seemed to enjoy the crowd that gathered at the Via del Babuino, smiling and stopping for photos.
Francis was reportedly told this was the first time any pope had done such a thing.
He smiled and responded: “What’s so strange? Where else do you go for new glasses except the optician?”
When Pope Francis isn’t using his glasses, he keeps them tucked into his pants pocket, unlike Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI who always handed his eyeglasses off to an aide when he didn’t need them.
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