Eva's Rooms

If you want to post your Roman postcards from the Vatican, you can't simply pop your Italian-stamped cards into the postboxes you'll see painted in the papal colours of yellow and Marian blue outside the Vatican City post office in St Peter's Square. The Vatican issues its own stamps, usually very handsome ones in fairly small runs - they can make a good souvenir - and you must use these. Similarly, you can't use stamps you buy at the Vatican City to post mail from the rest of Rome or Italy.

The Vatican's Post Office is so efficient many Romans make the trip to the Vatican just to post their mail; postcards you send from here could even beat the usual fate of postcards and arrive home before you do.

There are three Post Offices at the Vatican - one is on the right hand side of the Square as you face the Basilica, in the middle of the colonnade, another is on the left hand side next to the steps going up to the Basilica and the third is actually inside the Vatican City near Porta Sant' Anna. If you tell the Swiss Guard at the Chiesa Sant'Anna you want to use the Post Office, he'll point it out to you. Use the ATM outside the Post Office and you can practise your Latin - it's one of the language options you can choose!