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ITALY:  Pope Francis slipped out of the Vatican to make a surprise visit to a Rome optician’s shop to get a new pair of glasses, insisting that his old frames be reused and that he would pay for them.

Francis was driven to Ottica Spiezia on Rome’s fancy Via del Babuino in the small Ford Focus car he normally uses, drawing a large crowd of tourists and Romans.

The shop owner, Alessandro Spiezia, who has made eyeglasses for the Pope before but always delivered them to the Vatican though aides, said he did not know that the Pope himself would come to the shop.