Poland: Streaming sun shone yesterday on the front of the archbishop's palace that was once home to Pope John Paul when he was Archbishop of Krakow. Hundreds of Krakovians went there to pray for the city's favourite son.
During his return visits as Pope, he used to banter with the assembled crowd from a first-floor window. Yesterday, they stood in silence, the window now closed and empty. Their faces, young and old, were fixed in pain, eyes dry but tired.
"I was crying a minute ago. This is the death of everything," said Andrzej Drzewinski (77), who met the Pope in 1977 when he was still a cardinal. Two years later, during his first visit as Pope to then communist Poland, all of Krakow turned out in front of the archbishop's palace to see him.
Yesterday, six-year-old Natalia came here to the stations of the cross with her mother and sisters.
"The Pope is a saint. I was praying all the time for him, but he's still in hospital and I'm sad," she said, staring at her shoes.
A priest told the crowd of the pain of Jesus Christ hanging on the cross and the pain of an innocent man.
"Even then, Jesus was praying for all people in the future in similar pain," said the priest to the crowd, all eyes still fixed on the empty window.
Karol Jozef Wojtyla was born in the nearby town of Wadowice but Krakow became his home. He studied here and was ordained a priest here in 1946. After time abroad, he returned in 1958 to become an auxiliary bishop aged 38. He took charge of the archdiocese in 1962 and became a cardinal in 1967.
As the sun began to set in Krakow yesterday, the stations of the cross began. As each station of Christ's journey to Calvary was announced on a loud speaker, the crowd kneeled silently and in unison in the dirt.
Round the corner at the offices of the Catholic weekly newspaper Tygodnik Powszechny, editors and journalists recalled when Karol Wojtyla began writing for the paper in 1947 as a young priest.
His first article, about French priests working in factories to be near their flock, went down well with the then editor and founder Jerzy Turowicz.
It marked the start of a regular collaboration - the paper published his articles, poems and drama through the decades.
The paper, which began publishing in the last months of the war, remained the only independent paper in the Soviet bloc. The two men remained close friends and when Turowicz lay on his death bed in 1999, the Pope regularly telephoned the Krakow hospital to speak with him.
Yesterday was the newspaper's 60th anniversary, but the mood in the dusty offices was far from festive. Instead of a party, journalists exchanged personal memories of the Pope. One remembered bumping into him in the mid 1990s on a late-night stroll with a cardinal through Krakow.
"How's your health?" he asked the Pope.
"Jako tako," replied the Pope. "Not so bad."
On the walls hung special editions of the paper, several featuring the Pope in happier, healthier times.
"I don't think there will be a huge change in the relevance of the Catholic Church here after the Pope's death," said Jan Strzalka, a senior journalist. "The faith of the people has faced so many obstacles - partition, communism. It will survive this."
A steady stream of people came and went all day from Krakow's largest cathedral, St Mary's, on the old town square. Services were noticeably fuller than normal and hundreds of people took time out from their day to reflect on their Pope.
"We are praying for him as the Pope and as our close friend," said Slawomir Smolen, calling him the "Pope who dared to take his gloves off and shake the hands of ordinary Catholics".
"He is Poland's greatest treasure, only he could suffer as much," said Ms Natalia Dylag (20). "I can't imagine how things will be when he dies."
"It's very personal for me. I met him during a private audience in the Vatican. My aunt is a nun in the Vatican. I have a photo taken with him," said Kasia Lakomiec, a 21-year-old law student.
"I'm frightened about what happened yesterday evening because I thought it was a temporary health problem," said Ryszard Witkowski (60).
"The death of the Pope could cause chaos in the coming elections," he added.
"Many Polish people will suffer emotionally after the death of the Pope. It will be very empty. There could be nothing worse than his death but I still hope he will recover."