Pope Benedict XVI will visit the quake-stricken Abruzzo capital of L'Aquila and a neighbouring village on Tuesday, accompanied by some 400 journalists from around the world.
Despite storm forecasts, the pontiff is due to fly by helicopter from the Vatican to the devastated village of Onna, where 40 of the 300-strong population, many of them children, died in the April 6 earthquake that left a total of 296 dead.
Benedict will then be driven to L'Aquila, where he will visit Abruzzo's largest Romanesque church, the 13th-century Basilica di Santa Maria di Collemaggio, which was perhaps the best-known building to suffer serious damage.
The Basilica, with its famed pink-and-white jewel-box façade, was the site of the coronation of Pope Celestine V in 1294 and thousands of pilgrims still flock there each year.
The pope is then due to meet student survivors who lost friends when L'Aquila's Student Lodgings collapsed in the quake before a collective meeting with local mayors and parish priests.
Finally, Benedict will make a public address to survivors and rescue workers in a square in front of the city's Finance Guard barracks, where a mass funeral for many of the victims was held two weeks ago.
The pope has asked to survey the quake-hit region by helicopter before returning to the Vatican at midday.
