Cannon roared, sirens wailed and church bells rang in Poland where millions of people prayed and mourned for Pope John Paul.
Poles gathered this morning at churches and open-air masses, where giant-screen televisions showed the Vatican funeral service, to bid farewell to a man who inspired their fight against communism and pushed them towards mainstream Europe.
About half a million gathered at the Blonie public meadows in Krakow - the southern Polish city where Karol Wojtyla served as archbishop before becoming Pope in 1978 and the place of John Paul's last mass on Polish soil three years ago.
The chair in which the Pope sat during his last mass, in which a record nearly three million Poles took part, stood empty on a makeshift altar, decorated only with a black ribbon.
In Warsaw, the military rolled out six cannon for a farewell gun salute that shook the same square where the Pope inspired Poles to stand up to their communist rulers in 1979. Police car sirens wailed and church bells rang.
Tens of thousands attended all-night vigils across Poland and lit votive lamps along streets named after the late Pontiff.
Flags hung from windows and adorned taxis and buses during Poland's six days of mourning culminating in a public holiday today, while the Pope's homilies and personal remarks to his compatriots were aired repeatedly on television.
In the Pope's hometown of Wadowice, thousands gathered to watch the funeral on big screens set up in front of his childhood home.
In the Pope's beloved Tatra mountains, where he used to hike and go on retreats in his youth, about 500 people took part in an outdoor mass at Morskie Oko Lake, still frozen after the long winter.