Eyewitness: It was a sorry way to begin the final leg of an epic journey, but at least Szimon had plenty of friends to help him out, writes Dan McLaughlin in Rome.
"The van is borrowed and sometimes we have to push it to get going," he explained at a service station 50 miles north of Rome, the last stop on a trip that began 1,000 miles away in the Polish city of Poznan.
Rust nibbled at the van's off-white bodywork but a Polish flag was stuck proudly on the door, which slid back to reveal three seminarians, two of Szimon's fellow students and his father, Dariusz Kaczmarek, a business manager from Poznan.
The seven of them had made it through Germany and half the length of Italy in good time, but admitted that the prospect of stopping had become less enticing after the discovery of their vehicle's unwillingness to restart.
"We didn't sleep much and it's uncomfortable, and we don't know where we'll sleep tonight," admitted Szimon (22), as he emerged blinking into a bright but chilly Italian morning.
"But this is a very important event for the whole world, because the Pope was a saintly person, and when a saint dies it is important to be at the funeral. And he was our father, Poland's father. You have to go to the funeral of your father."
As traffic snarled up outside the Italian capital, becalming the billowing Polish and Vatican flags on hundreds of cars and buses from Poland, a few of John Paul's countrymen stopped to stretch aching legs and discuss their million-strong pilgrimage.
"Our priest and a local travel company arranged this bus for us," said Rafal Zdzierela (29), from the town of Pile in western Poland, as his companions slowly disembarked behind him from a coach that carried the Pope's picture on its rear window.
"The trains and planes to Rome were full two hours after tickets became available, so we got the bus and left at 5am yesterday morning," added the town councillor.
He had heard on the radio that they, like hundreds of thousands of other Poles, would not be able to see the Pontiff's body lying in state, but was not disappointed.
"We want to be there for the historic event," he said of today's funeral. "Even if we are only 10km from the Vatican, we will be able to feel the special atmosphere in Rome."
Most Polish travellers reported smooth journeys south, only hitting serious tailbacks after pulling off the A1 autostrada and joining Rome's seething outer ring road, one of the straining seams of a city that is fit to burst with at least four million pilgrims.
Reports from Poland suggested the Italian capital would be stretched even further by this morning. Border crossings in southern Poland saw four times the usual amount of traffic yesterday, and six trains laid on by Polish state railways were due to deliver 5,000 pilgrims to Rome late last night after a 27-hour trip, with eight people to a compartment and no sleeping facilities.
On board the trains, passengers were said to be singing hymns and songs. At 9:37pm, the local time of the Pope's death on Saturday, a group of passengers on one train asked the chief conductor for permission to recite the rosary over the loudspeaker system.
Poland's president, Alexander Kwasniewski, was expected to arrive in more luxurious style yesterday, and was bringing at least 230 parliamentarians with him, to mark the passing of a man who Poles say lit the fire under East European communism after becoming Pope in 1978.
Some ordinary Poles, like Anna Wojtowicz and Izabela Domanska, did make it to Rome by aeroplane - but not on massively oversubscribed flights from Warsaw but from Berlin, where they study.
"We booked a hotel on-line but we don't know if it really exists, so I have my sleeping bag just in case," laughed Anna (22), who is originally from Zielona Gora in western Poland.
"This isn't a holiday, this is for the Pope. I always missed him when he visited Poland and now I regret that. That's why I want to be here for the funeral."
Artur Fiszer (28), and Jurgita Jurewicz (19), were two of thousands of Poles who arrived on 700 buses that were reported to have reached Rome by noon yesterday.
Barred from a besieged central Rome, their coach was parked at the vast Stadio Olympico, from where they walked with the throng towards St Peter's Square.
"We left Poznan at 11am. yesterday and arrived here at 2.30pm today," said Artur, a sociology student.
"It cost me 450 zlotys (€110) - half my monthly stipend - but we wanted to be here for Jan Pawel for the last time. It will be a special moment."
When asked where he would sleep, Artur pointed to the cobblestones and took heart from the tents pitched on some of the piazzas that he passed, and from the Polish flags that hung from the trees above them. "We'll be fine, there are many of us," he said.
He marched on towards the Vatican, trusting in a rumour he had heard that Polish groups would be allowed to see the Pope's body during its last hours of lying in state, even as thousands of people from scores of countries waited ahead of him to do the same.
Many Romans stood by and watched the Polish pilgrims stride past, their bemusement at this peaceful invasion surely tempered by admiration for the good humour and dignity of the flag-waving masses.
They set their red-and-white banners fluttering over the tide of people, as if reclaiming this event, and this Pope, for themselves, for a nation that held tight to its Catholicism through decades of communist oppression, and which believes it was guided from that darkness by Karol Wojtyla, the archbishop of Krakow, who was summoned to Rome.
There was joy in their step yesterday, the national grief of last Saturday replaced by a determination to celebrate a remarkable life, and show the world that the homeland of Pope Jan Pawel II, or Karol Wojtyla, is a proud, strong, united European nation.
"We come from Zywiec, in the southern mountains that Jan Pawel loved," said Bartek Fijek (26), who had also left his car at the Stadio Olympico and set off on foot for St Peter's Square.
His sister Kinga and cousins Jerzy and Renja were with him.
"My parents were married the week after he visited our town and he blessed them when he was a cardinal, so he is a special man for my family.
"Polish television said yesterday that it was impossible to get here so don't bother trying," Bartek said with disgust.
"It took us 17 hours, but we are here and the roads were very good - people flashing their lights and waving - so if you really want to get here you can. We have a tent and have brought food with us, we are ready for anything."
"We have a good president and good people. But the Pope was the first man of Poland," said Bartek, as his relatives moved on ahead of him with the crowd.
"There was no one like him and there will never be. He was our biggest man and it is the most important thing to be here now with our father. That is the truth for me, and for every man and woman in Poland."