VATICAN CITY— History's most traveled Pope will pass an unlikely milestone in late May when he checks into a three-star hotel in Azerbaijan.

The one-night stay May 22 marks the first time in 96 foreign trips that Pope John Paul II has been forced to take accommodations in a commercial facility. The Hotel Irshad in downtown Baku has probably never hosted such an illustrious guest.

In most countries, the Pope beds down at the local bishop's residence, where he's given royal treatment, or he stays at the apostolic nunciature, the Vatican's equivalent of an embassy.

In a pinch, he has lodged at local monasteries or religious houses. Visiting his native Poland in 1997, he stayed at a Church-run retreat house in the Tatra Mountains. A few years ago in Georgia, he was the first overnight guest in a Caritas shelter for the homeless.

But a hotel? Until now, it's been considered highly unpontifical.

The problem in Azerbaijan is that the Catholic Church has no bishop's residence; in fact, it has no resident bishop. With only 120 Catholics in the entire country—and that's a high estimate—no Church-run building was big enough or equipped enough to host the Pope and his entourage.

In Armenia last year, the Pope stayed at the residence of Orthodox Catholicos Karekin II, a gesture of hospitality that was much appreciated by the Holy Father. But in predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan, where the Orthodox are also a small minority, no such invitation was forthcoming.

That left the door open to the Hotel Irshad, whose name in the Azerbaijani language means, believe it or not, “spiritual guide.”

At $140 a night, the hotel is about $40 cheaper than the city's luxury hotels, including the Hyatt Regency, where journalists are staying. There's no swimming pool at the Irshad, and the rooms are rather small, according to local reports. On the other hand, each room has satellite TV and a Jacuzzi bathtub.

The Vatican has booked all 14 rooms, including the two best ones—rooms 51 and 61. The hotel manager says the Pope can make the final choice. The hotel advertises both as “rooms with a view” of the Caspian Sea, but apparently the sea is only barely visible from the balcony.

The hotel solution was arranged by Vatican officials who do the advance work for each of the Pope's foreign trips. Unlike rock stars or Hollywood celebrities, the Pope does not have a long list of “special needs” when he travels, Vatican sources said.

He generally eats the food that's served him, sleeps in whatever bed is made available and tries to grab some rest between meetings with a steady stream of Catholic groups and individuals.

“There are very few needs as far as the Pope is concerned. In fact, they tell us what he doesn't need. It's like bringing a monastic life here,” said a papal visit planner in Canada, where the Pope will visit in July.

The one growing concern in recent years has been to spare the Pope stair-climbing if at all possible. Concealed minielevators have been built at Mass sites so the slow-moving Holy Father can easily reach the altar, and there are plans to use hydraulic lifts instead of stairs when the Pope disembarks from planes.

In Bulgaria, where the Pope travels after his night in Azerbaijan, workmen at the Orthodox Holy Synod headquarters were fixing the elevator inside and putting up a brass railing on the outside steps.

The Pope will stay at the nunciature in Bulgaria, where renovation has been going on for several months. Typically, when the Pope will be visiting a nunciature, the Vatican budgets tens of thousands of dollars for renovation work, money that's used to update utilities, communications and other facilities.

In Ukraine last year, Church officials hosted the Pope at the cathedral rectory in Lviv, which had only recently been given back to the Church by the government. Renovation work in the palace went down to the wire; sources said the paint was still damp in some of the rooms when the Pope arrived in Ukraine.

Visiting the African country of Senegal in 1992, the Pope stayed at the nunciature, where renovation work included the planting of fresh flower beds on the adjoining grounds. During his stay, local Muslims gave the Pope an unusual gift—a ram. Temporarily tethered outside the nunciature, the ram made short work of the flowers and any other edibles it could sink its teeth into.

At the Vatican, the Pope stays on the fifth floor of the Apostolic Palace, in a five-room apartment that is modestly furnished. A year after his election, he had to move out for renovation work, into a 15th-century tower that stands next to the western walls of Vatican City.

The cramped quarters in the tower probably didn't bother the Pope, who as a mountain-hiking priest spent many nights in more primitive lodgings: a tent and a sleeping bag.