President Barack Obama arrived in Italy early Wednesday, kicking off a three-day visit. It’s his second country of a three-country trip that took him first to Russia, and will conclude with a visit to Ghana on Saturday.

Obama landed in Rome at 10:45 am local – 4:15 am EDT – and was heading first to the Quiranale Palace. He’ll be greeted there by Italian President Giorgio Napolitano.

After that, he’ll travel by Marine One helicopter to L’Aquila, about 50 miles East of Rome for the three day summit of the Group of Eight (G-8) leading economic powers. Later today, he and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will tour the old city of L’Aquila to see the damage from an April 6 earthquake.

That quake killed 298 and left 65,000 homeless. Berlusconi  moved the summit to a nearby site from its originally schedule location at La Maddalena, Sardinia, to draw world attention to the quake recovery efforts. The summit is in a school campus that was not damaged.

On Friday, Obama will return to Rome to visit with Roman Catholic Pope Benedict XVI before flying to Ghana.