A Norwegian cabby thought he’d landed the fare of the century when an elderly Dane hopped into his taxi for a 1,300-mile ride from Copenhagen to Rome.

Jorgen Gilberg’s bliss ended at the Vatican, where his customer said he had to collect the $3,570 for the cab fare from Pope John Paul II.

“‘That’s when it hit me. A bad fare to Italy. I was about to collapse from laughter,” Gilberg, 24, said by telephone from Aarhus, Denmark, on Wednesday. “I could hardly contain myself when he said the pope owed him money.”

Gilberg, an economics student from Fredikstad, Norway, drives part time for an Aarhus taxi company.

So when the owner asked him to drive the 66-year-old man to Rome last week, Gilberg assumed everything was in order.

So did the taxi company, since the man took a cab to Rome last year. During the 24-hour drive through Denmark, Germany, Austria and most of Italy, the customer seemed unusually quiet.

“I thought he was filthy rich, so I didn’t ask too many questions. But I did wonder who would take a 2,600-mile round trip in a taxi,” said Gilberg.

At the Vatican, the customer claimed the pope owed him $7,140, and then admitted that “the voices in his head might have misled him,” said Gilberg.

Gilberg stopped for a quick tour of the Vatican, then drove the man home to Denmark.