Pietrelcina & San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy: Day 5

 On day 5, I woke up, and thought, "Oh, no. I'm getting my usual cold....this is bad. This is really bad." 

You may say, "Allyson, it's just a cold. You cough a little, you sneeze a little. No big deal."

Wrong. Very, very wrong. When I do something, I can't do it halfway. When I get a "cold" I get post-nasal drip. So...to not spare you the disgusting details...this means that snot runs down my throat and I cough it back up. And when I say "cough", I really mean, "hack up my lungs and wish I were dead or at least could live without a nose...forever."

This would've been uncomfortable before 2020. It is 2022. I now live in a world that is obnoxiously paranoid: "She's coughing! She has COVID! WHY ISN'T SHE WEARING A MASK?!!!"

Uh, because wearing a mask would make my nose run faster, thereby making the coughing worse. Genius, I know.

Covid world paranoia + miserable with a "cold" + miserable with a cold in a foreign country = "Noooooooo....why?"

 So, back to September 23rd: our fifth day in Italy wasn't boding well. 

Get up early, eat breakfast, get our luggage to the bus, make sure I have cough drops...not that they are going to help me get better. 

On the way to Pietrelcina, we saw Monte Cassino:

Francesco had to call ahead to the museum to request that they stay open longer so that we could have a bathroom break, because the museum had the only public toilets in the entire town...which were not free, of course. Remember that in many places in Europe, people work in the morning and then have a break in the afternoon when the business actually shuts down and they can go home if they want before returning to work in the evening, especially small towns. There is no such thing as "Let's get lunch at 2:30 pm," in Pietrelcina. 

After stopping at the bathrooms, Francesco gave us details about roads and landmarks to look for on our way back. I don't know if I've already mentioned this, but most of the time, he would give us a summary of what we would do that day, go with us to a main spot, be with us for a tour, whether he was giving it or someone else, and then we were free to go off for something to eat, shopping, or visiting other places by ourselves. It was our responsibility to meet back at the meeting place or the bus again at the end of the allotted time in a particular place. 

Pietrelcina is such a cute, quaint little town. I think, even after coming home, I can confidently say that it was my favorite place I was in Italy. I'm not so sure it is the safest for people who aren't steady on their feet though. All of the streets are of slippery white marble. As we were walking, Mom and I comment that we couldn't imagine walking up and down all those hills when the roads were wet. I'm not sure how much snow they get (it is pretty high up in elevation, in my Indiana opinion), but that seemed pretty like a pretty treacherous predicament. Mom also commented how we were quite a pair: her leaning on me the entire time so that she didn't fall, and me starting to cough up a storm with that darn cold.

Okay, so this next picture I quickly took as we walked up many hills to the house in which Padre Pio was born:

After quite a walk, we made it:

The house was interesting, because they had two totally separate rooms for the kitchen and the bedroom. And when I say "separate," I mean that you went out of the house and went in the other door to get from one to the other. At first, I thought, "Well, this would help keep the kitchen heat out of the bedroom in the summer." But then I figured, "These people probably thought they were freezing in the winter without that heat from the kitchen." So, I guess I could've handled it, but I'm just not sure if this was the real mindset of having this kind of house setup or if that was just how this building was made and they were too poor to care.

Either way, we visited the kitchen first (on the left of the house).

As I posted on Facebook, I want to note again that the doorways were so short! I had to dunk under them. And some of the tourists forgot and smacked their heads against the wooden beams. I felt so bad for them. But I felt really special being one of them, having also to bend to get through the doors. Mom, being one inch shorter than me, wasn't so lucky and walked right through. 5 ft 1 isn't so short now, is it? 😜

Here's Mom walking right through the doorway from the first room into the back room of the kitchen. Five feet never looked so tall:

Almost everything was behind glass:

We had to turn around and go back out the way we came in. Then we went to the second door on the right to the bedroom where Padre Pio was born:

Padre Pio's parents:

After going to his house, we went to the Church of St. Anne. This was where St. Padre Pio was baptized, received First Communion, and was confirmed. It was also the church where he celebrated Mass and heard confessions when he still lived in town.

Before going in, I took a panorama picture. Not my best, I admit.

Inside St. Anne's:

The baptismal font:

To the right is a side altar that I thought was pretty (Diane accidentally photo-bombed my pic):

Relics of Padre Pio are under the other side-altar:

Further up is the confessional he used in his hometown:

The organ was at the front of the church:

Another thing I forgot to mention: We were in Padre Pio's hometown where he was born on his feast day. It was cool. It was also really nice that most of the tour groups were not there yet, so most of my pictures on the walk back to the meeting place with Mom are free of people!

You may be wondering why I have a picture of a random dog. I will have you know that this isn't just some random dog, but our personal guide who walked our group up to Padre Pio's childhood home and to St. Anne's. In all seriousness: it seems that the towns in Italy have community dogs that everyone takes care of. I guess it's the equivalent of French neighborhood cats. We saw two in Pietrelcina, but this one really stayed with us most of the time. After we went into St. Anne's, it started walking down back towards the town center. Mom and I, usually being the first ones to head back to the meeting point, saw our guide again and I got a picture of him:

Being a neighborhood dog is so tiring.

I really like this picture and think it's pretty good, if I do say so myself:

We made it back to our meeting point: outside the museum and the basilica

I wish I could remember, but I just can't think of what the name of this church is...and I can't remember if it's a basilica or not. Either way, we went in because it wasn't quite time to get on the bus yet.

It was nice enough, but as we sat there, I couldn't help but think that the hands on the side were a bit freaky/not nice looking. They remind me of the hands that hold the torches in "Phantom of the Opera," but these have the stigmata on them.

Another relic of Padre Pio:

See the freaky hands under the stations?

I found St. Anthony! As if he was lost...

Afterwards, we headed to our hotel in San Giovanni Rotondo on the east coast. This town was where the saint lived from 1916 until he died in 1968. We will get to pictures and tour details about this place more in the next post, if I'm not mistaken. The reasoning for St. Padre Pio living in Rotondo, we were told, was because it was higher in elevation and it would help with his tuberculosis. I kept thinking, "Why would you want to go up higher in elevation if you have TB? To get less oxygen doesn't make any sense. I kept asking Mom, who kept talking it over with the other nurse, Julie, in our tour group. The consensus is that, apparently, you eventually start making more red blood cells or something in order to get used to the higher altitude. Whatever. I still think it would've been better for him to go down in elevation. But I'm not even "just a nurse" (That's an inside joke. you'll have to ask Mom about it sometime). 

I will say that our hotel in San Giovanni reminded me of a dorm-like prison. You could literally hear everything from the people in rooms on both sides and above you. And now I'd like to take the time to apologize to the people who had to put up with hearing me hacking all night long (as if they are ever going to read this post). I was in more pain than you ever were, trust me. 

I kept praying to St. Padre Pio to please ask God to heal me because I heard that he made it his mission to pray for people who were sick and suffering. Spoiler alert: either God said no to him or he didn't bother asking. I got worse.

More in the next post.

 

 

Rome, Italy: Day 4, Part 2

 Hey, y'all! I'm back tonight. 

Told you it might be a while, but that I'd get to blogging again. Surprise, surprise: I was sick this past week. Stomach flu seems to be going around. I guess it was my turn. Darn.

I believe I left off with Flavia taking us to the Vatican Museum. 

The grounds:

There's some sort of significance of the pine cone and the peacocks. I can't totally remember, though. It was very hot that day...at least, it was for me.

To the left is the museum, and I believe on the right is the Sistine Chapel. You have to go through the museum to get to the chapel...which was the highlight for me.

Walking into the museum, we were immediately told that the sculptures that the popes collected over the years would be everywhere. Look to the right and then look to the left: sculptures everywhere.

This one had a lot of animal sculptures:

I'm really not one for sculptures (Sorry, Michelangelo), but the ceilings were really cool. I think that was my favorite part about the museum. The floors were even cooler than the sculptures, in my opinion.

These are the three muses. A bit different than all the muses in Disney's "Hercules"...

More ceilings...

Above each entry, there was a seal of a pope:

Here's probably one of the most interesting sculptures: a prototype of the sun god, Apollo, that Michelangelo made before he painted in the Sistine Chapel. Seeing as he was a sculpture, and not a painter, it makes sense that he'd rather sculpt and even sculpt to help him paint. He based Jesus off of Apollo.

The Apollo sculpture is one of the only he signed:

And, as usual, I was more interested in what was above my head:

And we get to a room with Egyptian stuff:

On both sides are special caskets...for lack of a better word. I don't remember what they are made out of. I just know they are special enough for me to take pictures, I guess.

More beautiful ceilings. I feel bad for sculptures...I just don't have what it takes to appreciate their work.

And this was on the floor. I think the blue stone was rare.

Leo the XII above one of the archways:

What is really cool about this ceiling is that it looks like it is all carvings, but it isn't! It's an optical illusion. I could've sworn that it was carved. Nope: paint!

Oh, by the way: this is the tapestry room, if you couldn't figure that out. It smelled really dusty. Makes me wonder if they ever cleaned the rugs on the walls...ever.

The tapestries, though dusty smelling, were really cool. To think that people made these thread by thread. I just can't imagine messing up and having to do it all again. They had to have had plans before sitting down to make them, right?

I believe this one was the largest:

More paintings that look like they are carved. So cool.

And this entire ceiling too! Those painters were so talented.

This was the "Map" room. It had paintings of all of Italy and the different parts/regions in it. Each painting on the ceiling corresponded with the map under it. So, St. Anthony of Padua was over the map that had Padua.

Out a window in the map room:

One of the pope's seal has a dragon on it. I can't remember which, but here's the seal.

So, I'd love to say I have pictures of the Sistine Chapel. It was my favorite place of this part of the day. But I don't, because you aren't allowed to take pictures in there. It is so amazing, though. I wish that I could've laid down on the ground and just stared up at the ceiling or the walls...even the walls that Michelangelo didn't do (He did the main part of the ceiling and the main wall of The Last Judgement). 

After the museum and chapel, we headed over to St. Peter's basilica.

Outside St. Peter's:

Up on the steps, we saw where Pope Francis had been sitting just that past Wednesday the audience we attended again:

St. Peter's truly is massive. And gold. I've noticed that Italy sure likes to have gold all over their churches, basilicas, cathedrals, etc. Just an observation. And...I'm more of a silver person. To each his own.

 

All along the main isle, you can see all the apostles. I'll have close-ups later.

Cool ceilings again:

Michelangelo's "Pietà", I have to admit, is spectacular. Probably my favorite sculpture I've ever seen. It's behind bullet-proof glass now because some idiot decided to vandalize it years ago and they had to repair it.

Flavia told us that two women are buried under St. Peter's in the scavi (where the popes are buried). One of them is Queen Christina of Sweden. In St. Peter's, we saw the monument to her. She was one of the first Catholic converts, I believe, to be royalty.

I got to see where St. Pope JPII is resting too. He is up in the actual basilica because so many people want to visit him:

Walking around the basilica:

The Pope's alter:

Below is St. Peter's bones...though you can't see them...they are really far down. It's more like a place to pray near them without actually going into the scavi:

So, to put things in perspective, in the dome above the main altar, the letters are 6 feet tall. That's taller than me! (Though, that's not a big accomplishment, I know.)

Above the saints and/or apostles, there are important relics specific to them. I can't remember what's in this one...

Behind the pope's altar is the altar of the chair of St. Peter:

I may talk about this chapel more later, since it's where Sam and Zane got ordained.

Moving on to more ceiling pictures:

Here's St. Veronica! I remember that above here is a piece of the cloth she wiped Jesus' face with:

I'm pretty sure a piece of his cross is up there.

On the floor are markings of famous basilicas and cathedrals around the world so that you can see how much larger St. Peter's is compared to them. We walked along, looking at ones we recognized, like Notre Dame de Paris.

And I snapped a picture of this side chapel because I thought it was pretty on the way out:

After our tour of the Basilica of St. Peter, we all headed back to the hotel. Most of our group was done with touring for the day, but Mom and I decided a few days prior that we were going to go on the extra historical tour with Francesco. We wanted to go to places that were not part of the main tour and see some historical sites that may not necessarily be part of a Catholic pilgrimage. 

First stop was the Trevi Fountain in Rome. Mom and I couldn't remember exactly, but it seemed that there was a story behind throwing a certain number of coins into the fountain: one was to come back to Rome, two was to get married, and maybe three was to find true love? We asked Francesco. He said that three was to get a divorce...no. He was just teasing. It was a joke, especially among the Italians, it seems. He was so much fun.

Mom did drag me down into the crowds. And we each threw one coin into the fountain. So, I guess I'll go back to Rome someday...

I believe this is in the Spanish square. Every year, the pope, with the help of firemen, put flowers up with Mary:

The Spanish steps were too crowded for me. I went down to throw a coin in the fountain. That's enough people. I just looked at the steps and said, "Too people-y. I've walked too much today anyway." Mom agreed.

But I got a better view of Mary standing in front of the Spanish steps:

It was beginning to get late and we still had to get to the restaurant to have dinner, so we had to head back to the bus. There was one problem: in order to get to the bus, we had to walk through a political rally. Too many people. In order to stay together, we tourists made a weird sort of conga line, each having a hand on a shoulder or back of the person in front of us...at least, that's what I did with Mom in front of me.

After getting through the political sea of people (I don't even want to go to an American rally...why did I have to go through an Italian one?), I snapped a picture:

I don't remember where exactly we went for dinner, but I think it was probably the best, food-wise, out of all the tour/pilgrimage prepaid meals. 

After dinner, we road the bus back to the hotel. Francesco put on music, which Mom and I and the other tourists who were with us sang songs including "In Naples" by Dean Martin and "Mamma Mia" by ABBA. I sang until my voice hurt. Just so much fun. And it was very special for the tourists who were part of the Northern tour that were with us, because it was their last night with their first tour guide, Andrea, before officially joining us with Francesco.

That's about it for Day 4. I'll try to get to Day 5 soon.