Easter Monday, Lynne and Gerald spent a week scouting for the May 2017 pilgrimage in Italy.
They revisited Ravenna, with its glorious churches whose ceilings and upper walls are covered with 6th C. mosaics, still in brilliant colour, unfaded by the passing centuries with their invasions, wars and atmospheric pollution.
They drove across the Appenine mountains into Assisi with its vibrant memories of Saints Francis and Clare; they have been able to arrange to stay again at the convent of the Franciscan tertiaries, as in 2009.
South of Rome, they drove up to the 1500-year-old monastery founded by the ascetic brother and sister Benedict and Scholastica; this will be a breath-taking addition to our 2017 pilgrimage. Despite the terrible battles fought there between Axis and Allied troups in 1944, the monastery is wonderfully evocative of the Benedictine life and spirituality.
In Rome they explored some new sites, and visited old scenes. An addition for 2017 will be the church of the Waldensians, Italy’s first Protestants, whose ancestors suffered terrible treatment as heretics in the Middle Ages and even beyond.
Hotel accommodation for all locations is being confirmed, and we expect to able to announce the May 2017 dates and full itinerary by June this year.