Customer Reviews

The Pilgrim's Italy: A Travel Guide to the Saints

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It really never occurred to me that I might use The Pilgrim's Italy: A Travel Guide to the Saints as an actual guide book to understand the religious culture of Italy. Then, my husband and I found ourselves charmed and immersed in the religious culture of the exquisite Italian countryside (and cities) where we found our unlikely travel companion in this book to be invaluable. For example, as foot tourists in Northern Italy, we were rescued by The Pilgrim's Guide from our destination dilemma when we found ourselves at the train station in Menestra instead of Venice! Thankfully, The Pilgrim's Guide was very helpful. The book says, when you are in Mesestra, you still must take another train to get into Venice. Why can't other travel books be so simple and specific? One might also read The Pilgrim's Italy for its delightful short biographies of Italy's most popular (and plentiful!) saints, but it's an inspirational read as well as a marvelous travel book.

We found The Pilgrim's Italy a wonderful travel companion. It's engagingly written with lots of useful information; a book which is both useful for travel and fun to read. The authors provide all the details for getting around, and, on a deeper level, convey the spirit of visiting these holy places. Pilgrim's Italy is a wonderful book.

The Pilgrim's Italy is a wonderful travel book, packed with information on pilgrimmage sites, places to stay, and all the details you need to make your trip fabulous experience. Carefully researched and fact checked, nicely organized and easy to read, with lots of pictures, this book is a bargain.

Collaboratively compiled and written by James and Colleen Heater, The Pilgrim's Italy: A Travel Guide To The Saints is a travel guide geared toward those Christians who want to follow the paths of Christian saints, seek out Christian shrines, and learn more about the lives of these notable and pious men and women while traveling in Italy. Enhanced with a wealth of information, maps, descriptions, and accessibility of holy sites, The Pilgrim's Italy is a first-rate guide to spiritually enriching travel and an invaluable aid in finding lodging in monasteries along the way.

I highly recommend The Pilgrim's Italy for those to whom travel is an inner as well as an outer adventure, and sustenance for the soul as well as the palate. It complements other guidebooks by providing informative tips for pilgrims that are not readily available in one place - shrine hours, for instance, places to meditate, useful Italian phrases and nearby places of interest. It also pulls one in with fascinating glimpses into the lives of some of the rare individuals who have achieved sainthood, and opens one up to the possibility of the miraculous.

I found this book to be very informative and inspiring. I recommend it to anybody who is planning travel to Italy. The combination of maps, specific shrine information (hours, phone numbers, even websites), and the authors' engaging writing style makes this excellent book truly unique among travel guides.

This is a wonderful book, not simply for those planning a pilgrimage, but also for someone who wants to know more about the saints. There is enough information about each saint to give you an inspiring glimpse into his or her life, yet the book is small enough to pack.

I received this book today and am unpleasantly surprised and dismayed that I cannot find in it St. Benedict, sometimes called the father of western monasticism, nor his sister St. Scholastica. Even non-Benedictines know of the rule of St. Benedict, which is a guidelines for monastic communities. Neither Subiaco in Umbria, with both St. Benedict and St. Scholastica monasteries, nor Cassino, with the great Monte Cassino monastery which Benedict founded later, are included. I bought the book largely because I am planning a trip to Subiaco; this book is no help. If you want to learn about St. Benedict and St. Scholastica, Subiaco or Monte Cassino, you will have to go to The Christian Travelers Guide to Italy or to somewhere else. The Pilgrim's Italy is also larger and heavier than The Christian Travelers Guide, though the later still has a lot of information.

I found The Pilgrim's Italy to be a very enlightening, informative, easy to read and follow guide to the saints. I have never been to Italy, and found myself in the mist of saints, shines, and history. Colleen and James Heater did an outstanding and superlative job. Their writing has been most enjoyable.

As someone who enjoys visiting saints' shrines in any country I happen to be visiting, I deeply appreciate this spiritual travel guide to bella Italia. The Heaters have packed The Pilgrim's Italy with all the pertinent information a spiritual seeker would need. I can say from experience that their description and advice on many of the sites they recommend-especially in and near Assisi, Italy-are right on the money. And they even include in their book brief instructions on how to achieve a state of inner communion. If you are going to Italy and are the type of person who likes to delve within and feel the peace and joy that permeates a church or home made sacred by historic connections with a great soul, you should get this book.

Richard Salva--author of Soul Journey from Lincoln to Lindbergh [UNABRIDGED]