Customer Reviews

Traveling with the Saints in Italy: Contemporary Pilgrimages on Ancient Paths

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Probably the best collection of visiting the places of the Saints in Italy. When you don't just want to go to Rome for the Fashion but for the Divine, this is one book you want on your travel logs. Lucinda Vardey is a deeply spiritual Catholic whose intimacy with prayer has inspired a wonderful vocation as a teacher. If you can find a way to go to Italy with Lucinda's company ... DO IT! Your heart and soul will never regret it!

I enjoyed the book, the information that it provides about the, the different sites you can visit. The pilgrimages, however, left much to be desired. When in Rome, my friend and I decided to follow the multi-day pilgrimage and started having problems after the first stop, the Colosseum. The directions to the next stop, the Mamertine Prison, where "Walk toward the Forum from the Colosseum to the sixteenth-century church San Giuseppe dei Felegnami". Question is, where from the Colosseum, exactly where in the Forum? Is it inside or outside of the Forum? I speak some Italian so I asked a police officer, as well as a English speaking tour guide, and neither of them knew of the church or where I could find it. Ends up the Church is on the other side of the Forum from the Colosseum. How you're supposed to get there by walking toward the Forum, I still don't know.

Overall it's a nice book for information about an area and the saints associated with it. Good for reading about the lives of the saints and the impact that they had on the Church and the area, but it leaves a lot to be desired as a guide book. It needs much better maps, preferably detailed maps, of where the different stops are as well as better directions on how to get there. If you want to do that work yourself before going, it's got some nice places that you may not have known about, much less known about visiting, which is nice. As a guide for a pilgrimage, it leaves a lot to be desired. I wish I had known that before I went to Italy, hopefully you can learn from my mistake.

At first glance of this title, it looks impressive "Travelling With The Saints in Italy".
Actually, the title does not reflect the contents of the book. Only twelve saints are
covered in 400 pages. Missing from the list are Saint Nicholas of Bari, Saint Lucy of
Venice, Saint Agatha of Sicily etc. Rather disappointing.