Easter Weekend in Italy
As my son was preparing for his confirmation, he learned about the Eucharistic Miracle that occurred in the Italian town of Lanciano. I was intrigued by the miracle after learning that “according to tradition, a monk who had doubts about the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist found, when he said the words of consecration at Mass, that the bread and wine changed into flesh and blood. The Catholic Church officially claims the miracle as authentic. (source Wikipedia)” I told my son that I would take him to see it.
In November (5 months in advance), I booked our flights from Toronto to Rome at a cost of $604 each. We flew out on Holy Thursday at 10:30 pm and arrived in Rome on Good Friday at 1:00 p.m.. Once we had our rental car, we drove for about an hour and a half to the town of Alatri. When we arrived, we were STARVING! Being Good Friday, it was a day of fast and nothing was open until later. We passed the time walking the town as we tried to ignore our hunger.
After we found a restaurant, we watched a reenactment of Christ’s Passion. Soon it was time to find a place for the night.
My search on Priceline showed the nearest available hotel was in the town of Fumone –11 minutes away. Fumone is an old walled village so we had to park outside the city walls and walk to the hotel. Finding the hotel was a challenge but eventually we found it. We found Fumone to be a hidden treasure with all its alleys and lack of cars.
From Fumone it was nearly a three hour drive to the other side of Italy to arrive at the town of Lanciano. When we arrived, everything was closed even the Eucharistic Miracle. While we waited for the church to reopen, again we were faced with not being able to find anything to eat. We finally went to a market, bought some prosciutto, cheese, bread and beer and made lunch then walked around the city.
At last, we were able to enter the church and see the miracle.
We found it to be an amazing site and worth the journey.
Under the church is a series of tunnels and remains from a church that was built in the past. We spent awhile exploring there before we were back in the car to head to the airport. We booked a room in the town of Ostia which is very close to Fiumicino (where the airport of Rome is located). Again we had a very difficult time finding our hotel which came with a view of the Mediterranean Sea. We had dinner and on Easter Morning woke to this view:
We explored the area just outside Rome: Ostia, had a great outdoor meal and were back at the airport for our 3:00 p.m. flight.
Total cost for the trip:
~Bella