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For those of you who did not go to Italy, here is the next best thing. Please sit back and enjoy these great pictures of our wonderful trip. There are many posts on this blog and unfortunately they can't be displayed all at one time. To navigate through, at the end of the page you will see the following options:

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This is a group of photos of locations that we visited during the pilgrimage. More specific locations and narratives will follow this posting .

Father Gregory and our tour group in Florence.
The city of Florence is in the background.
Photo courtesy of Ricco and Sheilah Krohn members of our group.

On the way to Milan

On the way to Milan

View from our first hotel, Hotel Casa Tra Noi, Rome.

Vendor's dog napping

Graffiti is prevalent in all cities we visited.

Commuter scooters, Florence.

A three wheeled "sedan" found a nice parking spot.

Fuel in Italy at the date this was taken was equal to $7.00 a gallon in the US.
Needless to say SUV's were in a minority.

Wild Boar statue. Wild Boars are found in the remote areas of Italy. The nose of this Boar was very bright due to people rubbing it's nose for good luck....which you would need if one of these was chasing you!

Street performer, Florence.

Not a very friendly horse.

On the way to Milan

The Egyptian Museum of Turin (the second in the world after the Cairo Museum) was established in 1824, although the University of Turin already owned an important collection of Egyptian material. In the early 19th century, Carlo Felice, influenced by the interest in Egyptian culture which had been spreading all over Europe following Napoleon's campaigns in Egypt, acquired a substantial number of the finds collected by the Piedmontese Bernardino Drovetti, French consul general in Egypt. Between 1903 and 1920 the Italian Archaeological Mission launched a number of excavation campaigns along the Nile, thus acquiring additional material; new pieces were also added to the museum between 1930 and 1969. In 1988 the museum was entirely renovated.

Galleria, Milan

Street performer

Milan

Arriving in Rome to start our pilgrimage.
The Colosseum, built by Vespasian and Titus in A.D. 75-80.

Our pilgrimage begins in Rome under the prayerful guidance of our Pastor Father Peter Gregory.

No, Father did not drive the bus, the gentleman on the left was Antonio our most excellent bus driver.

Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome.

According to the founding legend, which cannot be traced further back than the thirteenth century,the pope wanted a shrine built at the site where an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared in identical dreams shared by a local patrician Giovanni Patrizio and his wife and by the pope. According to tradition, the outline of the church was physically laid out on the ground of the nobleman's property by Liberius himself under a miraculous but predicted snowfall that took place on the night of 4–5 August 352 (or 358).

Father Peter elebrating Mass in the Cesi Chapel within the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.

For historic information about the Trevi Fountain click on the following text.
The Trevi Fountain, Rome.

Father Peter and his sisters Joyce and Judy ready to toss their coins into the Trevi Fountain.

A traditional legend holds that if visitors throw a coin into the fountain, they are ensured a return to Rome. Among those who are unaware that the "three coins" of Three Coins in the Fountain were thrown by three different individuals, a reported current interpretation is that two coins will lead to a new romance and three will ensure either a marriage or divorce. A reported current version of this legend is that it is lucky to throw three coins with one's right hand over one's left shoulder into the Trevi Fountain.

An estimated 3,000 euros are thrown into the fountain each day. The money has been used to subsidize a supermarket for Rome's needy. However, there are regular attempts to steal coins from the fountain.

Depiction of St. Theresa, Chiesa di Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome.