Friday 5 August Depart
Saturday 6 August Rome
Sunday 7 August Rome
Monday 8 August Rome
Tuesday 9 August Rome
Wednesday 10 August Barcelona
Thursday 11 August Barcelona
Friday 12 August Barcelona
Saturday 13 August Barbastro, Torreciudad
Sunday 14 August Torreciudad
Monday 15 August Lourdes
Tuesday 16 August San Sebastian
Wednesday 17 August Burgos, Avila
Thursday 18 August Madrid – Arrival of the Holy Father
Friday 19 August Madrid; Way of the Cross
Saturday 20 August Pilgrim walk to Cuatro Vientos, Evening Vigil
Sunday 21 August Papal Mass, Zaragoza, Barcelona
Monday 22 August Fly to Rome
Tuesday 23 August Rome, Fly out
Thursday 25 August Arrive NZDetailed Itinerary
The Glenrowan World Youth Day trip will depart Friday August 5 and return Thursday August 25. Our trip will focus on the most important historical sites of Christianity, outside the Holy Land.
We will be embarking on a pilgrimage that will take us first to the centre of the Catholic Church - St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, the Eternal City. With three and a half days in Rome, we will concentrate on appreciating a broad taste of the antiquity of the ancient city and the deep spiritual meaning that many of the sites have for our faith.
We will see other major basilicas such as St John Lateran and St Mary Major.
We will tour the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel, and have the rare opportunity of taking the Scavi Tour – where we will be led underneath the Vatican to see the tomb of St Peter.
We will visit the Church of Santa Croce en Gerusalemme, where tradition says the remnants of the cross of Our Lord are kept, as well as a part of the INRI inscription. We will also tour Villa Tevere, the main centre of Opus Dei, which houses the Prelatic Church of Our Lady of the Angels. There we will pray at the tomb of St Josemaría, founder of Opus Dei.
As well as the tour of Christian Rome, we will of course visit important cultural sites such as the Coliseum, the Pantheon, Circus Maximus and the beautiful piazzas of Rome such as Piazza Navonna and Piazza Spagna, and the famous Trevi Fountain.
Our accommodation in Rome is Club Tiber, a centre of Opus Dei in Rome, much like Glenrowan. There we will meet groups from Sydney and Melbourne and will join them for Mass each morning. Fr Joseph Pich, a Spanish priest who lives in the centre in Melbourne, will be the chaplain for the Australian and New Zealand groups. We will meet up with the Australian groups in designated cities to have Mass in English. It is also a chance for participants to make use of the sacrament of confession.
Departing Rome, we arrive in Barcelona, Spain, where we will be housed at another centre, Club Foiró. The Trullols – family of Luis from Glenrowan - will host us for dinner, and we will enjoy a truly cultural experience and extremely warm and friendly Catalan hospitality.
We will tour the main sites of Barcelona, including the unique architecture of Atoni Gaudí, famous for Casa Batlló and Casa Vicens, his famous Parc Güell and of course, the still unfinished church of Sagrada Familia.
Barcelona has a host of tourist attractions, and without getting too sidetracked by these, we will enjoy the walk down Las Ramblas, the main tourist plaza, which has a real festival atmosphere. We will also tour Camp Nou, home to the Barcelona Football Club, and now, the Champions League Trophy.
From Barcelona, we set out on a driving pilgrimage to some special shrines and cities throughout the north of Spain and south of France.
Our first stop, after passing the quaint town of Barbastro, which was the birthplace of St Josemaría, is the shrine of Torreciudad. Built in the 1970s it is a relatively young shrine, but houses an ancient image of Our Lady which was housed in a nearby hermitage. The new shrine has a detailed artistic altarpiece depicting the life of Our Lady and Our Lord. We will stay in a small apartment for two nights, and meet with hundreds of students from around Spain and around the world who travel to Torreciudad in the summer, which is at the foot of the Pyrenees.
From Torreciudad we set off on the Feast of the Assumption, for arguably the most famous Marian shrine in the world – Lourdes. We drive through the Pyrenees Mountains through the Bielsa Tunnel and through quaint French farm towns. In the town of Lourdes, there is a beautiful basilica, church and shrine all built around the picturesque grotto by the river where Our Lady appeared to St Bernadette. We will spend the day there, before heading back across the border into the Basque country and the coastal Spanish city of San Sebastian.
We will be hosted in San Sebastian by a range of people, and relax for the day as we prepare to drive south to Madrid. San Sebastian will involve a real cultural treat as we sample authentic Spanish tapas. From San Sebastian we drive south to Burgos, which is known for its majestic white gothic cathedral.
After Burgos, we arrive in the sleepy but significant town of Avila. Home to the convent of St Teresa of Avila, as well as memorials to St John of the Cross, reformers of the Carmelite Order, Avila is a wonderful place to take in the life of amazing saints as well as to sample once again some authentic Spanish culture. We will tour the famous walls of Avila and have lunch within the heart of the town’s piazza.
We then arrive in our accommodation in the outskirts of Madrid. The small town of Miraflores de la Sierra is home to the Aguiar family, good friends who are already preparing for our arrival. Although they do not speak much English, their kindness and hospitality overcomes all barriers. The retired couple will be our hosts for the night and will see us off the next day to Madrid.
We arrive in Madrid on the Thursday of World Youth Day week, for the arrival of the Holy Father. We are staying at Colegio Andel, a school not far from Cuatro Vientos – the airfield where the Evening Vigil will be held on Saturday and the Papal Mass will be celebrated on Sunday. Prior to those events, we will tour the city of Madrid and see the artistic Stations of the Cross on Friday evening.
While we are not very hopeful of getting close to Pope Benedict, among the other million young people expected to attend, we will benefit from being close to him and hearing the message of the Vicar of Christ. Our pilgrimage throughout Rome and Spain will have prepared us to pray and consider thoughtfully the deep and relevant words of the leader of the Church and one of the most intelligent minds of our time.
After the Papal Mass we will immediately depart Madrid and return to Barcelona, stopping by the national shrine, the basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar in Zaragoza. We will stay again at Club Foiró, before flying to Rome. We will have a full day in Rome before flying home, which we will use to visit the south of the city to see the basilica of St Paul’s Outside the Walls and the catacombs of St Callixtus, where we will be reminded of the plight and the devotion of the early Christian community in Rome.
