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Meet Me in Rome in May 2007

There’s nowhere I’d rather be next May than walking — with you — in the footsteps of the apostles, the martyrs, the popes, and the Church Fathers. So I’m pleased to announce the details of the pilgrimage I hinted at a few months ago.

Our sponsor is the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology (of which I’m vice-president), and we’ll be making the pilgrimage May 16-25, 2007, along with my friends Scott and Kimberly Hahn.

Here’s the scoop. Pilgrims will leave the United States on Wednesday, May 16, and arrive in Rome around noon the next day. Our first visit will be to the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls for a guided tour followed by our opening Mass. From there we’ll check in at the Grand Hotel Fleming for a dinner and reception. In the days that follow, we’ll spend time in the Catacombs of St. Callistus; the Basilicas of St. Peter, the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, St. John Lateran, and St. Mary Major; the churches of St. Clement, the Pantheon, Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, St. Augustine, St. Peter in Chains, and Saints Praxedes and Pudentiana. In these holy places rest the relics of so many of the ancients: Saints Peter and Paul, Saints Simon and Jude, St. Lawrence, St. Jerome, St. Gregory the Great, St. Leo, St. Monica, and many martyrs whose names have been lost to history …

We’ll tour the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel. We’ll pray before the original image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. We’ll climb the Holy Stairs. We’ll pray the Stations of the Cross in the Colosseum. We’ll wander the Roman Forum, see the Arch of Constantine, the Arch of Titus that depicts his return with the plunder of Jerusalem. We’ll visit the tombs of many Jesuit saints at the Church of St. Ignatius. And we’ll stroll through Piazza Navona and have time to stop for gelato or shopping.

And that’s just a sampling of what we’ll do and see!

We’re slated to see Pope Benedict XVI twice, at his Wednesday audience and his Sunday Angelus address.

On Wednesday afternoon we’ll leave for Assisi, to spend two days touring the scenes of the life of Saints Francis and Clare.

Every day’s program will also include talks from your hosts (Scott, Kimberly, and yours truly) on historical, scriptural, and spiritual themes. Since the tour will be in May, the pilgrimage will certainly have a Marian character.

The group returns home on Friday, May 25.

Pricing and other details follow, below. I welcome any questions, too. Don’t hesitate to send me a note — or contact Wendt Touring directly.

PRICING:
$3,499 per person based on double occupancy
$3,999 per person for single room
$2,999 per child (2-11 years)

TOUR INCLUDES:
* Round-trip scheduled air from Newark, NJ, including airport departure taxes
* Eight nights’ lodging with private facilities
* Continental breakfast & dinner daily
* Deluxe motorcoach transportation
* All sightseeing & admissions
* Daily seminars, Mass & prayer
* Baggage handling at hotels
* English-speaking guides

PAYMENT PLAN: A $500 per person deposit is due to secure your reservation with the balance due by Feb. 16, 2007.

CANCELLATION POLICY: Full refund for cancellations made by Feb. 16, 2007. Cancellations made after February 16 are subject to penalties assessed by airlines, hotels and land operators.

TRIP CANCELLATION/TRIP INTERRUPTION INSURANCE: $225 per person due with initial trip deposit.

To Reserve Your Space, Contact:
Wendt Touring
401 Market Street – Suite 707
Steubenville, Ohio 43952
740-282-5790 or toll-free 877-565-8687

13 thoughts on “Meet Me in Rome in May 2007

  1. If there are any scholarships available, count me in! =)

  2. Any chance of ‘furriners’ being allowed to join the tour in Rome?

  3. Chad: From your mouth to God’s ears — and from His mouth to the ears of some very generous donors!

    Fidens: I can’t imagine why not. Please ask David Wendt via the website link at the end of the post.

  4. Mike, that hotel is way north of the ancient city. Would we be spending the majority of our time having been deposited by bus into the sites? I mean, hopefully there would be minimal time when we were physically at the hotel, primarily for sleep and seminars?

    Daily Mass in the schedule at the churches, not in the hotel?

    Sorry to sound so picky, just trying to get a better feel for the environment intended…

  5. Not to worry. This is the third tour we’ve done with Wendt, and they’ve all gone off perfectly. I spent about as much time on the bus as I needed to recharge my battery anyway — no more than that. We use the bus time, too, as a sort of class time, giving background on the sites we’re about to visit and the ruins we’re passing. In any event, I’ve forwarded your note to our Rome experts, and I’ll let you know what they say. Thanks for bringing this up.

  6. One of our resident Rome experts adds this comment: “we will be picked up from the hotel and take buses from place to place in the city. There is no extensive walking and no public transport in our itinerary. The distance between us and our sites is practically no distance for the buses. Also, our daily Masses will be in the churches on our tour, never in the hotel. So we won’t be going back and forth.”

  7. What’s the maximum number of people on the trip?

  8. Lynne,
    Counting everyone (Scott, Kimberly, me, etc.), our max is 100 people. That fills two buses, but it’s still fairly intimate over the course of a week. Everyone gets to know everyone else. We don’t like to use more than two buses, as then it begins to get impersonal — and also unwieldy, trying to stay together in Roman traffic.

  9. You are going pretty awfully close to a few Gasparian sites. Would you be interested in adding another saint to the tour? And who is chanting the masses for you?

  10. This from a scholar friend, on the location of the hotel: “It is, in fact, right near where I lived many, many years ago. It’s a very nice residential area and convenient to the downtown (esp. St. Peter’s because you’re on that side of the Tiber). And you’re spitting distance from Ponte Milvio!” Sleeping near the Milvian Bridge, where Constantine won his victory! How cool is that?

  11. Is there any chance that the Rome pilgrimage could include the Scavi tour.

  12. I’m a priest in Rome and very happy to hear about your pilgrimage. I guess you are more than well taken care of, but if there is anything in which I may help, please contact me.
    Welcome (again) to my city!

  13. Ooops! I realise I’m only a couple of years late! Too bad! Ignore my previous comment.

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