Pope to Puglia Day 24 Stignano to San Giovanni Rotondo – 22 km

In San Marco in Lamis, Antonio delivered a 15-minute master class on the history of the area.  The Longobards, who were probably from Saxony, swept down into Italy in the 6^th century because they heard about the temperate climate, good food, fine wine and the thermal baths.  They Christianized one of their pagan gods to become St Michael, the Archangel, who is often depicted with blond hair, sword aloft ready to strike a serpent.  The road we are walking, called the Via Sacra Longobardorum, has been travelled for over a thousand years by pilgrims on their way to the cave of St Michael at Monte Sant’Angelo, where we will be tomorrow.  In Catholic teaching this cave is one of the three pilgrimages needed for salvation, the other two being St James of Compostela and Jerusalem.  Armed with that perspective we set off for what turned out to be one of the most magnificent walks of our entire journey through pine forests, cow pastures, fields of wildflowers, up 3800 ft to a crest from which the Adriatic Sea was shimmering in the distance. It was breathtaking.

Our stop this evening is the town of San Giovanni Rotondo, where Padre Pio lived most of his life.  It is packed with religious pilgrims who flock to his sanctuary for divine intervention, apparently on a par with Lourdes.   Stores hawking religious figurines and relics line the streets, busloads of supplicants crowd the sanctuary, a sense of subdued hysteria permeates the area.  We retired to the historic center where the heart of a prosperous medieval Italian town beats unabated.