Editor's Note: Sorry for the delay: Here's Kevin's wrap-up on the trip to Italy. All photos are courtesy of Kevin Sage.. Check out Lino's show all week for more Italy hijinks from the Vatican!

Day 6:

A full day in Assisi, with NO BUS! I can't tell you how great it was to hear we'd have an entire day to just hang out and not be trucked all over a big city. We started the day with a long walk downhill to the Basilica of St. Francis, perched on the edge of the hill with a large courtyard in front of it. A beautiful sight itself, and also offering fantastic views of the valley below, it actually consists of both an upper basilica, and the older, lower basilica, where St. Francis himself is buried.  Lino, and many others in our group, were thrilled to find they could get in without pants on.  Hey-oh!  (They DID have shorts on though, just in case you were scared!)  We celebrated Mass with Fr. Rob in one of the chapels of the lower basilica, then visited the tomb of St. Francis. One of the few places in Italy where you can light a real candle, the tomb is also setup with a lot of short pews so you can take time to pray and reflect. It was very moving.

We also visited a room in the lower basilica full of relics of St. Francis. I'm afraid I'm not sure what most of them were since the explanations were all in Italian, but they had his slippers from when he had the stigmata, other garments of his, and several other relics.  The lower basilica also features one painting that was painted by a friend of St. Francis, so it is believed to be the most accurate image of him. After that we entered a small courtyard and then upstairs to the upper basilica.  For my money, the upper basilica was much less interesting...it had some nice art but didn't have the feel of history and importance of the lower basilica.  Still, very beautiful.

Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi on day 6

After the visit, we walked back up the hill to the Basilica of Santa Chiara (St. Clare), just down the street from our hotel. The main sanctuary is nice, but the two must-see's here are the original San Damiano cross that spoke to St. Francis to rebuild the church (located in a side chapel) and the tomb of St. Clare, down below the main altar. There is also a room below the sanctuary containing a large number of St. Clare's relics, including her hair, her tunic, and lots of other items.  Very cool.  Shockingly, nobody in our group got kicked out of either basilica...we were all very well behaved for once.

After that we were supposed to see the Cathedral of St. Ruffino, but we were running late and it had closed for lunch, so we had free time instead.  Luckily, Norvina and I had stumbled onto the Cathedral the day before. The most important thing to see there is the baptismal font where St. Francis and St. Clare were both baptized.  Anyway, after St. Clare's, Norvina and I went exploring and wandered down to San Damiano church.  It's WAY down the hill, outside the main city, down a little narrow road out in the sun.  It was so hot, my cheap watch melted off my arm. Literally. The part of the watch the band hooks to melted off, and the watch fell off my arm. Yikes!

At any rate, San Damiano was very cool.  There's a very small church where the original San Damiano cross once hung back when it spoke to St. Francis...now a replica hangs in it's place.  We saw a picture of Pope Benedict visiting the church.  You can also wander through the living quarters and see where St. Clare sang in the choir, where she slept, where she died, and several other rooms.  It was really neat to see, and given the location, the view, and the quiet, it's about as contemplative as you can get.  Unfortunately the walk back up the hill was not so great, as it was really hot.

That night we had another group dinner at our hotel overlooking the valley. I guess everyone was hanging out on the second floor balcony beforehand and got a nice group picture, but we missed it because we were out wandering around.  Anyway, dinner was great...we sat with Fr. Rob who was hilarious as always, and the lasagna was simply unbelievable, even for Italy.  Best joke of the night though goes to Bad-Back Rob, who at one point blurted out to everyone (regarding Lino): "At what point did he realize the listeners are funnier than he is?"  Lino replied that Rob isn't allowed on the next pilgrimage!

The crew with our tour leader Mountain on the Ponte Vecchio after dinner on day 8

Day 7:
After a good night's sleep (for some of us...others were enjoying the vino in the main city square), we boarded a bus to leave Assisi and drove to Siena.  Although not on the original schedule, Siena was added in since we'd missed Orvieto.  Upon arriving in the very hilly City of Siena, we walked straight to the Basilica of St. Catherine of Siena.  After viewing her head (yes, her head) we celebrated Mass with Fr. Rob in a small chapel behind her head.  We were not supposed to take pictures of her head, but of course, we did. Personally I find the idea of decapitating your saints so you can display their heads a bit morbid, but what do I know?

We also made a quick visit to the city square, where they do horse races around the cobbled square several times a year. After a quick lunch, it was back on the bus and off to Florence, which, to my surprise, was a much shorter drive than expected. During the drive, the crew announced monikers for all of us, some more creative and funny than others. My personal favorites: Bad Back Rob, Black-Out Brad, and Longhorns (hey-oh!) Adam.  Also: live versions of Scathegories and Catholic Password!

Upon arriving in Florence, we drove up to Lino's favorite spot: the Piazzale Michelangelo.  Those of you who have been listening for a while will recognize this spot as where Lino goes every time he visits Florence, to listen to some Foo Fighters.  It's really awesome, because it overlooks the whole city, and is right above the river Arno. Only problem is it's in the blazing sun.  Fr. Rob, who was still wearing his collar, was not enjoying the heat. While there, Lino posed with pictures with all of us (individually), free of charge!  We also took a group picture...the first one where the entire group was actually present, and Norvina and I got pictures with Fr. Rob, and with Lou and Ryan too. I don't have a copy of the group picture yet, but I'm going to be sure I get one from Lino.

Mountain (our tour leader) explaining the San Damiano cross to the group in front of Basilica of Santa Chiara in Assisi on day 6

Off-topic: There's no reason to put this paragraph here, except that talking about taking pictures reminded me of it... I think I've talked about everyone on the crew except Lou, so it's his time to shine.  First off, his moniker given by the listeners on the "pilgrimage", is Eyelash Lou.  Norvina has dubbed him "Faithful Servant" because he's very calm, funny, hard working, and just rolls with all the insanity that is Lino and Maureen (and Fr. Rob).  He strikes me as a very humble guy, without the big ego you'd expect from a celebrity - yes Lou, you ARE a celebrity, like it or not!  He's also definitely the healthiest eater in the group by far (though the group is not setting real high standards there...)  So anyway, just wanted to show Lou some love!  In a totally manly way of course.

Back to Florence: Our hotel is right in the middle of things, a couple blocks from the Cathedral.  After freshening up, we visited the Cathedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore.  The church is beautiful, with the outside covered in white and green marble, and it's huge...the fourth-largest in the world.  Inside is rather plain (by design, according to our guide), except for the elaborate frescoes inside the enormous dome designed by Brunelleschi.  The baptistry immediately across from the Cathedral features two huge doors, covered in gold-leaf relief panels depicting scenes from the bible. Incredible. The inside features elaborate gold-leaf Byzantine mosaics, which are also incredible. Also inside the baptistry is the tomb of one of the anti-Popes, who later became a bishop again, which was kinda weird.

Our last bit of business was to visit the Galleria de Uffizi (an art gallery and former palace) to view various pieces of art by Da Vinci, Raphael, and other famous painters.  I'd have to say most of our group was very tired by that point, and the long tour of the gallery was brutal...yet another "three hour tour".  I wish I could say I really absorbed all our guide was saying, but that would be very untrue. At any rate, the art was interesting.

Most people crashed that night, as we were all very tired.  Lino went to dinner and a chunk of the group (maybe half?) followed him to a local favorite of his. Personally, I was in my room sleeping like a rock by the time they probably started eating.





Day 8:
We got to sleep in!  With no organized activities until 2:15, we had all morning to do what we wanted.  Norvina and I just wandered around, over the famous Ponte Vecchio bridge, and around some side streets.  Frankly, even afer a solid night of sleep, we were still tired so we took it easy.

At 2:15 we gathered together again and visited the Galleria dell' Accademia just behind our hotel to see Michelangelo's famous statue of David. It's really amazing to see the detail he put into it...anatomically correct (hey-oh!) in every way, down to the veins in his arms, hands, and legs, other than the overly large right hand, which we think somehow symbolizes the power of God that helped him defeat Goliath. Photos are not allowed...but I suspect you'll see some floating around Facebook soon.

Next we visited the Basilica of Santa Croce, where Fr. Rob celebrated Mass in a small chapel to the side of the main altar.  It was brutally hot...Lino looked like he was about to pass out when we left the chapel after Mass, and Fr. Rob couldn't see because of the sweat burning his eyes.  Seriously, it was really hot.  After Mass, we toured the church to see the tombs of some famous Florentines, like Galileo, Michelangelo, and Machiavelli.

Finally, after a quick break, we walked together from the hotel, past the Cathedral, past the town square, over the Ponte Vecchio, to a very nice restaurant for our last (sniff, sniff) dinner together before we all head back home.  Dinner was great, and the restaurant overlooks the Arno River, the Ponte Vecchio, and the edge of the city. It was a beautiful location. The crew (including Ryan and Fr. Rob) took turns giving farewell speeches, some of them actually getting emotional (not bad considering that at the start of the pilgrimage, they were afraid we'd all be nuts)!  Lino went last and gave a lengthy farewell.  Fr. Rob took the opportunity of the final dinner to do a blessing for Bad Back Rob and his wife Great Equipment Jennifer for their 25th wedding anniversary.

The fans also gave some "thank you" gag gifts to the crew, which I think you'll hear about on the show...the gifts were quite funny.  Anyway, with that, we left and wandered back over to the Ponte Vecchio to watch the sunset.  It was a surreal way to end the trip.

It's hard to believe it's already over!



Conclusion:

Sadly, this is likely the last post about our trip together.  Unless something really odd happens on the way to the airport tomorrow (sans Lino, Lou, Maureen, and Ryan), there shouldn't be anything more to report.  It's been a tremendous amount of fun, and I'm sorry to see it end.  As a couple people have said at dinner toasts, although Lino calls this the "worst pilgrimage of all time", it's also been the best trip of all time.  I think I can speak for everyone here when I say we'd do it again in a heartbeat.  Both the crew and the fans have been great and lots of fun.

I can't wait to see what Lino has to say about all this on-air from Vatican Radio next week!

Hope you've all enjoyed the reports as much as I've enjoyed sharing our experiences with you.

Kevin the Pseudo-Catholic
(or as Lino and crew are now calling me: Not Catholic Kevin)

Editor's Note: Here is Part Four of the Italy Trip...sorry for the late post! Kevin provides info on days three through five, with a few pics to boot.


Day 3:

Day 3 started out very early (6:30am) with a walk over to St. Peter's Basilica.  While we waited to go in, Lino took a quick spin at being tour guide to tell us about St. Peter's Square.  Once inside, Father Rob celebrated Mass.  I've been to St. Peter's a number of times, but I'd never known that all of the altars are used in the morning. It was really surreal to see so many Masses being celebrated at once, in so many different languages. It really shows the universality of the Catholic Church.

After Mass, we headed over to the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, which contains many important relics of the crucifixion. In particular, we saw pieces of the true cross, thorns from the crown, and some of the nails that held Christ to the cross.  There is also a replica of the Shroud of Turin, where it is believed you can see the image of Christ on his burial shroud.  I saw it once before, but this time I was surprised that I could actually make out a faint outline of his face...truly incredible.

Next up was Scala Santa (the Holy Stairs). These are the stairs that Christ walked up and down on Good Friday to stand before Pilate. When Constantine legalized Christianity, his mother, St. Helena, had the stairs brought over from the Holy Land to Rome...can you imagine lugging all those marble stairs all that way? They now sit enclosed in a building to protect them from the elements, and the stairs themselves are covered with wood so the thousands of pilgrims climbing up them will not damage them. Since you have to climb the stairs on your knees, praying at every step, it can take some time and be painful. Let's just say the crew (who had climbed the stairs before...except Maureen) wasn't too excited to repeat the experience.  Well, except for Ryan.  However once Lino saw that most of our group had done it, he caved to peer pressure and followed suit.  My wife had bruises on her legs within hours of climbing the stairs, but according to her it was well worth it.

Then we hit St. John Lateran...well, we didn't hit the church, but we did visit it.  The church is dedicated to St. John the Evangelist and St. John the Baptist, and is named after the Lateran family.  It is the seat of the diocese of Rome, and is the seat for the bishop of Rome (the Holy Father)...so in reality St. John's is more important than St. Peter's, as odd as it is to hear someone say that.  Anyway, it's a beautiful church, with giant statues of the apostles lining the inside of the church. The heads of Peter and Paul are present (though not visible) at the top of the baldachino, and the table believed to be used at the Last Supper is in one of the naves. Really amazing to see.

That afternoon, we visited the Vatican Museums, including the Sistine Chapel. We all thought it would be nice to spend the afternoon indoors in air conditioning. Unfortunately, they apparently don't use air conditioning at the Vatican Museums, so our three hour tour (insert Gilligan joke here) was very hot, very tiring, and just felt miserable.  Lino tried to cool himself off by rolling up the legs of his jeans into shorts, which was a really, um, "great" look. I put a picture of it on Facebook and tagged Lino if you want to see his "classy" jean shorts. Anyway, the rest of us tried to keep cool however we could.  I think I can speak for most of the group when I say that by the time we got to the most important and beautiful parts of the museum - the oldPapal apartments painted by Raphael and the Sistine Chapel - we were too hot and tired to really care. It sounds bad, but you have no idea how hot it was!  We did get a few, illicit photos of the Sistine Chapel though.

Lino and Maureen have dinner with the fans. Photo by Kevin Sage.

After all that fun, Lino and Fr. Rob announced they would be walking to dinner in town if anyone wanted to join them. Of course many of us wanted to. Fr. Rob kept telling us it would be a 30-35 minute walk. We got started almost 30 minutes late because Mr. Rulli decided he needed his beauty sleep more than he needed to be on time...and then the walk took more like an hour than 35 minutes!  The entire walk, Fr. Rob kept talking about the carbonara, and how we all must order it.  Imagine listening to him repeating himself over and over in his Brooklyn accent saying "carbonara".  Hilarious!  (He was right though...Norvina (my wife) said it was excellent.)  Anyway, since we didn't have a big group reservation, we got split up into several groups of 6-8 people.  Lucky us, we ended up having dinner with Lino and Maureen! Aside from the fact that I was feeling terrible and kept having to excuse myself to get some air, it was really fun. I think the best way I can sum up the conversation is that listening to Lino and Maureen talk felt like a live, in-person version of the show.  Great fun!  They were both very personable, funny, and just generally great to hang out with.  Their on-air personalities don't seem like schtick...it seems to basically reflect how they are in "real life".  It was also great to see that Lino, as successful and popular as he is (and let's not forget the 3 Emmy awards!) is still down to earth and just a regular dude...who happens to be Catholic.


Day 4:
We started day 4 with Mass with Fr. Rob at Santa Maria Maggiore, the fourth major basilica of Rome.  It's the largest church in the world dedicated to Mary, and was built after the Virgin Mary appeared in a dream and said that snow would fall in August, and in that location where the snow fell, a church should be built. As you can probably guess, snow did fall in the middle of August, and the church was built there.  The most important relic at the basilica are pieces of wood from the crib of Christ...pretty cool!

After Mass we headed back out into the heat (with Fr. Rob in his collar no less...which I'm sure he was none too thrilled about) to visit the Roman Forumand the Colliseum.  It's amazing to see what the Romans could do so long ago and that it's still more or less standing today. The Colliseum in particular is amazing. It's simply huge, and when built held 55,000 people. More than 2,000 years later, it's still there and though not in perfect condition of course, is still used from time to time for concerts and such.  Really amazing.


The last bit of sightseeing for the day was a visit to St. Peter's.  Since the line to get in was so long when we finished the Colliseum, Lino and company decided to adjust the schedule and give us some free time, with the plan to visit later in the day when it's less crowded. I'm sure you can guess that when we arrived later, it was not any less crowded... While we waited in line, Fr. Rob gave us a very thorough history of St. Peter's Square, and had a little "bet" with Lino in the process about who built the fountains.  Tune in to the show next week to see who won!  Unfortunately, although they normally allow tours inside the basilica until 5pm, they apparently decided "not today" and told Fr. Rob he couldn't lead a tour.  And he was even in his collar!  He was a good sport and tried to subtly continue to inform us of key information about the basilica, as did Lino.  Oh...and while in line to enter the basilica, yet another "incident" occurred that will be talked about for sure during next week's shows.  Only this time instead of Fr. Rob, it involved one Mr. Angelo Rulli.  Tune in to Sirius 159/XM 117 to hear more!

The day ended with a group dinner at a restaurant near the famous Piazza Navona.  There were some "bus issues" getting there that could only happen inItaly. And we managed to forget Ryan...these Catholic Channel guys and their beauty sleep!  He caught up to us at the restaurant though.  We had no main course, just 16 appetizers, coming in rapid-fire.  This time we got to sit with Maureen and Fr. Rob. That was a good time!  Fr. Rob is absolutely hilarious and a great dude.  I couldn't stop laughing most of the dinner.

After dinner we went on a group night walk. First stop was Piazza Navona to see all the artististic folk, listen to music, and enjoy the fountain and lights. Next up was a Gelato shop near the Pantheon with a ridiculous number of flavors - 100 to be exact. I'd say most people enjoyed it. We then saw the Pantheon, an old pagan temple that is now a Catholic church...but it's under renovation and half-covered in scaffolding, so not a great photo op.  From there we wandered over to the famous Trevi Fountain, where superstition has it that if you toss a coin over your left shoulder with your right hand into the fountain, you'll return to Rome. Superstition or not, I think we all did the toss. Finally, we walked over to the Spanish Steps.  Not much to say about them...they're just steps in front of the Spanish Embassy.  From there it was back to the hotel except for those that wanted to hit the bars.


Day 5:
Day 5 started with another "bus issue" that can only happen in Italy, so we were delayed a couple hours leaving Rome.  The group made the most of the situation though, as Julie played piano while everyone sang along.  Lino even took a quick turn at the piano.  One thing about this group: we're all having fun regardless what happens.  Tune in next week to hear clips of our musical stylings while waiting for the bus (you'll probably get to hear Maureen and Ryan sing!  And possibly Lino. Lou however would have none of it.)  When we finally hit the road, we had learned we'd be skipping our stop in Orvieto because of the delay, and going straight to Assisi - the home of St. Francis and St. Claire.

As the bus carrying what Lino has already dubbed "the best and worst pilgrimage of all time" headed down the Autostrade (freeway), we were treated to some Q&A with Lino and Fr. Rob which was hilarious.  I suspect you'll hear clips on the show next week.

After settling in Assisi, we visited the Basilica Santa Maria Degli Angeli to see where St. Francis received his calling to start the Franciscan Order, the place where he died, where he lived his last days, and the rose bushes where story has it that he jumped into after removing his clothes to fight off temptation, and that no thorns have grown on those bushes since.  Fr. Rob celebrated Mass with us in a private chapel, and everyone loved the intimacy and simplicity of the small chapel, as many people have said they were really moved by today's Mass.

We ended the day with dinner at the hotel on a patio overlooking some of the valley below Assisi.  Assisi is a very nice break from the hustle and bustle of Rome, and everyone has said they're looking forward to relaxing and enjoying the scenery of this quaint town.

That's it for now...stay tuned for the next report which should wrap up Assisi and introduce Florence!

Ciao!
Kevin the Pseudo-Catholic

Note: Here is Part Three of the Italy reports, containing photos from Phyllis. Part Four will contain Kevin's Day 3-5 report.