Contemplations and Ruminations

After visiting Padua and Venice  in the previous travel post, we ended up in Loreto, where after some good breakfast at the hotel  along with these awesome chocolatey biscutey things I picked up in Paris we set out to explore the famous church we saw last night.  We walked to the church of Loretto where a few friends (priests) of our parish priest were waiting for us, and they explained the legend surrounding the church of the Black Madonna in Loreto.  Legend has it that this is the house of the Holy Family where Jesus grew up. Apparently there was some pillaging going on in Nazareth, during the reign of some ancient figure, and to avoid damage to the house of the Holy Family, angels carried the structure across the skies and placed it in Loretto in Italy, as depicted on this stone plaque. (I know... I don't know what to make of it either. But it all depends on you, what you believe, you make it your reality.) So after walking around, we went to the...

So the last travel post was about  Turin , after which we drove all the way to Padua and after roaming around at night, eating ice cream  we came back to Tulip Inn, our hotel in Padua. After the complimentary breakfast, we set out to visit San Antonio's shrine, the shrine where the tomb of St. Antony is located. We celebrated mass in an adjoining chapel there,  We weren't allowed to take pictures in the main shrine, but I surreptitiously managed to take this one. After walking around and praying in this huge church, we then went to the shrine shop. Among all the places we visited, the stuff I've seen at the Padua shrine shop , is really good. One of the best places to shop for souvenirs, everything is so pretty and well made. I had visited Padua in 2013 with Antonio and Nameeta, and Antonio picked up a really cool looking black ring with the Our Father inscribed on it in Latin... He rarely wears it, so I started wearing it... Picked up this cream ...