Venerdi, 10 giugno 2016
Surprise! It's me again! I'm writing today's post so Kelsey can tell you all about our trip to Assisi tomorrow, so if you want to read her lovely personality shining through the blog post, you'll have to check the Assisi post that will be coming soon!
Meanwhile, I will tell you all about our journey to Loreto! I have a lot to cover as this has been quite the day (around 20 hours of being awake). We started out the day waking up bright and early at 4:20 in the morning so we could get to the train station and catch our train that left at 5:45. Needless to say, we were quite tired. We were also a bit concerned when we left our apartment to get to the train station as it was just around the time the night bus was scheduled to stop, but still a little while before the normal buses were scheduled to start running. Fortunately, we were able to get on the night bus (probably the last one) and made it to the train station with plenty of time to find our train! Once aboard, we tried our best to get some sleep, but I found it a bit tricky to do so.
It is way too early to be awake!
Well, I guess we both tried to take sneaky pictures
We arrived in Loreto around 10:30 and caught the bus to head up to the town. It was raining a little bit when the train pulled in, but thankfully it cleared up pretty quickly. Loreto reminded me a lot of Orvieto - a beautiful town up on a hill that was a very nice break from the hustle and bustle of Rome.
We made it!
Once we arrived and did a bit of exploring, we decided to visit what we thought was just a small museum before going to the basilica. It turns out, this museum seemed to just keep going and going and we didn't know when it would end or how to get out. Basically, it was just a large maze with some artwork and artifacts on display throughout it. Apparently, it was a papal apartment at one point and is now being used to house a museum. I really don't know how to describe it properly. It was quite the experience and something you would just have to see for yourself.
In case anyone wants to play musical chairs
Once we able to backtrack out of the museum (turns out that is the proper way out), we went to the basilica to see the Holy House of Loreto, which was the real reason we were there. For those of you unfamiliar with the Holy House of Loreto, as I was until I read about it in St. Therese's autobiography, Story of a Soul (which I highly recommend reading), tradition holds that it is the house from Nazareth in which Jesus grew up, transported to its current location by angels. It sounds crazy, I know, but there have been many saints who have visited the Holy House and also many miracles associated with it as well. If you are interested in reading more, I recommend checking out this link: http://www.catholictradition.org/Mary/loreto1.htm
When we arrived at the basilica, it was so incredible to be able to go inside the Holy House, which has been enclosed within a structure within the basilica. The basilica itself was beautiful as well, plus there was a lovely adoration chapel that we were able to go pray in for a while, which was wonderful!!
The Holy House of Loreto
Beautiful altar
A list of saints who have visited the Holy House
After our visit to the basilica, we took a few pictures overlooking the surrounding area and stopped to get a slice of pizza for a late lunch before heading back down to the train station. Once at the train station, we got some wonderful pastries!! One was filled with custard and the other with Nutella. We both love Nutella, so we found the Nutella filled one to be especially delicious!!
So beautiful!!
The sun! It's so bright!
Well, that's better
Why don't we have these back home? We certainly underestimate the wonders of Nutella.
We had to take a couple of trains to get back and ended up being unexpectedly delayed at one of the train stations, leaving us plenty of time to explore it. We decided to get dinner and were excited to find that they actually put potatoes on pizza, so we had a slice of pizza that had potatoes and sausage that pretty much tasted like hot dogs. We also found a bookstore in the train station and were thrilled to find adorable Italian coloring books, so we each got one as a nice little souvenir and a good way to entertain ourselves while we waited!
Put a coloring book in our hands and we'll be happy!
Once we finally got back to our apartment, it was around midnight, so we hurried up to get to bed after a very long but exciting day!
Sonno è nostro amico,
Allison and Kelsey
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