San Giovanni Rotondo

We also visited San Giovanni Rotondo where Padre Pio's church and shrine are. They are popular Catholic pilgrimage places; about seven million pilgrims a year come to the Santa Maria delle Grazie church to pay homage to Padre Pio, a well-known Italian saint who died there 40 years ago. San Giovanni Rotondo has become the world's second-most visited place of pilgrimage after Guadalupe in Mexico. Last year, the number of visitors soared by more than a third after the Pope announced that pilgrims qualified for a total remission of their sins (funny!). There is a new church, simply called the Padre Pio pilgrimage church, that has been built behind Our Lady of Grace that can hold over 6,000 pilgrims. I have to admit that the architecture inside the new church is interesting and unusual. Apart from this, the town itself is very nice and reminded me of skiing resorts in Poland.