Fatima or other holy site to visit in Europe ?

R

ROSS

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Hi

Making plans for my mother in law and friends who hope to get to a holy place in Europe this year. All are in mid 60's and fairly savvy regarding international travel. Any recommendations ? Will probably be for 3 or 4 days booking flights accommodation etc seperately on the web. A day trip to the holy place will probably suffice with 2 - 3 days spent in a nearby city. Fatima was mentioned as a possiblity and Lisbon being the base but all recommendations gladly appreciated.
 
ROSS said:
Making plans for my mother in law and friends who hope to get to a holy place in Europe this year. All are in mid 60's and fairly savvy regarding international travel. Any recommendations ?
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Newgrange.
Stonehenge.
[broken link removed].
 
Try Medugorje, though you need to be in 150% good health for it, and the best time to go is May or September, or in fairness April or October. They can make a time of it (if able to travel, ie drive) by flying with Ryanair into Zadar and then spending a day in North Dalmatia, and travel down (4-5hours) to Medugorje.

Or alternatively you can get packages from the likes of Croatia Tours via Dubrovnik or Split, but if they don't feel like getting stuck into the prayers the whole time, it's a bit better to travel independently.
 
You could book a week in Estoril or Cascais and travel to Fatima from there. You would have the best of all worlds then i.e. sun in Estoril, cheap €1.30 train journey to Lisbon and day trip to Fatima. The disadvantage with the day trip to Fatima is (1) you have only 2 hours at most there and (2) it is quite expensive, €65 for the 80km journey. You could get a reasonable weeks holiday to Estoril which includes a visit to Fatima through the travel department.ie .
 
A half day in Fatima would be enough. It's the most awful place I've ever visited !
Maybe I went on a bad day but the place was totally overrun with some kind of gypsies. Fights broke out between them while waiting in the queue in the ladies. Not for the faint hearted !

Lisbon is lovely & also Caiscais & Sintra, so perhaps this would make up for the lack of civility in Fatima.

How about Turkey & a visit to the Virgin Mary's house & also Ephesus where St Paul spoke to the Ephesians. There are nice places in Turkey....it's not all like where those 3 ladies went looking for young husbands ....you can keep well away from such areas.
 
Perplexed said:
How about Turkey & a visit to the Virgin Mary's house & also Ephesus where St Paul spoke to the Ephesians.
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Skip the former and go straight to the latter in my opinion. Nice view from the mountain on the way to it but otherwise not much to see. Ephesus itself is much more interesting. I think the Romans there also worshipped several gods so it's probably very holy too.
 
A really good place to go is Krakov for a city break and take on of the day tour to czestokova (apologies for the spelling). It's about a two hour trip away and a massive shrine of the same order as Knock and it hosts the Black Madonna. I think it was the first place holy place John Paul II visited in his home country when he was made Pope.

Plus Krakov has a lot of John Paul II related history from when he was Bishop there.

My parents are late 60s and went there recently - loved it!
 
gkec
I couldn't agree with you more. I was in Krakow recently. There are lots of holy places around that area & as you say the Black Madonna is a really popular site for Catholics.
Apart from religious sites - they are so proud of Pope John Paul that no matter where you go he's mentioned - it's a really beautiful city & also very reasonable for dining etc.
 

I've been to Santiago de Compostela in Spain lots of times (an ex-gf's from there) and would recommend it. It was the original Middle Ages tourist/pilgrim destination and the Camino has become popular again in recent years (I walked twice, just for a week each time). Of course, it's easier to fly there with Aer Lingus than to walk!

http://www.galiciaguide.com/Santiago-sights.html

The cathedral (housing the supposed relics of St James) is wonderful, as is the San Martin Pinario monastery - the whole city is a miniature Rome - you can easily spend 3-4 days looking at everything.

Adios
 
Though I'm relying on second-hand reports I'd tend to agree with calculator. Discounting modern destinations such as Lordes, Knock or Fatima the Santiago pilgramage is the great pilgramage of western Europe.
I'm told that it can be taken in bite-sized chunks for walkers or cyclists, whatever you are comfortable with, and that you can arrange for your luggage to be delivered to wherever you expect to spend the night.
An added bonus is that you'll find out why scallops are called St Jacques on French menus!
 
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