Surrounded by people you love

KRAKÓW – CZĘSTOCHOWA (140 KM) – 19 TO 31 JULY 2022

The pilgrimage to Poland consisted of making a typical Polish pilgrimage, that is, walking on pilgrimage from anywhere in Poland to Częstochowa, home of the Black Madonna, patroness of Poland.

In our case, the route on foot was from Kraków to Częstochowa, which means about 120 km.

We woke up at 6 in the morning, because in Poland you can’t start walking any earlier if you are part of a large group. For about a week, a group of Poles guided us along the roads of Poland, covering no more than 30 km a day. They made us follow some very strict rules: walk for 2 hours, rest for about 30 minutes and, sometimes, even stop for an hour, which we used to celebrate Mass and eat sandwiches, before setting off again. The landscape was really pretty: at first we were surrounded by fields of cereal crops and, later on, we went deep into large, lush green forests.

When we reached Częstochowa we did a bit more sightseeing: we visited both the shrine and the salt mines, as well as several iconic places linked to the life of Pope John Paul II.

My experience of this pilgrimage, of going to a Marian shrine on foot and surrounded by people you love, was a really lovely experience that has changed the way I live with and see other people (whether you like them or not), because I have learnt to look at people with different eyes and not to judge them so quickly.