Chronicle of Friday 15 August

Dear parents, grandparents, friends and the rest of the pilgrims,

Happy feast of the Assumption to you all! Today we got up, as usual, at 3:00. After a light breakfast, we started walking towards Trestina, the village our route passes through today. Today’s first hour of prayer centred on the figure of Our Lady, and so we began the day with her feast in our prayers.

Today’s stage was the most beautiful we have done so far. The path we followed was in the shade the whole time, running alongside the river Tiber, with lovely fields of maize and wheat keeping us company throughout the walk. We even managed to pick a tobacco leaf, which some pilgrims hope will dry soon, the sooner the better. Along the way some badly aimed sprinklers came on and had more than one of us worried about our feet, because, let us remind you, wet feet mean blisters for sure.

Today we managed to reach kilometre 20 at our 4-hour stop. A new team record. Waiting for us there were some succulent, and really well-filled, sandwiches made with Bimbo sliced bread and Nutella. What’s more, today the long-awaited chocolate-filled cereal appeared. During today’s spiritual reading, Cardinal Ratzinger spoke about the challenges the Church may face in the new millennium.

The parish that welcomed us today had more than decent sports facilities: a small football pitch and a couple of padel courts, which they let us use. Some of us pilgrims didn’t hesitate to sacrifice our siesta to enjoy a good spell of sport. Blanca Mir turned out to be an ace with the paddle and ran our most experienced pilgrims ragged by sending balls into the corners of the parallelogram formed by the covered padel court.

During lunch, we were able to observe how the local mosquitoes riddled our pilgrims’ legs. Someone remarked that it looked like a beach in Zanzibar, with so many bites. Even so, we had a very pleasant lunch of Bimbo sliced bread with various local cold meats.

The parish of San Donato in Trestina has a small chapel of perpetual adoration where anyone who wished could pray for a good while before the Blessed Sacrament, and then, at 17:30, we had the meditation, in which we heard a sermon about Our Lady and her great “yes” to the Lord, also going deeper into truths such as priestly celibacy and fidelity. Then we celebrated the Eucharist.

Tonight for dinner there was lentil salad with cheese and frankfurters. The truth is that everything was delicious. After dinner, we had a very enjoyable get-together in which Anna Gel and Laura Perreau suggested a game: one of us had to guess, by trial and error, which gesture to make after the rest of the group had thought of it. A sort of “hot and cold”, but with the sounds “ooooh” or “eeeeeh”. It was really funny to see Joan holding Antonio by the feet while he did a handstand. We had a wonderful time playing all together as a family.

Good night, everyone. These days we are praying a lot for you and your intentions. Don’t stop doing the same for us and for the fruits of our pilgrimage. Very close to Our Lady, whose feast it was today, we’re off to bed. See you tomorrow!