Day 8, yum yum

Ok, let's be clear. The main highlight of the day was to be able to celebrate Mass again at San Felice, the Abbey where St. Gaspar and companions founded the Missionaries of the Precious Blood in 1815. That is always a privilege and an honor.

We also visited my favorite Restaurant, and I think that most of the pictures will be from there. Yep, did not have my camera in hand during the Mass.

I slept in today. I was surprised when I rolled out of bed as late as 6:00am. But then I did not set an alarm. We were not going to do Morning Prayer until 8:30am so had plenty of time to wake up, get cleaned up and chant Matins.

We skipped Mass this morning because the plan was to drive up to Giano and celebrate Mass there before heading off for the finest pranzo on earth.

Well, traffic was going to be the story today, both to and from Giano. The reasons were unexplained in the morning, but it took nearly an hour just to leave Rome. On the way home it was an accident. But the hour and a half trip turned into about 3 hours both directions.

So we get to Giano late, and of course, we were not permitted to celebrate Mass because they were all at Pranzo. So we were told to come back at 3:30. So we headed up the mountain to have Pranzo first.

After we finished we had plenty of time to have a reasonable fast, and Don Luciano was waiting for us when we arrived. He even stayed around to concelebrate with us. We did a lot of Latin, so he had an easy time. He stumbled a bit with the English parts.

After Mass it was the long trip home. We were pretty tired. Did some watering of plants, washing of laundry, but basic relaxing with a few books was the story for the rest of the evening. There was no dinner as lunch was pretty substantial.

I suppose you were wondering if there were any pictures:

They do not start baking the bread they put on your table until you get there:

Kathy, too bad you were not there. Your favorite: bruschetta.

Then the pasta:

and mixed grill:

Taking our leave. We met there an older diocesan priest from the region and his friend from Colorado.

Then back to San Felice:

St. Felix whose tomb is here. Also St. Benedict as this served as a Benedictine Monastery for centuries.

The sacristy:

Detail from the sacristy:

My favorite depiction of the Madonna, is up on the second floor of the cloister:

My favorite image of St. Gaspar is just around the corner. The Madonna is from 1494. The St. Gaspar is a modern 20th Century depiction.

Don Luciano waves arrivederci:

Time to turn out the lights: