Barcelona • Montserrat • Zaragoza • Madrid • Avila • Astorga • Cebreiro • Santiago de Compostela
10 Days - Our prices include airfare from your home town and exclusively 4 or 5 star hotels everywhere
Scroll down to view the itinerary; click on the trip date to book your trip online.
There are no trip dates scheduled at this time.
Trip Includes
- A Catholic priest will be with the group to celebrate daily Mass.
- Round-trip airfare from your hometown connecting in a major city to fly overseas is included.
- Airport Taxes, Security Fees, and Fuel Surcharges!
- Exclusively 4 or 5 star hotels in downtown areas.
- All breakfasts and all dinners.
- Transportation with luxury bus.
- All entrance fees to all the sites.
- All tips to everyone involved in the tour.
- The tour fees for our guides. Our tour guides are well educated, caring, and professional. Most of them have their PhD's in Church history, archeology, philosophy, languages, or Theology.
- Luggage handling. Please pack light, one piece of luggage and one carry-on.
- Dress casually throughout the whole trip. Shoulders and knees should be covered when visiting Basilicas or churches.
- If you are traveling alone and you allow us to find you a roommate, you don't pay the $900 single supplement. If you wish to have your own room and you are not open to rooming with another passenger, then the single supplement fee is $900.
- A wheelchair can be provided for those passengers who cannot walk, with prior notice at registration for $150. A traveling companion has to push the wheelchair throughout the trip.
- At the time of registration, as a part of the total balance, a non-refundable $500 ($500 hotel and airfare deposit) is due in the form of a check or credit card. For example, if your trip costs $3,700, when you sign up, you pay a $500 deposit, then your balance would be $3,200 and is due 4 months before departure date. If you sign up after the final payment due date or at the last minute, you pay the entire cost of the trip at registration.
Trip Does Not Include
- Lunch
- Insurance ~ The total trip cost is non-refundable, we recommend trip insurance to protect your investment.
Trip Itinerary
Sep 23: Depart the USA for Barcelona, Spain
Sep 24: Upon arrival, you will be greeted by our tour guide. Tour of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. The We will make our way to Montserrat, home to the dramatically set Benedictine monastery. On a rugged mountainside, we will visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Montserrat. Since the 12th-century, pilgrims have been drawn to the mountain to venerate the miraculous statue of the Black Madonna. According to Catholic tradition, the statue of the Black Virgin of Montserrat was carved by St. Luke around 50 AD and brought to Spain. It was later hidden from the Moors in a cave, where it was rediscovered by shepherds in 880 AD. They saw a bright light and heard heavenly music that eventually led them to the grotto and the statue. The Bishop of Manresa, present at the discovery, suggested that it be moved to Manresa, but the small statue was discovered to be so heavy it could not be lifted. Thus the Virgin had indicated her will to stay on Montserrat to be venerated there. In the 11th century, the abbot-bishop Oliba founded a monastery on the mountain of Montserrat next to one of the chapels, where the Benedictine Abbey is still preserved. Dinner and overnight in Montserrat.
Sep 25: After breakfast, we will depart towards Zaragoza where we will visit the magnificent Basilica del Pilar, built in the place where our Lady appeared to Saint James. Tradition says that in the early day of the Church, Saint James the Great was spreading the Gospel in Spain, but making very little progress. He was dejected and questioning his mission. About 44 AD, the Virgin Mary, who was still living in Jerusalem at the time, bi-located and appeared to him in a vision to boost his morale. In it, she was atop a column or pillar, which was being carried by angels. That pillar is believed to be the same one venerated inside the Basilica. We will also visit the Cathedral of Zaragoza and we will do a walking tour of the city. Dinner and overnight in Madrid.
Sep 26: After breakfast, we will enjoy a tour of Madrid including the Royal Palace and Plaza Mayor. We then depart for Toledo which sits on a rocky mound isolated on three sides by a looping gorge of the Rio Tajo. Every available inch of this outcrop has churches, synagogues, mosques and houses heaped upon one another in a haphazard spiral, which the cobbled lanes infiltrate as best they can. Toledo is known as the City of the Three Religions or Cultures because for many centuries the Christians, the Moors, and the Jews lived together in relative equality and peace. The city surrounded by walls hides great treasured: its awesome Cathedral, the church of Santo Tome, the Transito Synagogue, Santa Maria La Blanca Synagogue, the superb church of San Juan de los Reyes, Puerta de Bisagras, Puerta del Cambron, Puerta del Sol, etc. Dinner and overnight in Madrid.
Sep 27: Today we take a day trip to Segovia. Our first stop is to the Royal Palace and Monastery of El Escorial, then on to the Valle de los Caidos with its famous underground church. This huge monumental memorial was erected by Francisco Franco, the dictator who ruled over Spain from 1939 until 1975, in honor of those who fell during the Spanish civil war (1936-1939). Next, we visit Segovia, a picturesque old city with twisting alleyways, the highest concentration of Romanesque churches in all of Europe and pedestrian-only streets, all bordered by a medieval wall and two rivers. Visit the Monastery of San Juan de la Cruz and the Shrine of La Fuencisla where St. John the Cross is buried. Segovia was declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO, one of the main tourist attractions is the Alcázar, a royal palace built sometime around the 11th century where Queen Isabel agreed to fund Christopher Columbus’ exploration of the New World. Dinner and overnight in Avila.
Sep 28: After breakfast at the hotel we will have a tour of the city. See sites associated with the life of St. Teresa: The Four Posts, Church of San Pedro at the Plaza de Santa Teresa, and the Convento de Santa Teresa. Dinner and overnight in Avila.
Sep 29: Drive to Astorga and tour the Bishop's Palace built by Antonio Gaudi and the Museum of El Camino. Drive to Cebreiro with an altitude more then 4,500 feet. It is the first village in the region of Lugo. Visit the iconic Palloza styles houses, and the site of a Eucharistic Miracle dating back to the 1300 hundreds. Dinner and overnight in Cebreiro.
Sep 30: Depart to Santiago de Compostel. Tour of the city by bus time permitting. Dinner and overnight in Santiago de compostela.
Oct 01: After breakfast, join the walking pilgrims at the Monte del Gozo from which the spires of the Cathedral are first visible. We will walk little bit on El Camino arriving at the Cathedral, the destination we have been yearning to reach. We will attend the International Pilgrim Mass at the Cathedral of St. James, one of the finest examples of architecture in all of Europe. Tradition invites us to perform some rites. The most important and meaningful one is the hug to the Saint, go under the main altar and visit the crypt where the relics of St. James are preserved. In the afternoon we will visit to the city of Santiago to see: Obradoiro Square, Fonseca Palace, Gelmirez Palace, Franco Street, etc. Dinner and overnight in Santiago de Compostela.
Oct 02: Return flight from Santiago de Compostela back to the USA.