The Polish national railway company PKP has announced it will lay on six special trains to take pilgrims to Rome for John Paul II's funeral. Fares for the trip from Warsaw to Rome, via Krakow and Katowice would be as low as possible.
Many groups of pilgrims have already left for Rome by coach and private cars. Every seat to Rome on LOT national airlines has been sold out until Friday. Travel agents and transport providers are doing their best to find a way to get the pilgrims to Rome.
A delegation from the Pope’s birthplace of Wadowice has taken a small bag of soil in their luggage. They hoped it would be buried with the pope at St Peter's basilica.
It is a tradition to take soil from Poland to be buried with compatriots who are interred far from their native land. Even if the hotels in Rome were fully booked, the Wadowice pilgrims had no problem finding accommodation, as the inhabitants of their twin town of Carpineto Romano, south of Rome, have offered to lodge anyone from John Paul II's birthplace.
|