Pilgrimages
Do you have a parish, friends or extended family group that would like to visit Shrines and Saints in Europe?
Reasons to use Parietti Tours for your pilgrimage:
1) Paul escorts all groups to Europe, so you are guaranteed of getting a practicing Catholic tour escort.
2) Prayer/shopping at shrines or churches with saints tombs. Paul schedules 30 minutes to 1 hour (if Mass then an extra 30 minutes) to give everyone plenty of time for prayer and to stop at the church gift shop. Many Catholic tour companies do not give enough time to both pray and shop. These times can be lengthen or shortened to fit you desires.
3) Many tour companies give free time (Tour Escort has time off) in large cities (e.g. Rome, Paris, etc.) where your group members are on their own to figure out how to find sites or just sit around at the hotel. Paul doesn’t take any “time off”, so in large cities if there is free time, Paul will lead those who still want to see something around so they will get there efficiently and will not get lost.
4) No hidden extras – we include all tips to the motorcoach driver, tour guides and wait staff on group dinners in your price, which most tour companies do not, saving your people $10-15/day of additional costs.
We can arrange an itinerary for the countries/shrines you would like to visit and will work with you to fit it into your chosen number of days. We can also add in cultural, historical and scenic sites to go along with the religious sites.
If you don’t have enough people to make a motorcoach group fit within your budget, we can give you a second price quote with a lower class of hotels and/or a lower number of days.
Or you can choose to open it up to others who might be interested in going and we will list the tour on our website in an attempt to find more people. If you have less than 18 people and don’t want to open it up to others, look under our Private Van Tours for more information.
On motorcoach Pilgrimage trips, we include a free trip for the priest (either your parish priest, a priest friend or we can provide one). If your parish priest wants others from the parish to get a free or a partially free trip, we can give you extra price quotes to show you the per person difference. Generally if you want an additional free trip(s) included, it’s good to get at least 30 people to keep the price of the trip reasonable,
Everything is customized to your wishes.
Breakfast: unless you have many people who do not eat much breakfast, we include all breakfasts in the price.
Lunches: on your own unless we arrange a special setting meal.
Dinners (for Adult groups): we suggest to have one scheduled dinner in each city you will stay in, so when you arrive you won’t have to find a place to eat. This gives those who would like to venture out the second night on their own or with a small group to have a quiet dinner. If you choose to include all dinners that is not a problem,
World Youth Day
Paul has organized and escorted 3 World Youth Day trips to Europe.
World Youth Day 2005 in Cologne, Germany
Paul’s largest group he organized and escorted to Europe was 76 people on a 16 day/14 night trip. The group stayed in Rome, Florence, the Swiss Alps, Cologne and Paris. They visited the Vatican Museum, St. Peter’s Basilica and Square and the other three Major Basilica’s, the Holy Steps and the Colosseum in Rome. They celebrated Masses in the catacombs, the Basilica of St. Paul outside the Walls, the Eucharistic Miracle of Orvieto, the Assumption in Florence, the Miraculous Medal shrine in Paris. They prayed rosaries at the Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano and St. Vincent de Paul’s tomb in Paris. They prayed at the tombs of St. Catherine of Siena (incorrupt), St. Catherine Laboure (incorrupt), St. Francis and St. Clare. The Papal Mass finale had approximately 1.2 million people in attendance.
Paul was able to do the trip for $2.200/person which included airfare from Seattle, all ground transportation, lodging and meals (except for 9 lunches). If a profit had been added to the cost, he would still have beaten the closest bid by $500.
World Youth Day 2011 in Madrid, Spain
He organized and led a group of 54 people on a 19 day/17 night trip. The group stayed in Paris, Macon, Nimes, Lourdes, Zaragoza, Madrid, Fatima and Lisbon. The group had Masses at three incorrupt saints (St. Catherine Laboure at the Miraculous Medal shrine in Paris, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and St. John Marie Vianney) and three shrines of Our Lady (Lourdes, Zaragoza and Fatima), Prayer at a Eucharistic Miracle and rosaries at the incorrupt St. Bernadette and Vincent de Paul,
The Papal Mass finale had approximately 2 million people in attendance. The group also visited in Paris: the Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur Basilica, Sainte Chappelle, Eiffel Tower, Arc of Triumph and the Louvre Museum; Versailles; Nimes: the Roman arena and temple; the medieval walled cities of Carcassonne and Avila and swam in a river under an ancient Roman aqueduct and in the Atlantic in the beach city of San Sebastian.
Paul was able to do the trip for $3.000/person which included airfare from Seattle, all ground transportation, lodging, meals (except for 12 lunches) and any entrance fees to the places visited. If a profit had been added in to the cost, he still would have beaten the closest bid by $500 plus they had 5 additional nights (the best bid was $3,800 for only 12 nights).
World Youth Day 2016 in Krakow, Poland
He organized and escorted a group of 18 on a 17 day/15 night trip. The group stayed in Rome, San Giovanni Rotondo, Assisi, Florence and Padova, Italy, took a night train from Venice to Vienna, and also stayed in Krakow and Prague.
The group visited the Vatican, St. Peter’s and the other three major Basilicas of Rome, the Holy Steps, the Colosseum, the ancient Roman ruins of Ercolano. They had Masses in the Roman catacombs, the Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano, St. Clare’s Basilica in Assisi, San Marco in Florence, St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, St. Luke’s tomb, Our Lady of Czestochowa and the Infant of Prague. Prayer at the tombs of St. Catherine of Siena, St. Francis, St. Philomena and St. Pio (incorrupt). The Papal Mass finale had approximately 2 million people in attendance.
Paul was able to do the trip for $3,250/person which included airfare, all ground transportation, lodging and meals (except for 10 lunches) and entrance fees with tour guides to the Vatican Museum, the catacombs and Ercolano. If a profit had been added to the cost, he would still have beaten the closest bid by $300 plus the group had 5 additional nights (and got to go to Italy).