Make your way to your local airport for your overnight flight(s) to Europe. Dinner and breakfast will be served on board.

Welcome to Scotland! Upon arrival, collect your luggage and pass through customs to meet your guide or driver in the Arrivals Hall. You will then be escorted to the hotel where you will check in to your rooms.. You will have time to relax and get settled before meeting your fellow pilgrims, your tour guide, and your priest. We will begin our pilgrimage together with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass at a local church. We will then have dinner and spend our first overnight stay in Edinburgh.

After breakfast we will begin our day with Mass at the Metropolitan Cathedral of St Mary’s. Then we will explore the capital city of Scotland, including a visit to Edinburgh Castle. Over the centuries this historical castle has served as a battle ground, a home, an army headquarters, and now a tourist attraction. We will wander the castle’s grounds to discover the Great Hall, David’s Tower, the Scottish National War Museum, the Queen Anne Building, and the oldest standing building in Edinburgh: St. Margaret’s Chapel. This delightful little piece of Romanesque architecture has withstood numerous destruction attempts, proving God’s protection over the property. The structure dates back to the 12th-century, when King David I dedicated this chapel to his mother, Saint Margaret of Scotland. The tour will continue to the UNESCO site of Holyroodhouse at the end of the Royal Mile. The Palace of Holyroodhouse is the British monarch’s residence in Scotland. The huge estate contains rich art and architecture – a true highlight of Scottish culture. We will conclude our day with dinner and an overnight stay in Edinburgh.

Today we will venture through the Scottish countryside on the way to the town of St. Andrew’s. This town in Fife was named after the patron saint of Scotland: the Apostle Andrew. St. Andrew’s Cathedral was the largest in all of Scotland. Though ransacked by Calvinist zealots during the Scottish Reformation, the ruins still remain. As the remains of St. Andrew were commonly believed to be buried here, the site became a major shrine for Christians. The “X” shape in which St. Andrew was crucified is a symbol present on the Scottish national flag to remind the country of his martyrdom. The town of St. Andrew’s is also known worldwide as the home of golf. The quiet, non-contact sport is believed to have been invented here in the 15th-century. The Old Course, devised in 1754, is still in operation! We will celebrate Mass at the Church of St. James, a small Roman Catholic parish situated on a clifftop overlooking the North Sea. Next, we will continue our journey with a visit to the town of Perth, including Scone Palace, one of the finest examples of Georgian Gothic architecture in the UK. We will proceed to Glasgow for our dinner and overnight stay.

This morning we will depart for the small historic mining village of Carfin, north-east of Motherwell. Here we will visit the Carfin Grotto, Scotland’s national Marian shrine. The site was built to resemble the Grotto at Massabielle (Our Lady of Lourdes). Built by unemployed miners of the village, this shrine has been used as a place of procession and prayer since the early part of the 20th-century. Before returning to Glasgow for lunch, we will enjoy a walk around Carfin, a town of great significance in the history of Scottish Catholicism. Upon your return to Glasgow, you will have the opportunity to participate in a walking tour of the city before a delicious dinner and your last overnight stay in Scotland.

Following breakfast, we will board our bus that will bring us to Glasgow Airport for our return flights home. We will bid farewell to our new friends and to a pilgrimage which will be in our memories and hearts for a long time to come.

*206 Tours Disclaimer:
Occasionally local religious and national holidays, weather, traffic conditions and other events may necessitate changes in the sequence of events or the missing of certain events/places. Though every effort will be made to follow the itinerary, it should be considered as an indication, rather than a contract of events and places to be visited.