The Abbey of Montecassino - The War Cemetery - San Pietro Infine.

 A trip to honour and remember those who have given their lives in the cause of Freedom.  

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." George Santayana U.S. Philosopher and poet

     9.30 am        Arrival in Cassino and guided visit to the Abbey and the diocesan  museum.

  11.30 am       Visit to the Commonwealth Cemetery.

  12.30 pm       Lunch break

  2.00  pm        Guided Visit to the Historiale Museum.

  3.00  pm       Departure for San Pietro Infine.

  3.30 pm        Visit to the ruins of the old San Pietro completely destroyed during  WWII.  

  5.30  pm       Departure for your Hotel

  6.00 pm        Arrival at your Hotel and farewell dinner.

 This sample itinerary is meant to demonstrate the variety of experiences possible. It can be modified to your personal wishes. So, if you would like  to add extra days, make a detour or add new activities to the itinerary, I would be glad to customize it for you. 

 Price & Booking: The cost of the tour depends on  the length of your stay and the number of participants: small group and individual travellers are welcome. Ask for a customized trip & quotation.

 - On the mountain overlooking the city stands the Abbey of Montecassino which symbolizes the endurance and resilience of the Christian faith.  It  was founded in 529 AD by St. Benedict of Nursia and during the Middle Ages became an important centre for the diffusion of Monachism in Europe.  This abbey has been destroyed and rebuilt on four separate occasions, the most recent was in 1944 at the end of W.W.II.  Today the rebuilt abbey looks exactly as before the war. Reconstruction and decoration works took more than a decade and were exclusively financed by the Italian State. The church crypt hosts the mortal remains of St. Benedict.

 of Cassino is the largest WWII Cemetery in Italy. The cemetery contains 4265 grave markers of soldiers. They died in battles against the German army. In the middle of the cemetery there is a tall white monument. There are fifteen tall granite slabs located on both sides of the monument. On the slabs are the names of over 4000 missing soldiers who died in Italy and Sicily. In the centre of the beautifully landscaped cemetery is a lovely pool surrounded by a mosaic tiled walkway. Between September, 1943 and May, 1944 the town was occupied by the Germans. The Germans had a great strategic position - on the mountain - and were able to see the entire area. The Allied Forces made many unsuccessful attempts to conquer Monte Cassino. Finally after a battle that lasted seven days, the Polish soldiers overtook the German army. 860 Polish soldiers died and 2800 were wounded in that fierce battle. The battle also resulted in the bombing of the monastery. More than a thousand Polish soldiers are buried in the Polish cemetery located on the mountain across from the abbey. The town of Cassino and the Benedictine Abbey were rebuilt after the war.

  

In 2004, to commemorate and celebrate 60 years from the Battle of Montecassino, a Committee was formed to organize the celebrations. More than 36 villages and towns, called Città Martiri – Martyr towns – as they were devastated during WWII were involved in this project. A virtual map was created in order to link virtually all the places damaged, bombed or destroyed during the tragic events of those days, creating therefore a project of Global Communication. This virtual trip is called “Gran Percorso della Memoria” or Memory Park. This gran percorso includes all those places, which were linked to the war: trenches, battlefields, military cemeteries monuments and also a reconstruction of all sites which have been destroyed. The itinerary marks the spatial relationship between these references and the peculiarities and attractions of the area. In other words the geographic location of this area, which acquired, during the war, a very important geostrategic relevance, remains today, very important from the landscaping point of view. And to this physical dimension, corresponds a virtual dimension, which can be experienced online. The conceptual model assumes or adopts, what we call the network scheme, where we have a series of dots connected together and they are called nodes and they refer to physical places, which are indicated by signs and are characterized by artistic installations. They are called memory sheets and they are placed in the historical centres of the different villages but they also provide  information dispensers, thanks to the Bluetooth technology through which any visitor, by consulting a specific map can build his own personal itinerary.

  

 

The original town of San Pietro Infine was completely destroyed and the modern San Pietro was built down in the valley. What remains now is a reminder and testimony of the ravages of war. San Pietro museum, located near the ruins of the original town, is being stocked and arranged and is going to be inaugurated shortly.  The great film director John Huston, in 1943 was in the site of the battle to document the italian campaign. He realized a documentary film about the battle of San Pietro Infine during World War II. The film is unflinching in its realism (showing people dying on the field) and was held up from being shown to the public by the United States Army. Huston quickly became unpopular with the Army, not only for the film but also for his response to the accusation that the film was anti-war. Huston responded that if he ever made a pro-war film, he should be shot. General George Marshall came to the film's defense, stating that because of the film's gritty realism, it would make a good training film; subsequently the film was used for that purpose. Huston was no longer considered a pariah; he was decorated and made an honorary major. In 1991, The Battle of San Pietro was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In this film you can see real scenes shot during those terrible days. If you want to see the documentary please click on the following link

http://www.archive.org/details/battle_of_san_pietro

 

The Battle of San Pietro Infine  was a major engagement from 8–17 December, 1943, in the Italian Campaign of World War II involving Allied Forces attacking from the south against heavily fortified positions of the German "Winter Line" in and around the town of San Pietro Infine. just south of Monte Cassino On Sept. 8, 1943, Italy surrendered to the Allied Forces.  This surprise development made the Germans look on their former allies as one of their new enemies. As a result, Italy soon felt the full force of the German blitzkrieg.  The Nazis ravaged the port of Naples, then moved toward the mountains on their way to their next target – the city of Rome.

German forces dug in for the winter along the San Pietro Infine and Monte Cassino area in order to block passage through the Liri Valley.  They had the mountainous terrain to their advantage as Allied Forces fought treacherous winter conditions as well as intense German firepower. 

While the Americans fought their way to the fortified mountainous defensive line, the Germans were enslaving and murdering the citizens of San Pietro, which the Nazis had occupied during September.

American troops first entered the hillside town San Pietro Infine Dec. 16-17, 1943.  

The passageway through the Liri Valley leading to San Pietro was appropriately nicknamed “Death Valley.”  Together, the Fifth Army and its many subordinate units sustained 16,000 casualties during the costly advance to free the Italians from the death grip of the Nazis.

The Caves where the people of San Pietro Infine had taken refuge during the bombings of WWII.