Italy Trip 2016: Day 13 - Getting the band back together: Visiting Don Bosco Territory

The Tuesday after Easter, we all met at the bus stop on Via Don Gnocchi. Yep.

Via Don Gnocchi, named after a priest called Gnocchi. Only in Italy.

It was great to finally see the boys after being apart from them for so long. As beautiful and peaceful as Chieri is, it can become a little too peaceful when you're stuck there with little to do. Fortunately, this was not the case for the boys.

They were beaming as they spoke of their home stay experience. We heard stories of families who had opened their homes to them, of being overfed and indulged with trips to the city and to the snow. Everyone had a story, and every story was told with a smile.

The program today was about following in the steps of St Giovanni Bosco, Don Bosco, founder of the Salesian order. This man whose dream and vision spawned one of the great orders of teaching priests, whose philosophy of education is as relevant and contemporary today as it was 150 years ago, is a great formative figure in the lives of the young men of St Joseph's College, whether they know it or not. It was essential that we paid him our respects and endeavoured to understand him as well as we could.

We headed for Becchi, first up. This is the town where Don Bosco was born. Here we got to visit the Basilica of Don Bosco, a massive monument to him built in the 1980s and opened by Pope John Paul II, as well as his home village and farm, the house where he was born and the first church that he built.


The Basilica of Don Bosco, Becchi

The house where Don Bosco was born and spent his early years, Becchi

Becchi is near the town of Castelnuovo Don Bosco about 20 kilometres east of Turin, and nestled atop green hills surrounded by rolling valleys. The view is breathtaking and it was the first location where Don Bosco worked with the disenfranchised youth of Turin. He used to walk his motley group of young men and fellow priests all the way from Turin, along the winding uphill dirt roads, all the while singing songs and playing games, stopping to rest and eat. Often the walk took them three days.

In honour of this walk, we walked back from Becchi to the bus stop. It was downhill, not uphill, and took thirty minutes and not three days. And while we didn't sing or juggle, we told jokes and laughed together.

When we eventually boarded a bus, we were bound for Turin and the other great locale in the Don Bosco story - Valdocco.

Those bus rides can be quite long

After a pizza lunch at Ciro Pizza in Turin, we walked to Valdocco.

Walking the streets of Turin

In Don Bosco's time, Valdocco was farmland on the very fringes of the city of Turin. With the Industrial Revolution at its height, Turin was rapidly expanding and what was once countryside was quickly being absorbed by the city and its factories. While the Industrial Revolution gave Turin enormous benefits and wealth, it had the unintended consequence of fracturing families and casting aside young people, especially boys. These were the boys whom Don Bosco reached out to, and Valdocco was the place he did it.

The entry to Valdocco

Pinardi, the owner of Valdocco, permitted Don Bosco to use the grounds and a cowshed to start a school for the street boys of Turin. Over time, the land of Valdocco was left to Don Bosco and the early Salesian priests and it became the centre of a worldwide order of teaching priests. Today, it is a complex of schools, churches, offices and museums taking up several city blocks and is the Casa Madre (Mother House) of the Salesians.

The first place we visited in Valdocco was Pinardi's Chapel. This chapel was built by Don Bosco on the site of the cowshed where he held his first classes. Simple in design, and small, it is nonetheless an inspiring place.

Pinardi Chapel, Valdocco - built on the site of the cowshed Pinardi lent to Don Bosco to conduct his first school

Next we visited Don Bosco's rooms. All preserved as they were in his day, the rooms contain Don Bosco's living quarters, offices and private chapel. Now a museum, they also contain fascinating memorabilia to him.

The first church that Don Bosco constructed in Turin was the Church of St Francis de Sales in Valdocco, built in the early years of the Order. A beautiful, yet modest church, this was dedicated to St Francis De Sales, the saint who inspired Don Bosco's work and lent his name to the Salesian order.

Contemplation in the church of St Francis De Sales

The last of churches Don Bosco built was anything but modest. Dedicated to Mary, Help of Christians, to whom the Salesians share a special devotion and who, coincidentally, is the Patron Saint of Australia, the Basilica of Our Lady Help of Christians is a masterpiece of Baroque architecture and was one of Don Bosco's great achievements. Housing the relics of several saints including Don Bosco himself, St Cecilia and St Domenic Savio, this is a glorious church. The boys were quite impressed with the enormity of the devotion on show.