One night in 'Mary Town'
From El Spaino and El Portugalo in 5 weeks in Fatima, Portugal on Aug 05 '07
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I guess we chose Fatima as a stop over because I wanted to have a good look around the Catholic shrine where Apparitions of Mary had taken place. I don't think I was quite ready for what we saw. I knew that a lot of money had been put into the place, and that it was a huge pilgrimage spot, but this place was just unbelievable. Every retail shop, and I mean EVERY shop in the town sold rosary beads, crosses and every type of miniature and not so miniature statues of every saint and pope to have ever existed. It ranged from the cheap plastic statue of Mary, to gold encrusted motifs of St George fighting dragons. Just wild stuff. The Cathedral and shrine itself was also massive, apparently it can fit more than St Peters does in the square in front, and there was huge construction going on to build another structure to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the apparitions (2017). All in all it was a very interesting stop, not at all what I expected, and even Ross found it interesting!
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