Montecassino Abbey and WW2 Battlefields day tour from Rome
After being picked up from your accommodation in Rome, start your 1.5-hour drive to Montecassino, observing the landscape as you go. Upon your arrival, begin a self-guided tour of Montecassino Abbey, one of the most well-known abbeys in the world. As the driver is not permitted to give you a guided tour, he will give you the background history prior to your entering.
After your tour of the abbey itself, you may optionally pay a visit to the museum. Here, you'll take a self-guided tour as well, while your guide will patiently wait for you outside.
Next, head to a local restaurant on top of a hill, where you'll have a break for lunch (own expense). As you eat, observe the view of the town of Cassino. Once you have finished your meal, the driver will bring you back to your hotel.
About the Abbey of Montecassino, one of the most known Abbeys in the world: In 529 St. Benedict chose this mountain to build a monastery that would host him and those monks following him on the way from Subiaco. Paganism was still present here, but he managed to turn the place into a well-structured Christian monastery, where everybody could have the dignity they deserved through praying and working. Within the centuries the Abbey has met magnificence and destruction many times and has always come out of its ruins stronger. In 577 Langobards destroyed it, then Saracens in 887. In 1349 a violent earthquake occurred.
In February 1944 a bombardment almost flatted it. The Battle of Monte Cassino was a costly series of four assaults by the Allies against the Winter Line in Italy, held by Axis forces during the Italian Campaign of World War II. The intention was a breakthrough to Rome. Between January 17 and May 18, 1944, Monte Cassino and the Gustav defences were assaulted four times by Allied troops, the last involving twenty divisions attacking along a twenty-mile front. The German defenders were finally driven from their positions but at a high cost. The capture of Monte Cassino resulted in 55,000 Allied casualties, with German losses being far fewer, estimated at around 20,000 killed and wounded.
