As someone who has led Catholic pilgrimages to Italy for more than twenty years and serves as an Italy travel coach, Teresa Tomeo is all too familiar with stories of travelers who rushed from one church to another, barely stopping to enjoy a good Italian meal as they check off the items on their Italy bucket lists. They arrive back home exhausted, barely able to remember what they saw and experienced. They fail to embrace la dolce far niente, the sweetness of doing nothing, and feel they have little or nothing to show for their visit except credit card bills and sore feet.

Shrines and Wonders is a welcome and important tool for pilgrims and tourists in general who, in addition to seeing the main places of interests, long to experience a slice of real Italian life. The book will include a look at some of the most unique sacred spaces as well as fascinating places not often visited by the typical tourist. Whether it's a small Marian shrine hidden in the Umbrian hills where believers have been visiting for several hundred years, or the modern but quirky big benches that force one to slow down and make you feel like a kid again, Shrines and Wonders would add so much more to their voyage.

It would also be one of those books that folks who can't get overseas would enjoy with unique stories-some attached to major festivals and processions unknown outside of the various Italian regions.