They say that you cannot appreciate...

They say that you cannot appreciate the Polish mentality until you have walked the 243 kilometres in succession the annual nine-day pilgrimage which starts onward August 1, from Holy soul Church of the Pauline friars in Warsaw, southward to Czestochowa to pray at the shrine of the Black Madonna. It contains the icon believed on many to have been painted from St. Luke himself on a beam from the house of the spiritual Family in Nazareth.

In 2010 the annual walk will celebrate its 300th anniversary, although it has been a pilgrims' course since the beginning of the 15th hundred years ...