Pope enjoys praying, piano playing, walking during summer vacation

LES COMBES, Italy (CNS) - Prayer, piano playing and paths winding through the pines were part of Pope Benedict XVI's vacation in the northern Italian Alps.

The Vatican television center July 16 released a five-minute videotape of key moments of the pope's stay in Les Combes, where he arrived from the Vatican July 11. The tape shows the pope, wearing his white cassock and zucchetto, playing music by Wolfgang Mozart and Johann Sebastian Bach on the upright piano that was moved into the Salesian-owned chalet in time for his first visit last year. Other segments show him writing at his desk and reading; walking through the woods with his personal secretary, Msgr. Georg Ganswein; and stopping for prayer before a Marian image along the pathway.

Greeting some 5,000 people who joined him July 16 for the midday recitation of the Angelus, Pope Benedict said, "Again this year I have the joy of passing a period of rest here in the Valle d'Aosta, in the house that often hosted the beloved John Paul II." "I was quickly immersed in this stupendous Alpine panorama that helps restore body and spirit," he said. Addressing English-speakers in the crowd, the pope expressed his hope that people would find the same refreshment during their holidays and that vacation time would be "an opportunity to draw closer to the Lord in prayer and thanksgiving."

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Copyright (c) 2007 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops