Thanks to the London railway station, St Pancras is usually associated with
trains. According to Father Kamil Strojwas, however, it could just as easily
be cars. “When we're looking for parking spaces, we pray to him,” he says
with a wry smile. “We say: ‘St Pancras, please make me a parking space.' And
it works.”
Father Kamil is a priest at the Roman basilica dedicated to Pancras, a
4th-century orphan who converted to Christianity and was beheaded at 14 by
order of the Emperor Diocletian. Pancras is the patron saint of children and
is invoked against liars, cramp and, perhaps ironically in view of his own
fate, headaches. Yet even Roman Catholics well-versed in martyrdom can look
blank when his name is mentioned.
To mark the feast day of St Pancras this week, my wife, Clare, and I are
making a railway pilgrimage from St Pancras International, the new Eurostar
terminal, in King's Cross, London, to Rome, where we hope to discover the
saint's remains.
His name apparently means “the one that holds everything”, and that just about
sums up the new terminal, with its bright-scrubbed brickwork and a canopy
arching like a sky-blue rainbow. Packed with railway retail - smart cafés
and classy shops - it feels instantly continental, as though Europe has
arrived before you've even boarded the train.
Sir John Betjeman, peering skywards in an endearing new statue, his waistcoat
buttons straining, would doubtless have rejoiced that this Victorian marvel
has been so imaginatively restyled. He might, though, have regretted that
the old St Pancras, the unpretentious gateway to the Midlands and North, has
been hijacked by the rest of the travelling world. With Paris and Brussels
joining Leicester, Kettering and Nottingham on the departure boards, a
slightly shabby old friend has been almost alarmingly glammed-up.
All the same, Clare and I can now get off the train from Sheffield, where we
live, change platforms for the Eurostar to Paris, and from there take a
14-hour overnight sleeper to Rome. It's an immensely civilised adventure
“You're going to Rome by train?” friends say, eyes wide with the romance of
it. “Oh, how wonderful.”
First, though, we pay our local respects to Pancras. Two churches named after
him are a five-minute walk from the station: the Victorian parish church,
grand and Grecian on Euston Road, and St Pancras Old Church on Midland Road,
much smaller and amazingly peaceful in all the London rush and bustle.
Then we speed through the flatlands of northern France to Gare du Nord, cross
Paris to Bercy station, and wait for the overnight sleeper.
As we sit, we talk about the excitement of European train journeys celebrated
in films such as Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes. Lo and behold, two
characters from the film, the old English buffers Charters and Caldicott,
seem to materialise in front of us. A pair of middle-aged rail enthusiasts
are unpacking the iced buns, milk and teabags they have brought with them.
“What's in there? Earl Grey? Where's the old PG?” “Hope the train's not
late. That would put the mockers on it.”
On board, our cabin is clean and bright. It's like bedding down in a
comfortable caravan with a nice line in emergency instructions: “In the
event of declenchement of audible alarm, evacuer the compartiment without
precipitation and come into contact with the crew.” We hurtle through the
night. Switzerland swishes past in a mountainous blur. Snow splatters the
windows. We awake to misty Italian vineyards and pine-strewn hill villages,
breakfast on coffee and croissants, and step off the train in the heart of
Rome.
The Basilica di San Pancrazio is well off the regular tourist trail, in a
quiet residential suburb in the southwest of the city. It has a broad,
understated frontage, and inside is almost wilfully restrained by Italian
standards.
Here are Father Kamil and Filippo Coderoni, a student who has volunteered to
translate. We tour the church, heavy with the scent of lilies, and Kamil
points out the various depictions of Pancras, often shown as a boy soldier,
and his execution.
“We have pilgrims from all over the world,” he says. “From Germany, Uruguay,
and the Philippines, where he is the patron saint of people who are
searching for work.”
We explore the silent, bone- scattered catacombs (“I don't come down here
alone”) and a crypt studded with 6th-century mosaics. And, finally, we see
the saint's reliquary.
This is the moment in many Italian churches where history gives way to anatomy
as you peer at body parts of St Tibia or St Fibula or the Blessed Pelvis.
The basilica has its fair share of such things in its sacristy, where
hundreds of bone fragments, painstakingly labelled, are arranged in a framed
abstract collage. What are these things in the middle, I ask. Fingernails?
“Fish scales, I think,” Kamil says.
There turns out to be just one surviving relic of St Pancras: his skull,
sealed inside a brass bust of him, fresh-faced and curly-haired. “It's the
whole skull,” Kamil reassures us. “Two years ago we opened the bust and
brought it out. It was a great moment for us.”
Our journey from St Pancras to St Pancras is complete. As we leave, Kamil
agrees that it's strange that the young saint is best known in Britain as a
railway station and in Rome for his traffic-management skills.
NEED TO KNOW
Railselect.com (01904 527210, www.railselect.com)
offers a five-night tailor-made trip from
St Pancras International to Rome from £800pp, based on two sharing. This price
includes three nights' B&B in a three-star hotel in Rome, first-class
Eurostar, overnight sleeper services and private transfers.
Stay The central three-star Hotel Romae (00 39 06 4463554, www.hotelromae.com)
has B&B doubles from about £40.
Eating Wide and excellent choice at the popular Trattoria Mamma Angela (Via
Palestro, 00 39 06 4434 1317).
Information Italian State Tourist Board (020-7408 1254, www.italiantouristboard.co.uk).
FROM VOLCANOES TO CHOIRBOYS - more breaks in Italy for church-lovers
Florence
The 500-year-old body of St Antoninus is preserved wearing a mitre under the
altar at the Domenican church of San Marco. As Archbishop of Florence at the
height of the Renaissance, he lived simply, travelling on a borrowed mule.
Real Holidays (020-7359 3938, www.realholidays.co.uk)
has three-night B&B breaks at a converted palazzo at £252pp. Flight
extra (£180).
Naples
The Duomo houses the body of St Gennaro, a bishop beheaded in the 3rd century.
Two times a year his dried blood, kept in phials, reputedly liquefies and is
paraded in processions. Gennaro is the patron saint of Naples, volcanic
eruptions...and blood banks.
Kirker Holidays (020-7593 2288, www.kirkerholidays.com)
offers three-night B&B breaks in Naples from £496pp, including flights,
breakfasts and transfers.
Siena
See the head (and right thumb) of St Catherine of Siena (1347-80) at the
Church of San Dominico. She experienced what she called a “mystical
marriage” to Christ and is the patron saint of fire prevention.
Great Rail Journeys (01904 527180, www.greatrail.com)
includes four nights in Siena in its 11-day Tuscany & Umbria tour from
St Pancras International from £1,770pp.
Turin
The Basilica di Maria Ausiliatrice is a treat for relic-spotters. The remains
of Don Bosco, the 19th-century patron saint of editors, are joined by 6,000
relics of other saints, including his pupil St Dominic Savio, patron saint
of choirboys and juvenile delinquents.
Cox & Kings (020-7873 5000, www.coxandkings.co.uk)
has three-night B&B breaks in Turin from £475pp, including BA flights
and private transfers.
