Pope Benedict takes vacation; warns of the “supremacy of technology”

July 13, 2009

On July 13, Pope Benedict arrived at Caselle airport in the northern Italian city of Turin. From there he traveled by helicopter to the residence of Les Combes in the region of Valle d'Aosta, where he will spend a sixteen-day vacation, until July 29.

The pope will stay in a chalet belonging to the Salesian Order, where John Paul II spent many of his holidays and where Benedict stayed in 2005 and 2006. The two-story building is constructed of wood and stone, and is surrounded by a large garden. It stands at an altitude of almost 750 miles and offers views of Mont Blanc and other mountains on the French-Italian frontier as well as the Italian-Swiss Alps. the rest