ROME, 55 YEARS AGO!

I never thanked enough my parents for what they offered me in 1954: a trip to Rome, my first visit abroad at the age of 13. I was studying at the Salesian school in Estoril and that year Domenico Savio, one of the early pupils of (later Saint) John Bosco, the Salesians' founder, was to be raised to sainthood by the Pope. The Portuguese Salesians organised a bus excursion and some places were opened for their pupils, if the parents were willing (and able!) to pay the costs.
So a fully loaded 50's version of a bus left via Madrid, Barcelona, Marseilles and Genoa in order to arrive in Rome on the eve of the great day, the 12th June 1954.
Of course a passport was needed for the trip, which I had not till then, but I feel to surely astonish those less than 50 years old by saying that also visas were needed for each country entered: Spain, France and Italy (not for Vatican!). The three visas had to be properly stamped in the passports before we left, plus parental authorisations for the minors. I proudly kept the passport for long after it lost its validity - and probably still have it in some place. If and when I recover it, I will post a picture of one visa - I think it will be interesting for those younger to see what looks now a strange oddity.
From Lisbon to Rome it was merely drive and sleep, including punctures and motor problems (no confortable coaches at the time, neither highways!). Then in Rome, after attending the celebrations in Saint Peter's Square, we had two or three days for visits of the italian capital. That's what the picture shows: I am the smaller boy, with the cap; the young adult is (now) Father João de Deus, who has been working as a missionary in Timor-Leste, Baucau area, for many years and whom I had the pleasure and honnour of having lunch with last Summer; the other boy is (now) Professor Encarnação, a renowned academician of computer technology in Darmstadt, Germany, whom I use to meet once a year when our then collegue and now friend Manuel Ferreira conveys they schoolmates for a sardinhada (sardines lunch plus a lot of drinking and eating) at his home near Cascais.