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That's what it would be in Spanish, but they don't speak much of that here. In Italy they tend to lean toward Italian, for whatever reason. So it would be Monte San Angelo, adding in a monte and converting the plural angel folks to the singular.

We went there from San Giovanni Rotondo, after spending a night and then getting to celebrate Mass in the tiny chapel in the Franciscan cloister where Padre Pio celebrated Mass for two years while he wasn't allowed to celebrate the liturgy in public. We also found the beautiful flowers at left, with the lady pictured who was willing to spend some time with us.

We drove the winding road east to the Adriatic coast, where we found the fourth century shrine that had been a major pilgrimage site in the Middle Ages--Saint Michael (part of today's cohort, in fact--celebrating the Annunciation, Gabriel is another of the archangel's whose names we know, with Michael and Raphael) appeared to a shepherd here way back when. The shepherd had wandered up into the hills to look for a lost sheep (familiar story) and Michael appeared to him in the grotto (cave, place underground in the rocks) which is now a chapel.

Michael's a good guy to keep around; renowned for trouncing bad guys, he has a foot up on knocking Lucifer from the stars (So hard he saw stars. 'How can I be seeing stars,' pondered Lucifer, 'if I've just been knocked out of them?'). In statuary, Saint Michael is also shown as having skills with a sword or spear--devices known to deal damage.
















Shown here with a sword, and getting a foot up on Satan.






The town of Monte San Angelo itself is beautiful. We had a multo buono lunch at a ristorante when we arrived, since the church was closed for two hours for the afternoon riposo. Surprisingly, the afternoon was so cold that in addition to seeing a cow walk down Main Street (unrelated to the coldness) we saw snowflakes coming down--so much for it being after Easter.











We also found very good meringues here.





To get to the grotto is a bit of a trek, actually. You enter the church at what you think is ground level, and then you descend flight after flight of steps, leading you down to where the very peaceful grotto has ridden out the centuries.










Very peaceful grotto.


It's so well illuminated you can't quite tell you're underground from this photo. But you're underground. In a grotto. Which is quite peaceful.