Three saints shape these twelve days, and all three are close enough to touch. You pray before the Black Madonna at Jasna Góra, kneel in the Chapel of Divine Mercy where Saint Faustina's relics rest, and stand in the small Wadowice apartment where Karol Wojtyła was born — the ordinary room a boy grew up in before he became the Pope who told the world not to be afraid.

Between them lies Oświęcim, and the pilgrimage does not go around it. A morning at Auschwitz-Birkenau, given to prayer and remembrance, is the ground on which the message of Divine Mercy has to be heard. From there the road crosses into Bohemia for the Infant Jesus of Prague, the vaulted stone of St Barbara's at Kutná Hora, and the shrine of St James in Brno.