It is along the Sacred route, the route of the pilgrims that used to go to the Mount S.Angelo.
Today it is a cheerful and welcoming village, full of thousand years old history of faith and culture. This city in the Gargano has faced an important cultural, social, economic and religious development after the arrival of the Capuchin Friar Father Pio from Pietralcina, the humble friar with the stigmata, who lived and carried out his activity here.
The memories of the friar are so important that S. Giovanni is the destination of a big and continuous religious pilgrimage.
In January 1940 Father Pio founded a great hospital called “Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza” (House for the Pain Relief). Today it is one of the most important hospital in Italy, thanks to its equipments and departments.
In addition to the hospital it can also be admired the restored Monastery of the Capuchins, the Last Supper of Santa Chiara, the old people’s home, the house of the spiritual exercises of Father Pio, the motor rehabilitation centre, the new church and the Via Crucis.
Father Pio is a religious person who calls believers from all over the world, both because of the greatness of his spirit and for the miracles he carried out.
He died when he was 81 years old, on 23rd September 1968, but his spirit is always alive. On 23rd September of every year the village gets full of thousands of buses from where thousands of pilgrims get off and whose destination is the tomb of Father Pio. San Giovanni Rotondo in these last years has organized very well equipped hotels to accommodate a religious tourism.