Aug 6, 2012 / 15:31 pm
Groups of choirs, dancers, artists, poets and horn blowers from Pope Benedict XVI's native Bavaria visited the pontiff at Castel Gandolfo on Friday as a belated birthday present.
Over 1,000 pilgrims from Bavaria visited the papal summer residence under the leadership of Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising, Vatican Radio reports.
Men, women and children dressed in colorful lederhosen and summer dresses for a Bavarian Hour in honor of the Pope's 85th birthday this past April.
Pope Benedict said that their folk songs and their Bavarian dialect reminded him of his homeland, which he gave high praise.