Via Francigena

In just a couple of  days we will be off for Italy once again, this time to walk the Via Francigena from Lucca in Tuscany to Rome, a distance of 420 km, according to the guide book.  We will be following roughly the route of Sigeric the Serious, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 990 until his death in 994.  In 990 he travelled to Rome to receive his consecration from the pope before assuming his duties.  He kept a diary of his journey on his return and this became the standard route for pilgrims journeying to Rome.

In 959 a predecessor of Sigeric, Aelfsige, had frozen to death traversing Gran San Bernardo Pass in northern Italy on a similar mission.  By starting further south in Lucca we hope to avoid this pitfall.

The entire journey from Canterbury comprises some 1800 km and people today still embark on this journey.  On our walk from Lucca we will pass through Altopascio, San Miniato, Gambassi-Terme, San Gimignano, Monteriggioni, Siena, Ponte-d'Orcia, Radicofani, Aquapendente, Bolsena, Montefiascone, Viterbo, Vetralla, Sutri, Campagno-di-Roma, La Storta, before finally ending at the Vatican in Rome.

A couple of photos from the last couple of walks before we leave home:

Our daughter, Jenny, accompanies us on a 14 km walk

Before leaving I quickly designed a logo for a Canadian pilgrim on the trek, basing the design on the Confraternity of Pilgrims to Rome logo.  The crossed keys is the symbol of St. Peter, and of pilgrims to Rome just as the scallop shell is the symbol of St. James, and of pilgrims travelling to Santiago de Compostela.

  And then it was only natural that the logo should go onto a shirt...

So after a day spent trying to decide how little we can put in our packs and what we can leave behind, to lighten the load, we now have two more shirts to stuff in.

Tomorrow night we are staying close to the airport, so we can get away the next morning, without any last minute mishaps.  And we've got to get away before we are tempted to stuff any more last minute items into our packs...