An indispensable guidebook to the final 400km of the Via Francigena from Lucca to Rome. This is the most popular stretch of the pilgrim route connecting Canterbury to the Vatican City. Crossing Italy's heartland, this last section of the Via Francigena goes through two of Tuscany's loveliest cities, Lucca and Siena, and visits medieval San Gimignano, Monteriggioni and Radicofani. Divided into 18 day stages, the route is suitable for any averagely fit walker. Full stage directions are accompanied by maps showing the route line and the facilities available at different locations. Accommodation listings give invaluable information on low-cost pilgrim hostels and where to stay. There are useful city maps for Lucca, Siena, Rome and Viterbo, and a stage planning table lists intermediate distances between accommodation, so you can customise your own walking schedule. Containing a wealth of advice on planning, preparation and tips for making the most of the walk, this is a must-have guide for any pilgrim. One of three volumes covering the complete Via Francigena.
Tracing an ancient pilgrimage route from Canterbury to Rome, the bestselling and "virtuosic" (The Wall Street Journal) writer explores the past and future of Christianity Moved by his mother's death and his Irish Catholic family's complicated history with the church, Timothy Egan decided to follow in the footsteps of centuries of seekers to force a reckoning with his own beliefs. He embarked on a thousand-mile pilgrimage through the theological cradle of Christianity, exploring one of the biggest stories of our time: the collapse of religion in the world that it created. Egan sets out along the Via Francigena, once the major medieval trail leading the devout to Rome, and makes his way overland via the alpine peaks and small mountain towns of France, Switzerland and Italy. Making his way through a landscape laced with some of the most important shrines to the faith, Egan finds a modern Canterbury Tale in the chapel where Queen Bertha introduced Christianity to pagan Britain; parses the supernatural in a French town built on miracles; and journeys to the oldest abbey in the Western world, founded in 515 and home to continuous prayer over the 1,500 years that have followed. A thrilling journey, a family story, and a revealing history, A Pilgrimage to Eternity looks for our future in its search for God.
This guidebook describes the Way of St Francis a 550km month-long pilgrimage trail from Florence through Assisi to Rome. Split into 28 day stages, the walk begins in Florence and finishes in the Vatican City. Stages range from 8km to 30km with plenty to see, including ancient ruins, picturesque towns, national treasures, and stunning churches. This comprehensive guidebook fits in a jacket pocket or rucksack, and contains information on everything from accommodation and transport in Italy, to securing your credential (pilgrim identity card), budgeting, what to take, and where to do laundry. Stories of Francis of Assisi's life are also included. Although the route includes climbs and descents of up to 1200m, no special equipment is required - although your hiking boots and socks definitely need to get along. Following the steps of heroes, conquerors and saints on this pilgrim trail is manageable all year round, but is best done from April to June and mid-August to October. Route maps are given for every stage, and basic Italian phrases are included in the guidebook.
An Italian Odyssey is a story about a midlife couple who embarks on a great adventure walking 1,000 km on the Via Francigena, an ancient, elusive medieval pilgrim trail through the heart of Italy. Historically, the Via Francigena was a broad network of trails originating in ancient Francia, an ever-changing backbone of Roman and medieval roads leading to Rome. Today, unlike the Camino de Santiago in Spain, only a few hundred people have walked the entire Via Francigena through Italy during the past decade. It is a barely discovered, obscure, and sometimes challenging trail to navigate. The couple s initial plan was to walk and eat their way through Italy using their own homemade guide and map books. But their adventure takes on a life of its own as they face unexpected challenges. With both themselves and each other, they struggle with the constant physical and emotional demands and outcomes of navigating an arduous route that is not well signed. But with dollops of Roman and medieval history, a dash of contemporary culture, plenty of sensual food and wine, and gracious Italian hospitality, they also share many romantic and magical moments. Only after they endure sweat, tears, and frustration, when the strange concoction comes to a boil and the flavors and juices ooze out, do they realize and discover the true meaning of their journey. In the end, An Italian Odyssey is a classic bittersweet tale of the couple s expectation of walking and eating through Italy a unique culinary and walking pilgrimage. An Italian Odyssey will appeal to readers who love all things Italian, its history, culture, and food, and those who like traveling and walking; or by the armchair traveler who enjoys reading about other people s adventures. Readers will also appreciate the rewards and discoveries that come about from tackling real life challenges and struggles. It is a story that combines a great adventure of personal growth, individually and as a couple, with the backdrop of Italian history, contemporary culture, food, and wine. This travel memoir is co-written by both authors, so the reader can appreciate the story from the male and female perspective. Buon viaggio
This book contains case histories intended to show how societies and landscapes interact. The range of interest stretches from the small groups of the earliest Neolithic, through Bronze and Iron Age civilizations, to modern nation states. The coexistence is, of its very nature reciprocal, resulting in changes in both society and landscape. In some instances the adaptations may be judged successful in terms of human needs, but failure is common and even the successful cases are ephemeral when judged in the light of history. Comparisons and contrasts between the various cases can be made at various scales from global through inter-regional, to regional and smaller scales. At the global scale, all societies deal with major problems of climate change, sea-level rise, and with ubiquitous problems such as soil erosion and landscape degradation. Inter-regional differences bring out significant detail with one region suffering from drought when another suffers from widespread flooding. For example, desertification in North Africa and the Near East contrasts with the temperate countries of southern Europe where the landscape-effects of deforestation are more obvious. And China and Japan offer an interesting comparison from the standpoint of geological hazards to society - large, unpredictable and massively erosive rivers in the former case, volcanoes and accompanying earthquakes in the latter. Within the North African region localized climatic changes led to abandonment of some desertified areas with successful adjustments in others, with the ultimate evolution into the formative civilization of Egypt, the "Gift of the Nile". At a smaller scale it is instructive to compare the city-states of the Medieval and early Renaissance times that developed in the watershed of a single river, the Arno in Tuscany, and how Pisa, Siena and Florence developed and reached their golden periods at different times depending on their location with regard to proximity to the sea, to the main trunk of the river, or in the adjacent hills. Also noteworthy is the role of technology in opening up opportunities for a society. Consider the Netherlands and how its history has been formed by the technical problem of a populous society dealing with too much water, as an inexorably rising sea threatens their landscape; or the case of communities in Colorado trying to deal with too little water for farmers and domestic users, by bringing their supply over a mountain chain. These and others cases included in the book, provide evidence of the successes, near misses and outright failures that mark our ongoing relationship with landscape throughout the history of Homo sapiens. The hope is that compilations such as this will lead to a better understanding of the issue and provide us with knowledge valuable in planning a sustainable modus vivendi between humanity and landscape for as long as possible. Audience: The book will interest geomorphologists, geologists, geographers, archaeologists, anthropologists, ecologists, environmentalists, historians and others in the academic world. Practically, planners and managers interested in landscape/environmental conditions will find interest in these pages, and more generally the increasingly large body of opinion in the general public, with concerns about Planet Earth, will find much to inform their opinions. Extra material: The color plate section is available at http://extras.springer.com
Germany to Rome in 64 Days: Our Pilgrimage is about our pilgrimage from Kisslegg, Germany to Rome. It's about how my wife, Petra, and I interacted with the people we met and the places wewalked through on this 64-day pilgrimage. It's also the story of our internal pilgrimagesthrough our souls, minds, hearts, and spirits as we walked that external paththrough Germany, Austria, and Italy toRome.To put it in a broader perspective, Germany to Rome in 64 Days: Our Pilgrimage is about how we celebrated thisten weeks of our lives and some of the things we want to take from it to enrich our ongoing pilgrimage of life.And as we tell our story we drop a few hints on how you might use someof what we learned as you walk your pilgrimage of life or when you choose to take a similar walking pilgrimage.Germany to Rome in 64 Days: Our Pilgrimage is also is available on lulu.com in a printed color version.
The route of St Jean Pied de Port in the foothills of the French Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela represents one of the most popular Christian pilgrimages in the world. Walked by millions over the millennia it represents a force for spiritual transformation. This title offers a guide to the pilgrimage, including a fold out map and route planner, 33 daily stage maps with contour guides, 10 town maps including Santiago, a Sun Compass, to orientate your direction and information on all pilgrim hostels along the way together with details of alternative accommodation.
LightFoot Guides are written for Walkers, Cyclists and Horse Riders, providing specific information for each group and enabling everyone to meet their personal goals. The complete, Edition 6, LightFoot Guide to the Via Francigena consists of four books: Canterbury to Besancon, Besancon to Vercelli, Vercelli to Rome and the Companion to the via Francigena discribing the culture and history of key sites along the route. This book traces 435 kilometres of the Via Francigena from from Besancon in France to Vercelli where the the via Francigena and the St James Way meet in northern Italy. The route closely follows the 10th century route used by Archbishop Sigeric the Serious, but adapted to current conditions. The guide contains a number of alternatives to reduce total distance, avoid possible difficulties or to gain access to specific loactions. The entire distance has been GPS traced and divided into manageable sections of approximately 22 kilometres, but accommodation is listed for the entire length of each section.
The contest between Arthur Phillip and Jean-Francois Laperouse to get to Botany Bay first and to claim rights to sovereignty of either Britain or France over the Australian continent
