Walking the Via Francigena in Tuscany

The Via Francigena is an historical pilgrimage route from England to Rome, and Rome to Jerusalem. It was followed by pilgrims on foot to reach the Pope in Rome. With the advent of modern transportation, this ancient and fascinating way of travel has all but disappeared. The beautiful trails through the countryside have been replaced by miles and miles of modern roads. But since the ’90s, with the rebirth of the “Cammino de Santiago" in Spain, the Via Francigena is coming back to life. Part of the Via Francigena is very near to us.

From Siena to San Quirico, one of the best parts of the Val d’Orcia, and the south of Tuscany, there is a new kind of tourism that follows the via Francigena. In our modern society we have everything we want and all the material things we can buy, but what we cannot buy is Happiness, and this is what people are looking for. This is one of the reasons why people have taken to the Via Francigena, walking for miles and miles, sleeping in convents, meeting other people on the way, and looking for a true contact with nature. No cell phones, no cars, only you, nature and your spirituality. If you want to experience this, just for a weekend or perhaps even longer, you can plan your route by visiting the website http://www.regione.toscana.it/via-francigena.


Credits photos: By Luca Casartelli (DSC_0909.jpg) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons and J. P.Lon~commonswiki (Unknown) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/), via Wikimedia Commons