In Tuscany, all the roads to Rome converge. After walking by ourselves for 1,600 kilometres, we become part of a loose band of pilgrims that coalesces, embracing solitude by day and sociability in the evenings.
After we leave the beautiful mountains of the Alps behind, we descend through the foothills of Piedmont and enter the flatlands of the Po Valley.
For hundreds of kilometres, we walk among flooded rice paddies and follow canals, past abandoned and now derelict Cascine, farm complexes where peasant families lived and worked their entire life under the control of the farm owner.
We walk the Via Francigena as it follows the bloodied battlelines of the Western Front. For hundreds of kilometres, almost every village we pass through bears the scars of the death and destruction of WW1.
Out from Calais, we walk through a landscape still hollowed out by war. Shell holes, deep craters and bunkers collapsing onto the beach, the sand tilting them, the sea slowly subsuming them.
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Australia has a federal election, and we want our vote to count. So much so that we walk 200 kilometres, following the coast from Calais to the seaside village of Wissant before turning inland and continuing on through the rolling green countryside of northern France to Arras.
An officious French police chief, an unsung Ukrainian hero, a native of Dover shining a light into the gloom. It’s the people we meet that make this journey so fascinating.
After the lightness and brightness of the Kent countryside, Dover strikes us as dour and down at heel. Even its young people seem world-weary and bereft of joy. But then, over a glass of excellent English white wine, our waiter, a native of Dover, tells us of his boyhood roaming the chalk hills and exploring the tunnels under Dover Castle. The wildness of it, the depth of its history and the rhythm of a port town with people constantly on the move is what makes Dover sing for him.
At border control in Dover, an officious French police chief upends our plan to ride our hastily acquired BMX onto the ferry. He argues that two people on one bicycle, one pedalling and the other standing on the back foot pegs, is not only dangerous but absolutely forbidden. We plead our case but he threatens to arrest us if we don’t desist.
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The Via Francigena is an ancient road and pilgrimage route from the English cathedral city of Canterbury to Rome, Italy’s Eternal City. The 2,000-kilometre way was first documented by Sigeric the Serious, Archbishop of Canterbury. In 990 AD he travelled to Rome and back for his consecration using a network of Roman roads originally constructed to facilitate trade and conquest.
Just as Sigeric did, we start our journey at Canterbury Cathedral. In the hush of early evening, we stand with Canon Emma Pennington by the eternal candle that marks where Thomas Becket’s body once lay. She prays that on the hard days on the Via Francigena we find the perseverance and strength to continue and on the days that the sun shines and the birds sing we open our hearts to the world and know its beauty.
Istanbul is a dazzling, beguiling city. Once the capital of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, its epic history was shaped by a myriad of cultures including Arabic, Armenian, Greek, Bulgarian, Jewish and Kurdish. Its waterways are mythic; the Golden Horn, the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara. Shimmering domes, minarets and medieval towers rise from its seven hills.
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It’s our first spring in 18 months and we can’t get enough of the Cinque Terre; its vividly coloured villages, sparkling beaches, warm Italian sun and hillsides splashed with red poppies, purple orchids and white narcissus.
Centuries ago, the steep hills of the Cinque Terre were terraced with dry-stone walls and planted with vines. The inhabitants of its five villages farmed the land, fished the seas and made wine. But poverty, war and the lure of the city led to the abandonment of many of the hillside plots. The stabilising stone walls fell into disrepair and devastating landslides became more common. In response, the Cinque Terre National Park was created to restore and protect the natural and cultural heritage of this achingly beautiful coastal area.
We plan to walk for four days; two days on the Cinque Terre’s high route (the Sentiero Rosso), one day on the coastal route, and one day further north, in the wilder Portofino Natural Park.
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Strong winds and heavy seas are forecast for our 90-kilometre ferry journey from mainland Sweden to the island of Gotland. In the middle of the Baltic Sea, bells ring out, the ferry slows and passengers gather on the foredeck. In fading light, the bishop of Gotland recites a poem in memory of the eighty Gotlanders lost when a Russian submarine torpedoed the civilian ferry, Hassa, 70 years ago. Ancestors of the dead cast a wreath into the grey and gravid sea.
Visby, Gotland’s capital, is an intact medieval walled city. Its streets are gracious with muted yellow and pink gabled merchant houses. Once-magnificent churches, ransacked during the Reformation, lie in ruins.
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St Cuthbert’s Way is a beautiful and intriguing walk across borders and through centuries of history that have left an indelible imprint on the landscape.
From the ruins of a 12th-century Cistercian Abbey in Scotland, up into the atmospherically foggy Eildon Hills, alongside the green verged, swift-flowing River Tweed and on to an ancient Roman Road, St Cuthbert’s Way climbs up through beechwoods and silver birch forests to the wild, sweeping Cheviots. After crossing the border it continues on through Weetwood Moor, past St Cuthbert’s Cave, across rolling fields to the coast and, on the low tide, to the mystery-shrouded Holy Island of Lindisfarne. From Lindisfarne, you can continue on up the Northumberland Coast to Berwick-upon-Tweed, the northernmost town in England. Read More
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