Late one summer, we set out to walk the Via degli Dei, an ancient pathway travelled since the time of the Etruscans. The 130-kilometre-long path crosses the beautiful Apennines, linking Bologna with Florence. It threads through forests, across mountain ridges and in and out of old Italian villages.
Pagan divinities give names to the mountains that the route crosses; Adonis, Jupiter, Venus and Lua, the goddess of atonement. They also give the route its name; the Path of Gods.
Our Thames Path walk takes us from the source of the river in the rolling Cotswold Hills, through historic cities, quaint villages and beguiling English countryside before passing through the heart of London and finishing at the Thames flood barrier. It’s a meandering journey of 185 miles (300 kilometres).
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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.
The Grand St Bernard Pass at 2,469 metres is one of the highest and most ancient routes through the Alps. It has been in use since the Bronze Age when people forged a trading route between northern Europe and Italy. It is snowbound for at least eight months of the year and the crossing can be hazardous, even in summer.
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The renowned champagne-producing areas of Reims, Trépail, Châlons-sur-Champagne and Bar-sur-Aube are dotted along this section of the Via Francigena. The hillsides of vines are bright green with spring’s new growth and we walk with a lightness in our step.
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.
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