Category: Italy

A walker passing high rows of prosecco grapes in beautiful afternoon light

Prosecco Hills Trail, Italy

Our Wanderlust 12 Comments

Prologue

We’re walking the 55-kilometre Prosecco Hills Trail over four days, winding our way through the heart of Italy’s Veneto region. This UNESCO World Heritage site is a lush patchwork of green valleys, forests, medieval villages, and undulating hills terraced with grapevines that produce world-renowned Prosecco sparkling wine. It’s a gentler walk for us, after our Dream Way odyssey across the Alps, and we’re looking forward to sampling the area’s traditional dishes and enjoying a glass or two of Prosecco at the end of each day.

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The golden glow of west wall of the Civetta at sunset from Rifugio Tissi

The Dream Way, Part 2

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Munich to Venice on the Dream Way: Part 2 (Italy)

Prologue

We’re halfway through the Dream Way (Traumpfad), a 600-kilometre walk from Munich to Venice across the eastern Alps. The German and Austrian Alps tested us with wild storms, unseasonal snow, and slopes so steep that wires and ladders are fixed to assist safe passage. They also provided us with magnificent walking and breathtaking views of some of Europe’s most majestic landscapes. Thirteen days and 265 kilometres later, we crossed the border to Italy.

The Dolomites await. They’re a Natural World Heritage Site famed for their unparalleled beauty and challenging topography. Our first stop will be Pfunders, and from there we’ll start winding our way across the Dolomites. Our final mountain range will be the Belluno Pre-alps, after which we’ll descend to the Piave River and walk across the plains to Venice. We’re pleased that we’ve made it this far, but cognisant of the arduous terrain and high mountain passes ahead. 

Anna and Michael enjoy a wine with the the Marmolada massif behind them
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A Dream Way walker hauling himself up a vegetated mountain slope with the aid of a fixed cable

The Dream Way, Part 1

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Munich to Venice on the Dream Way: Part 1 (Germany & Austria)

Prologue

It’s the allure of walking into dreamlike Venice that entices us to set out from Munich on the Dream Way (the Traumpfad). For the German walkers we meet, it’s the desire to make a pilgrimage across the Alps, their spiritual homeland.

The 600-kilometre walk passes through three countries: Germany, Austria and Italy. It traverses the Bavarian Pre-alps, the Karwendel Alps, and the Tux Alps. Crossing the Italian border, it enters the Pfunderer Valley before winding across the Dolomites. Finally, it climbs the Belluno Pre-alps before descending to the Piave River plains and on to Venice. 

The alpine walking season is brief. Start too early, and the high passes are still covered with snow. Start too late, and the alpine huts will be closing for the winter. The conditions were perfect when we set out in early July, but even so, wild, erratic weather forced us to deviate from our planned route on several occasions.  

This isn’t a walk for the faint-hearted, with 27,000 metres of ascent. Often steep, it sometimes requires the use of fixed wires and ladders to ensure a safe passage. Most of the walk follows existing routes; there is no designated ‘Munich to Venice’ footpath as such. In the words of the poet, Antonio Machado: Wanderer, your footprints are the path, and nothing else; wanderer, there is no path, the path is made by walking. 

What follows is an account of our 34 days on the Dream Way: many of them challenging, and staggeringly beautiful. 

A map of the Dream Way / der Traumpfad route from Munich to Venice
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Anna walking a winding dirt road towards Sutera nestled at the foot of Mount San Paolino

Magna Via Francigena, Sicily

Our Wanderlust 44 Comments

A last wander along the shoreline before we turn inland to walk across the mountains and plains of Sicily on the Magna Via Francigena. Fishermen mending their nets. A large-scale mural; a memorial to the magistrates Falcone and Borsellino, both assassinated by the Mafia. It is bold in its presence and tender in its rendering.

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A view along the Tiber River with an ancient bridge and Saint Peter's dome in the background

Via Francigena Sud: 6 things you will want to know

Our Wanderlust 2 Comments

Introduction

We walked the Via Francigena Sud in May 2023, setting out southwards from Rome after researching options and seeking advice from local experts. We loved the walk and wrote a three-part account of it on this website. Since then, we’ve provided information to others interested in the route and thought we should share this more widely. We hope it piques your interest in walking the Via Francigena Sud and assists your planning.

1. What is the Via Francigena Sud?

The Via Francigena Sud is promoted as the newest, ancient pilgrimage. It’s based on the oldest known record of Christian pilgrimage, written in 333 CE by the Pilgrim of Bordeaux, who documented his return journey from the Holy Lands.

For centuries, the Via Francigena in southern Italy was a general route rather than a defined road, used by northern Europeans to walk south from Rome to the ports from where they sailed to the Holy Land.

The modern Via Francigena Sud opened in 2019 and extends from Rome to Santa Maria Di Leuca, the finis terrae of Italy. It’s a (mostly) well-marked route with guidebooks, apps, and GPS tracks to assist pilgrims. History abounds along the way. You’ll start soaking it up as soon as you step out on the Via Appia, a largely pedestrian path lined with Roman funerary monuments.

We enjoyed walking through history, exploring coastlines, rivers and mountains, and savouring delicious southern Italian food. Despite our lack of Italian, our many friendly interactions with locals were a real highlight.

Like many on this route, we had already walked the Via Francigena but when we returned home, we felt we had unfinished business in Italy. So, less than a year later, we set out southwards from Rome.

You can gain an insight into the experience of walking the Via Francigena Sud by reading our account of walking from Rome to the heel of Italy.

A selfie of Anna and Michael at the start of the Via Francigena Sud
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Michel walks past a wall covered with graffiti including the text BUON CAMMINO

Finis Terrae: to the end of the earth on the Via Francigena Sud

Our Wanderlust 15 Comments

Waves breaking on the rocky shore. Pebbles sighing. Ferries plying the waters of the Adriatic. Fishing boats out at sea. We’re walking the Via Francigena Sud, a 950-kilometre route following the ancient Appian Way southwards from Rome. After walking through Lazio and across the mountains of Campania, we arrive in the port city of Bari. From here, we’ll hug the coastline until we reach Santa Maria di Leuca on the southernmost tip of the Salento peninsula, where the Adriatic and the Ionian Sea meet.

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Four French pilgrims pose with Anna and Michael for a selfie on the Via Francigena Sud

Apennines to the Adriatic, Via Francigena Sud

Our Wanderlust 8 Comments

We wake to the deep silence of the contemplative Monastery of Santa Catarina. There’s heavy rain forecast and it comes early. The beautiful Trebulani Mountains are lost to us. We’re walking the Via Francigena Sud, a 950 km route following the Appian Way southwards from Rome. After 10 days in Lazio, we turn inland towards the mountainous Campania.

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A lone walker strides out along a tree-lined rural road

Ten Days in Lazio, Via Francigena Sud

Our Wanderlust 22 Comments

One fine spring morning, we stepped out to walk the Via Francigena Sud. It’s a 950-kilometre route following the ancient Appian Way from Rome to Santa Maria di Leuca. Emperors, poets and popes have gone before us, as have pilgrims and crusaders bound for the Holy Land.

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On the Via Francigena, pilgrim walks along a ridgetop track towards a lone tree on the horizon

Six things you need to know about the Via Francigena

Our Wanderlust 22 Comments

1. Why would anyone want to walk 2,000 km?

It’s a very good question and one that we asked ourselves when we met Helaine on the Via de la Plata in 2008. She had started and intended to finish the Via Francigena. To be honest, we thought it a crazy notion.

Then, towards the end of 2021, after two years of COVID lockdowns and restrictions, we started wondering how we should respond to the constraints; sometimes we hadn’t been able to walk further than 5 km from our home (Melbourne, Australia). As we talked, it became clear that to put COVID-19 behind us we needed to walk, and the further the better. Helaine and the Via Francigena re-entered our consciousness. To walk 2,000 km over three months through five countries felt like the appropriate way to embrace a newly re-opened world.

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Looking back on the Via degli Dei, a Medici villa sits high on a ridge, highlighted by the sun

Via degli Dei (Path of Gods), Italy

Our Wanderlust 17 Comments

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. 

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