One month of walking, wow. It’s honestly a full-time occupation – every day, from about 8am to 4pm with the odd day off thrown in. You might ask, what would that be like?

Well now our first month is all completed, we have these ten little lessons from thirty days walking the Via Francigena:

1. There’s a whole lotta culture shock

The first week to ten days of one month of walking were majorly difficult for us, mostly mentally. The entire walk loomed ahead, and the amount of work it would entail became apparent. We doubted whether we could walk, camp and pre-plan every day for months. Bags, bank balances and blisters all weighed heavily on our shoulders, minds and feet. And who walks that far anyway these days? Well, we do and you soon get used to believing it.

One month of walking the Via Francigena requires lots of rest

2. Local people are friendly to bag-laden strangers

Walkers don’t look particularly threatening, rather just little creatures looking for shade, food, water or somewhere to collapse. Locals have come out of their houses to offer us Magnums, shop owners cans of cold coke, hoteliers somewhere to camp for free. They ask where we are going, how old we are, pat us on the arm, and wish us bonne route without batting an eyelid.

One month of walking and feeling good on the Via Francigena

3. There are a few phrases that are so, so useful. Fluency is also great.

We don’t really speak French which is turning out okay, but it is useful to have some phrases. Even after one month of walking Luke cannot -cannot- say the world pèlerin (pilgrim). Cue said friendly French looking at us inquisitively and politely asking if we are speaking Spanish.

4. There’s a mysterious commitment to finish

We cannot quit. Bar some terrible physical injury, we’re in this now and for some reason with every step you feel drawn further and further down its path. Aside from the fact we’ve put in a ginormous amount of effort, we feel compelled by something else and we really don’t know why.

One month of walking cross country on the Via Francigena

5. There will be blisters

Not so much something we’ve learned but painfully walked on for thirty days. Don’t bash them on the edge of showers either or there will also be blood. Compeed them up and keep going. Oh, and take your shoes off at every stop.

One month of walking with blisters on the Via Francigena

6. There’s more to the route than just walking

As with other trails, the Via Francigena walks you through some incredible bits of country. It’s an old path, but what we hadn’t thought about was how it would intermingle with the human histories that have come after it. We will never forget how the Remembrance Trail crosses over so closely with the Via Francigena in northern France. And how much this route has seen over the years.

7. There are days of no pilgrims or indeed, people

The Via Francigena in full is not walked all that much. We have met precisely six other people during one month of walking the Via Francigena, and even some of them aren’t doing the whole thing. That’s a lot of days of birdsong and humming under your breath.

One month of walking along many roman roads on the Via Francigena

8. There is a change of mindset needed

On a practical level, trying to think of this as a walk to Rome is too overwhelming; instead we have worked out that it’s much easier to focus on a few days ahead each time, sorting out accommodation and distances as we go. We just ignore signs such as this:

One month of walking past signposts, including to Rome on the Via Francigena

9. This is working

Looking at the map, it’s become clear: we’re walking to Rome and it’s slow but we’re actually getting there. Turns out you can cover quite impressive distances by walking around 20km a day. One month of walking is a draw-a-line-on-a-map-of-Europe kind of distance!

10. There’s not just one way

This is actually a weird issue with the Via Francigena that we’ll be talking about in a whole other blog, but the Via Francigena is actually not one trail at all. Ooooh yes, one month of walking has told us that loud. and. clear. It instead joins up a whole raft of tracks, roads and footpaths, sometimes sending you in multiple directions. This means you have to constantly make decisions weighing up distance, scenery, amount of time walking on the road, etc. But what we realised (as we tramped through six foot of wheat sheaf) is it’s really about finding your own road to Rome. And that’s true on lots of levels anyway, isn’t it?

One month of walking the open road of the Via Francigena

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