As you’re reading this, you’re probably already interested in walking the Via Francigena, the 2,000km pilgrimage trail from Canterbury, UK, to Rome, Italy. And apparently you’re looking for a Via Francigena guide to help you – well, you’ve come to the right people.

We spent a big, four month chunk of 2017 walking the entire Via Francigena, starting at Canterbury Cathedral in May and finishing in the square of St Peter’s Basilica in September. It was a beautiful, hard, long and inspiring journey, one that we know lots of people are interested in and have questions about.

We wrote about each stage as we did it: you can find and read all 15 of our Via Francigena stages here.

So we have put together our own Via Francigena guide, up-to-date for 2017, and updated every year since then (most recently, 2020). We’ve thrown in everything we learned about planning and going on a walk like this. Have a read through for everything (hopefully) you want to know.

A fossilised shell on the Via Francigena

Prep

We started doing longer day walks from January (to leave in May remember), carrying a bit more weight each time.

We also walked the Coleridge Way over three days, using all our camping equipment (a good idea if you’ve never used any of it before).

Did we need to do this? Hmm, not sure. We walked in our new boots which was good. And it gave us a bit of confidence – also good. But our friends who we met walking hadn’t done any training, and were fine.

You need to be moderately fit – no more. And the first few weeks are flat so in some ways, that could be your easing-in period.

Pack

People always want to know what and how we packed. Funnily enough for Via Francigena guide authors, we are actually pretty bad at packing – or we were, at least. We carried too much and packed it all squiff.

But from our ridiculous mistakes, we learned what works.

We carried 40l and 75l Osprey and Berghaus packs (you can guess whose was whose). Normal people wouldn’t carry as much as this, but we had blogging and camping gear with us which took up lots of space.

50l per person would in fact be fine.

THE PILGRIM CREDENTIAL/PASSPORT

A type of blank passport to fill up with stamps from along the way, we got ours by post from the Confraternity of Pilgrims to Rome. You automatically become a member and it now comes with a badge to sew on your pack too (picturing the symbol of Rome, the cross keys).

You’ll need a pilgrim passport to get into pilgrim accommodation, as well as your certificate from Rome at the end. Plus they are completely unique mementos.

We got stamps everyday on the Via Francigena, from all kinds of places: pilgrim accommodation, campsites, the odd Mairie (French town halls), shops, churches. Just go in and ask.

If you’re going all the way from Canterbury to Rome and aiming to get stamps every day, in 2017 there wasn’t enough room in the book. We jumbled ours chaotically together in what we hoped was arty. Alternatively you can staple more pages in yourself.

Other things we found useful to bring that you might not have thought about:

REALLY-NEEDED:

  • (Again) pilgrim credential
  • Water bladders (5l all together) – heavy but SO useful
  • Sleeping liner (for hostels)
  • Compeed (get the proper brand)
  • Mini scissors
  • Sealed waterproof bags
  • Spare bootlaces
  • Bag covers (ugly, but hey ho)
  • One pan, one plate, one set of cutlery (no more)

REALLY-NOT-NEEDED:

  • Washing machine tabs (why, WHY?)
  • Pillow
  • More than one of anything
  • A broken watch
Via Francigena Guide

Boots & clothing

Ok, we’re really pleased/smug about that fact that our Scarpa Terra GTX boots lasted the whole 2,000km, and then some. That’s right: one pair, the whole way.

These boots were comfortable from the get-go, gave neither of us any rubbing blisters, and the only thing that wore out was the ACTUAL GRIP on the soles. Yep, we walked them to death. Good in rain, good in the heat, and really comfortable. Miss wearing them just typing this.

Not an ad, just love.

Currently walking the Via Francigena to Rome
Our Scarpa Terra GTX lasted the whole of the Via Francigena

We found a mix of normal clothes and active-wear worked quite well, and NO walking clothes were needed. We think we brought about 4 changes of clothes which is too many really, but made us feel more civilised.

Time of year to go

As we said, we started in May, finished in September. This worked well: we hit the Alps in July which is the perfect time.

You’ll need to time going over the Alps either in June (ok), July or August (best).

A lot of people appear worried about Italy in the heat of summer. We walked through August and the key is to get up early and be walking by between 5 and 6am. The countryside is sublime and it’s blissfully cool.

The route, as of 2017

Any Via Francigena guide wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the route. The Via Francigena takes an ancient route through the UK, France, Switzerland and Italy. It’s not your typical tourist trail: it goes through Reims in France but misses Milan for instance. It means you never know quiiiite where you’ll end up.

You can expect though lots of countryside walking, passing through villages, towns or a city every day. This means you can usually have breaks on the way, pick up food, stuff like that.

Via Francigena Guide

UPDATE FOR 2020: Make sure you check the status of sections of the route in relation to the spread of Coronavirus.

HOW HARD IS THE VIA FRANCIGENA?

The route itself is mostly on defined walking paths, roads, and (contrary to what we’d read) is indeed signposted, in one weird way or another.

Read our lips: the walk is not that hard. It’s long, but it’s not hard. France is flat, the Alps & Italy are hilly. (But doesn’t feel much more than that. Read our walking over the Alps post to see the slightly amended route we did to avoid the sketchiest part of the VF.)

HOW WE WALKED THE VIA FRANCIGENA

We took four months to walk the Via Francigena, but you can breeze it in three so make no mistake, we walked it slow. We took a day off roughly every 10 days, walking France quite quickly and Italy much slower.

Our shortest day: less than 10km

Our longest day: 30km

Many other people walk upwards of 40km a day. But our way allowed us to walk slowly, take photos, blog and see some of the sights along the route (like Reims or Siena).

But all this comes with an interesting hitch: it turns out the ‘Via Francigena’ is not strictly just one route.

In fact, different guidebooks/tourism boards/maps send you down different paths entirely, all of which join back up periodically, particularly in France. Tricky.

To pick one, it really does depend on what you want to get out of walking. If it’s head-down-get-there-ASAP, you can take the road pretty often. If you’re more adventurous, then off-roading it will be preferable and probably prettier, but maybe tougher. This brings us on to…

Via Francigena Guide

Maps & guidebooks

Hmph. It was a cause of much debate, but this is what we’ve concluded for the purposes of this Via Francigena guide:

The Lightfoot guide is a good option for the UK, France and Switzerland, being both accurate and choosing an interesting route. It maybe didn’t give much pizzazz-y history to occupy our minds though.

Update for 2020: there was supposed to be a new Via Francigena guide book to be published in June 2019 on the Via Francigena north of the Alps (ie before Italy). We can’t find much about it, but if anyone has used it, let us know in the comments.

But once we were in Italy, the Terre di Mezzo guide (the link is to the Italian language guidebook we used) gave us everything we needed. Good maps, great accommodation tips, and some effusive Italian descriptions which were just all-out wonderful.

Update for 2020: As of 2018 the 2nd edition of the English translation is out. Hurrah! Buy the English language Terre di Mezzo guidebook

GPX

Nowadays a lot of the guidebook publishers provide GPX as part of your purchase (like Cicerone, for example).

We’re thinking of doing our own however to be sent out to people who subscribe (for free) – so let us know if that would interest you!

A stone Siena sign en route

Accommodation

We did a little blog post all about the places you can stay on the Via Francigena here.

Food

Oh God, we ate everything. We could cook basic things when we camped, and bakeries became our haunt of choice for food on the go. Luckily in France, Switzerland and Italy you can’t go a kilometre without hitting one so we got by (it’s tough life, we know).

Dried fruit, nut and fresh bread were all easy to come by and to eat en-route. Throughout Italy, pasta and pizza were incredibly cheap in cafes too, and are pretty perfect walking fuel. Make room for the oiliest most delicious focaccia in the world…

Language

We have a bit of working Italian (hence the Italian guidebook recommendation) but very little French, and as we thought, there’s not much English is spoken in rural parts. But don’t let a lack of language proficiency put you off – you will definitely be able to muddle through without any. Picking up a few phrases will definitely help you though (Pelerin/pelligrino being key!)

Via Francigena Guide

Health

Staying fit and healthy wasn’t all that hard. We had rest days pretty much every two weeks, and took 5l of water with us every day, also stopping regularly for top up drinks in cafes.

We did get bitten to bits by mosquitoes, one of which got infected for Luke. A quick visit to the Ambulatorio Medico in Tuscany solved that, and we carried on our merry way without too much trouble.

Oh also: Nell got terrible impact blisters on the balls of her feet. Who knew? These just disappeared after about a month, never to return. We didn’t burst any blisters: just clean and Compeed, clean and Compeed, and that seemed to do the trick for us. Super Feet.

Dangers

By and large, the Via Francigena takes a safe path through all four countries. Seriously, don’t worry too much about this.

The trickiest walking part was getting over the Alps. And if you read about our Alps experience you’ll know we were a bit worried about hiking up over them. But actually we found it a not-that-bad uphill, with some breath-taking moments and sights.

We’d also been warned about dogs, but did not have a single incident with them. There were lots about, mostly behind gates, or entirely uninterested. Stick to that path is what we’d advise.

By far, for us the most dangerous bit was actually the roads. Although mostly quiet, every now and then we’d find ourselves walking down a BUSY road, lorries alarmingly close. How often this happens depends on the route you take, and is worth considering when you think road walking is the ‘easier’ option.

Walking with dogs

Isn’t generally advised. It’s too long for most dogs, plus you do come across other dogs from time to time.

Cost

Travelling for four months can be expensive. But we can guarantee that walking for four months will cost you considerably less. With the Via Francigena too, if you get yourself a pilgrim passport you are granted pilgrim status, so have various places along the route that cost less to stay in.

Our official Via Francigena Guide opinion: you could just about get away with budgeting about a minimum of €20 (that’s Euros) per day per person. The more hotels and meals out you want though…

Getting to Rome

When we arrived in Rome, we went into the Vatican to collect our pilgrimage certificates.

Entering via the Rectory, we were security checked by the Swiss Guards (make sure you’re dressed appropriately for the Vatican, ie, no shoulders or shorts).

Then what followed was a surreal journey through several sanctums of the bureaucratic part of the Vatican. Eventually we got to a smart polished desk where some unidentified person inspected our dog-eared credentials, stamped them for the final time, and wrote out certificates for us.

These days, most pilgrims arriving into Rome tend to get their certificates from the Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi. Definitely a simpler process, if maybe less exciting.

Remember you have to have walked 100km on the route into Rome (proven by stamps in your pilgrim credential) to get a certificate.

Roman cobbles on the Via Francigena

Our Via Francigena Guide: conclusion

We loved walking to Rome, and found walking there from Canterbury not just possible, but completely do-able.

Of course guys, it’s a LONG way. So there are hours and hours of wandering down little roads, or through scrubby fields with nobody else in sight.

But the hardest part (yes, really) was always the mental bit: trying to get your head around the idea that you’ll ever get to Rome just by putting one foot in front of the other.

But look at that. We just did.

Get through that, and it’s honestly enjoyable. From doing this we’ve seen so much more of this undiscovered Europe, a Europe of small places, big landscapes, local secrets.

And the achievement of getting somewhere entirely on foot is like nothing else. You become stronger, think clearer, and impress yourself. We came out of it completely convinced that walking travel is this incredible way to explore – both the world and yourself.

Luke and Nell arriving in St Peter's Square, Rome, having walked the Via Francigena

We hope that this Via Francigena guide has helped and inspired you to look into the VF (or any long distance trails) a bit more.

Did we miss anything? Ask us any more questions you have below and we’ll answer them!