A Passionate Geography: Romancing King Arthur’s Roman War

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May 13, 2026 (Wednesday). Pilgrimage.

Chaucer began his famed Canterbury Tales with the fictional, genial tavern keeper, Harry Bailly, announcing each pilgrim would tell four tales, two on the way to Canterbury and two on the way back. But Chaucer wrote just one tale for each pilgrim. Perhaps Chaucer’s ambitions surpassed “his time or space” to complete the project, but maybe it also speaks to pilgrimages, generally. 

The capaciousness of the idea of taking time out of ordinary life to walk in search of transcendence or the divine or forgiveness (by God or of oneself) is probably more than the physical days of a single walk can contain. Some medieval pilgrims never returned home—whether due to death or a new plan. Some pilgrims, such as Margery Kempe in the early 1400s, continued pilgrimages to other destinations, not eager to return home, in her case, to her role as wife, mother, or brewer. But for those who returned, was the fabric of their daily life altered by the pilgrimage?  Eventually, even Margery Kempe returned home to care for her ailing husband.

Our pilgrimage is coming to an end, and today we walk to Rome. We take the advice of our guidebook and clamber on a city bus for the first few kilometers of the pedestrian-unfriendly Via Cassia. The bus is Rome-full, and we cram in with about 30 middle school kids on their way to a field trip, all wearing an orange cap. They are laughing, watching TikTok, yelling to each other, making fun of each other. The energy is sky-high, and it’s irresisitible.

We hop off the bus and pick up our trail into a huge natural area called Riserva Naturale dell’Insugherata, an oak tree habitat on the northern edge of Rome. A few kilometers away, the metropolitan area of over 4 million people and 95,000 daily tourists is roaring into the day while we walk in solitude through woods and meadows thick with spring grasses, wildflowers, and bird song.  

Around mid-day, we emerge into a city neighborhood, enjoy a cappuccino, then continue on in the intermittent rain. I slip my glasses over my necklace to avoid looking through rain drops. With a billowing orange poncho on, I get snagged by a handrail and swung around. A few minutes later, I discover my glasses are gone. We retrace our steps and there on the pavement near the handrail, miraculously intact, are my glasses! Che fortuna!

Soon we enter Riserva Natural di Monte Mario and encounter a few pellegrini. We chat with Ray, from Japan, and his walking partner Franco, from Italy, as well as three women from Boston. We take photos of each other then resume our own paces through this surprisingly quiet natural area within the city. We ascend Mount Mario and suddenly — Michelangelo’s lofty dome of St. Peter’s! It is a sight we anticipated, but it’s still an exhilarating moment of arrival. 

Zigzagging down a steep cobblestone path, we exit the park and walk down Via Angelico toward St. Peter’s, incrementally among more and more people until we are enveloped in the maw and madness of thousands of tourists. Such a day of extremes, and the antithesis of a spiritual arrival.

Being a pelliegrina gives you special status at St. Peter’s: we show our pilgrim’s passport and are ushered to the front of the very, very long line. Prior to arriving, I thought it didn’t seem very “servicio” or “sacrificio” (two of the five virtues on the mountaintop church of Day 4) to jump the line with our pilgrim status (Paul had no problem with it!), but faced with the throng, we gladly accepted the courtesy so as to get our “testimonia,” a certificate of completion of at least 100 km of the Via Francigena.

I had wondered if getting a certificate from the Roman Catholic Church might feel a bit ridiculous. But receiving the testimonia from the volunteers is a surprisingly tender moment, even amidst the throngs. Graduation day is my favorite day of the academic year so it’s no wonder I love receiving the certificate! Our hearts are full—with some travail, we’ve reached our pilgrimage destination and shared a meaningful journey.

Paul and I find a side chapel in the busy and mammoth St. Peter’s to sit and pray, to breath a moment of reflection and gratitude. I find St. Peter’s overbearing: the gilded, Baroque Baldacchino by Bernini—a twisting, bronze canopy over the altar—the sculptures of saints and popes, all a counter-reformation swirl of more, and more. Michelangelo’s Pieta provides a counterpoint of quiet naturalism and reverence.

We prepare to leave this complex space—a vortex of mass tourism and spirituality—and notice that people are congregated just before the massive exit doors. A heavy rain is pummeling down, so Paul and I help each other back into our ponchos, making sure to bury our certificates in our packs. With that, our pilgrimage ends, at one level. We walk out into the downpour, open to what might come next.

May 12, 2026 (Tuesday). Primavera/ Regeneration

Oh glorious new day and the regeneration of both sleep and springtime! Paul worked on my back and we have new energy for the day and walk ahead.

Notice that the map of Campagnano di Rome includes the surrounding bosco, forest. A surprising aspect of being in these stone medieval towns is that they are in conversation, spatially, with the surrounding forests in a way that is incredibly beautiful, affording expansive views and a sudden transition from cityscape to landscape. And it is springtime here in Italy and so so green . . .

We read on the Via Francigena app that the trail for the second portion of today’s walk, from the town of Formello, about half-way through, to La Storta, our destination, has been washed out due to a landslide from the recent rains. We set off for Formello for the first half of the walk; rather than walk the busy road that is offered for the second part of today’s walk we plan to . . . take another bus! Good for the recovering back as well.

After walking up steep country roads into the Parco Vero in the Sorbo Valley, we come to the hilltop Santuario del Sorbo, a former convent with a wide vista of the surrounding forest and countryside. On the alter is perched an 11th c icon of the Madonna and child, serene and placid over these many centuries. In the apse, is a fresco of the ascension of Mary (my Catholic upbringing comes in handy for interpreting the various scenes depicted in medieval art). What captures my attention is the earthly city (presumably Jerusalem?) that she is leaving behind. Notice the close interchange between town and landscape, a feature that we are experiencing today.

Outside the church, we eat a cheese sandwich and take in the glorious view on this sunny but temperate and slightly breezy day. Oh to be walking the Via Francigena in spring!

Before we leave this mountaintop sanctuary, we notice a sign: Eccomi, which translates as “Here I am.” Exactly. We feel present and touched by the quiet spirituality of the various churches along the way as well as of the landscape and friendly welcomes we have received at the various inns and trattorias. As we begin to walk back down the steep driveway, we notice a series of signs declaring five virtues: gioia, bonito, austeria, servicio, sacrificio (joy, goodness, austerity, service, sacrifice). We reframe them within our sensibilities to joy, kindness, simplicity, service, and . . . consideration of the needs of others?

We cover a few more kilometers in the Sorbo Valley and come into the town of Formello. Here we say hello to a group of pelligrini that we saw this morning. They are a high-spirited group from Poland and are camping along the way. We eye their heavy backpacks and are glad to be waking inn to inn.

We drink a coke with a few cubes of ice (which is hard to come by) then criss-cross the town trying to find the bus stop to take us to La Storta. The Polish pelligrini laugh in friendly camaraderie as we pass by them four times (!!) due to our phone map’s arrow getting confused among the medieval walls.

At last we get on a bus going somewhere that turns out not to be where we need to go! The driver kindly stops to let us off and we just have a good laugh at the ridiculous last hour of aimless wandering. Finally, we resort to modern technology and summon an Uber to take us from a bus stop somewhere on the side of the road outside Formello to La Storta, a quick 6 mile ride.

After days of solitude and the open spaces of farms and forests, we arrive at the busy, commercial strip of the Via Cassia which our guidebook describes as “charmless.” Tomorrow, the last leg of the journey will bring us into Rome; it looms large in our imagination and we wonder what this culmination of our Via Francigena walk will mean to us.

May 11, 2026 (Monday).

Hubris. We woke from a night’s rest after our long, rainy walk yesterday stiff and achey. We both exercise daily, but we did little or nothing to prepare for this walk. And this morning–we feel it. Oooff! Being generally fit does not prepare you for walking 15 to 18 miles a day carrying a light backpack. Yes, hubris.

We stretch and feel better. After checking the All Trails app, we see comments from previous hikers that the first 10 km is along a busy, trafficy road with no shoulder. They warn that it is dangerous and a bad route. Our alternative is to ADD a 3.2 km detour that we already walked by mistake yesterday (and back).

We consider the “purity” of our walk–does it “count” if we don’t walk every kilometer? With a certain liberation, we opt to take a local bus through the first dangerous kilometers. We shoulder our backpacks and groan but are relieved that it will be a shorter walk day.

This option gives us time to explore the medieval hill town of Sutri, have a cappuccino in the town square, notice the “Arthurian” town logo, and visit the Roman amphitheater carved out of rock (rather than built of concrete).

Can you see my relief at being on the bus? The narrow, dangerous road road did justify our decision–when that bus passes the oncoming car the only option would be a leap into the bushes–but the relief is mostly for choosing joy over pain, letting go of an external “should.”

On we go past large fields, olive groves, white sheep and white cattle. My back hurts and my toes are blistered. We climb in elevation to Monte Gelato where there is a refreshing stream and cascata (waterfall). I speculate that Italian words starting with “gel-” must mean cold or icy: gelato (ice cream), ghiaccio (ice) and here, a mountain with icy-cool cascades.

That last kilometers to our destination are slow-going. I have to stop every half hour to take off my backpack and stretch. I wonder, for the first time, if I’ll be able to keep up the daily walk. At last, the bell tower of Campagnano di Rome rises from the landscape like a vision of Oz. I think of the phrase from Malory’s Roman War episode in which the Roman ambassadors reach Sandwich and “were never so blithe” [happy] at arriving at their destination. It’s been a tough day of walking and we have a very steep ascent up into the medieval hill town, but I am feeling “blithe” to reach the day’s destination.

I wonder if the “testimonia” that we will receive when we finish the pilgrimage is like a certificate from Oz, simply confirming the strengths we already have? What is the affirmation we are seeking?