A contemporary journey following the fictional itinerary of King Arthur from England to Rome. Click on the first post in January (see right-hand sidebar) and then follow the posts up to the present.
Walking country roads and forest paths meant that the usual phone map would not be suitable for our trek. With the relevant pages of a guide book torn out and tucked in my backpack and with the All Trails app on Paul’s phone, we set out, wondering if this was all we needed to find our way.
Not to worry, those two resources together guided our wayfinding on the Via Francigena, but the route itself is well-marked at every juncture. Below is a collection of the signs, with some variety, that guided us to Rome.
Ceramicist Daniele Lai in Viterbo’s Pellegrini district creates ceramic art in the medieval Zaffera tradition, with a cobalt, brown, and ivory palette. Here, a pilgrim, setting forth on the Via Francigena.
A watercolor painting of the ceiling of Chiesa della Madonna del Carmine by MarjaLeena Pohjola, a recent visiting artist at La Casa Etruria.
What are the structures or practices that lift everyday life with a sense of spirituality, beauty, or hope? In Latera, there are both historic and contemporary options: churches and flowers. Latera is a town dedicated to public art but in terms of individual action, you can walk into one of seven churches in town or plant bright red geraniums outside your front door.
Traditionally, Italian townspeople built and lovingly maintained multiple Catholic churches within a village, and Latera is no exception. When the population was around 2,000, having seven churches does not seem disproportionate for a devout populace. Now, with around 770 people, only two of the seven are active on a weekly basis but the town provides a walking guide—a kind of small-scale pilgrimage—to the historic churches, each rich in faith and story.
In the center of the historic town, the 16th century Chiesa San Clemente offers weekly mass. A small group meets to pray the rosary and the church bell rings sonorously daily. One of the seven churches is decommissioned and now serves as an exhibition space.
San Clemente, top left. Photo Credit: Latera Art Farm. A temporary flower petal mosaic-path was created in front of San Clemente.
San Guiseppe, above right, is an intimate-sized neighborhood church with crochet flowers adorning the door.
Three historic churches line the road along the valley floor. The first, Chiesa San Sebastiano, was built in the shape of a Greek cross in the Middle Ages. San Rocco, a small, proportioned stone church dating to around 1400, was built when the plague took many lives in the village, a form of hopeful devotion.
Curiously, the medieval Chiesa Madonna della Cava, has a 20th century bomb out front! During World War II, a bomb landed in the church at a time when it was vacant. It was seen as a divine gesture of protection. Someone tends geraniums and other flowers out front to this day. Still grateful.
My favorite, Chiesa della Madonna del Carmine, is a beautifully cared for, living-room size church at the top end of town, with a gold and light-blue starry ceiling (depicted in the water color at the start of this post) We passed by most mornings on our run, then again during our evening walk.
One day we visited more intentionally, stepping inside to give a pledge to each other. Then, we stood on the concrete step outside and . . . jumped off! In medieval times, “handfasting”— giving a pledge to your beloved outside the church door — was considered a legally and religiously binding marriage.
Today the churches of Latera are quieter, but many of the homes have beautiful potted gardens of wistaria, hydrangeas, peace plants, and geraniums, bringing a different solace to the town, softening the stone environment.
Reading an article in an Italian kids’ magazine, I learned there is a national effort to support the api—the bees. These potted gardens lift the spirit—of bees and people. Churches, art, flowers–each offers its own testament that, in different ways and in sorrow or hope, Latera is living and resilient.
After two weeks, it’s time for us to depart from Latera—for now. As we drive away, I take a last look.
And, indeed, I was! See the article below, in Italian. And below that, a rough translation from Google translate.
What a pleasure to write about the town of Latera–and, in turn, be written about!–inspired by our journey on the Via Francigena and my reading Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur. Passionate geography, indeed–landscape giving rise to experience, emotion, and now, a shared memory with new friends from Latera.
With its origins as a 12th century medieval village (and a record of settlement far back into antiquity), Latera is embracing contemporary art to help define its identity for the 21st century. For a small community, it is remarkable how much creativity is blossoming in the town.
Credit for the town’s commitment to public art goes to the Mayor and the Commune of Latera which has funded the Art Farm Project. The project commissions artists to create site-specific work, fashioning Latera into an open-air art experience. In addition, local textile artisans have softened stone church and civic structures with whimsical additions. The La Casa Etruria Artists Residency adds momentum by bringing artists and writers to the village for two- to four-week periods.
Visiting a medieval hill town, you might expect historic churches and fountains but in Latera you also come upon contemporary murals, sculptures, and crochet flowers as delightful surprises.
Francesco Vullo, “Threshold,” 5,000 blue sodalite stones, evoking a sense of flowing water.
Top: Nicola Ghilardelli, “Ossesso,” aluminum circle with a serpent biting its tale. Elisa Capdevila, “The Flowers,” mural of a young girl from Latera with the iconic chestnut leaves of the surrounding forest. Bottom left: view of The Flowers from the town cafe. Center right: Mirko Loste’s large-scale mural “The Forgotten Queen.” Bottom right: Polymetis, a Canadian design studio, just installed a sundial made from beautiful Carrara marble.
Check out the creative crochet installations in Latera!
Christmas 2025Doorway to San Guiseppe Church.
May 2026 installation of ethereal crochet flowers seemingly floating above a central piazza.
Together these artistic endeavors are bringing new life to this hill town that has struggled, as have other Italian towns, to retain its viability and appeal to the next generation. Unfortunately, Latera no longer has a school so families with children drive to the next town. But electric car charging stations, summer concerts and movies, and a commitment to a civic future of public art are giving residents hope that Latera can find a creative way forward to appeal to the next generation and to international visitors.
I will tell you right now—you should visit Latera!
There are a few Airbnb accommodations in town or in nearby towns, and Latera is a hub from which you can swim in Lake Bolsena, visit the stunning hill towns of Pitigliano and Orvieto, soak in the hot springs of Saturnia, enjoy wines and a lake view at the Villa Cavaciana winery, or hike bucolic trails throughout the area. The city of Viterbo, the sea coast, and the official Via Francigena route are all less than an hour away. In town, the Museo della terra chronicles the incredible hard work of farming and family life from the previous century.
All major Italian cities are over-crowded with tourists. Visiting the rural province of Lazio, we stepped back in time, but also glimpsed a possible future through the eyes of contemporary artists. Perhaps art can offer a way forward so that Latera can flourish in the century ahead.
Traveling often focuses on sights to see, restaurants to sample, and negotiating crowds. Staying in Latera for two weeks, however, gave us a chance to get to know a few of the 770 people who call the quiet town of Latera home.
Lulzana welcomed us each day with a big smile as we ordered our “due cappuccini, per favore.” The local bar/cafe (above, right) is the center of town geographically and relationally, with friends gathering throughout the day.
Early in our stay, Lulzana asked Frederica Pancrazi to translate a phrase for me. And just like that—we became friends. Co-owner of Fit Foto, Frederica made us a delicious ragu and her father even picked up a cake for us.
Over dinner, we learned that Frederica and her husband Riccardo are members of the “proloco,” a group that promotes events, art, and business in Latera.
Angelo’s charming flowerpot garden is an iconic scene in Latera. He advised me to move my basil plant up from street level to avoid dogs “watering” my basil.
A different Riccardo, a talented chef, runs a superb weekend restaurant, La Cantina del Mago, in a cool grotto-like atmosphere.
Riccardo’s mom, Nadia, grows many of the vegetables served at the restaurant. To explain a dish, both Riccardo and Nadia came out from the kitchen with garlic shoots, hooting with laughter.
An artist and photographer, Zehava Perez is Dutch but calls Italy home and is the creative who started the Residency.
Chatting over coffee or apertivo, I learned how the EU allows Europeans to live in a different member nation.
Walking around the quiet, south end of town, I passed by a gentleman sitting at a table in front of a doorway. Lo and behold—behind him was a tiny bookshop! A Dante reader and once a volunteer calligrapher at the Vatican, Gianni wrote our names in beautiful script.
Here, Gianni reenacts a famous image of Dante with a laurel crown, signifying Dante’s status as a revered Italian poet, and holding a quill.
Shop Owners: Three women were part of our daily life in Latera: at the forno (bakery), home goods store, and grocery/ magazine shop. They waited patiently as we fumbled with euro coinage to buy fresh bread, a lemon squeezer, or a kid’s magazine (to learn Italian).
In all, the shops in Latera comprise the bar/cafe, a butcher, grocery/magazine shop, a home goods store, bookstore, hair salon, pharmacy, and the Cantina. A few other shops are on the periphery of the village.
A Residency suggests a different way to travel: stay in one place, learn a few phrases, let friendliness and curiosity— for both travelers and locals—blossom.
Our front door at La Casa Etruria.
In addition to the warm hospitality, Latera is reinventing itself as a town that embraces art. See next post!
Slate gray bedazzled by iridescent green. The boschi (forests) of Latera burst with spring color, softly surrounding the town as a breathing cloud, a magical green world. One minute you are in town and the next you are enveloped in a woodland lush with new growth and birdsong.
But the forests surrounding Latera are also a living presence in town.
Photo Credit: Zehava Perez, lacasaetruria.com
In the photograph above, Zehava Prerez captures the way the forest softens and colors the townscape of stone and slate and tile, sometimes creating a “green wall” as background.
The verdant spring penetrates into town and catches you by surprise as you round a corner or turn into an alleyway. A mediterranean mixed forest of oak, chestnut, and beech trees, the stunning canopy creates a living nearness.
There are also dozens of trails around town to hike or run, including the infamous Trail of the Brigandi. As I understand the complex history, some rural farmers of southern Italy saw the 1861 unification as a takeover by wealthier landowners of the north. Their cause was ultimately unsuccessful: violence, poverty, and emigration were some of the results. Today the Trail of the Brigandi is one of many trails and farm roads that traverse the area.
Once you discover the proximity of the bosco, you see that living in the village is also living in the larger environment of forest and field.
As a medievalist, the border between town and forest, so different from today’s sprawling suburban transition zones, clarifies a common literary trope in Arthurian literature: a knight leaves the court for the magic or misfortune of the forest, such as in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In the forest, adventures could quickly present themselves, but even at court the beckoning presence of the forest feels close by.
You might wonder: what is it like to live in a small medieval village? Well, thanks to La Casa Etruria Artist Residency, we had a chance to experience a little bit of what it might be like.
Just ten miles from the official route of the Via Francigena, the small medieval village (borgo medievale) of Latera spills down the side of a volcanic caldera, a flow of stone medieval buildings, churches, and narrow cobblestone streets. The elevation at the top of town is around 1600 feet and probably around 1000 feet at the base of the town. Ladies with shopping bags walk slowly uphill to the café to visit with friends after the daily shopping.
La Casa Etruria, our residency house, is just under the red sign; the front door opens out to a narrow street juuust wide enough for cars to pass through.
The town looks a bit austere at first, but it is filled with friendly people, murals and art, flowers on doorsteps, small historic churches, and a museum of the land and people. I came for a two-week residency, organized by the wonderful Zehava Perez, an artist and creative spirit. As Zehava notes, Latera is “very authentic and natural,” and the area has so much to explore.
My writer’s desk at La Casa Etruria
I came to the residency to write about walking the final segment of the Via Francigena, from Viterbo to Rome, about 115 km. Read about our five-day walk on my blog on WordPress: passionate geography or my Substack (they have the same posts).
If you are an artist or writer, consider applying to La Casa Etruria Artist Residency. Latera is a delightful, unique place to come to with curiosity, a little Italian if possible, and an open heart. You will be well rewarded.
The biggest surprise? The incredible forest (bosco) that surrounds the town. See the next post!
Aerial photo Credit: Frederica Pancrzai, a professional photographer who lives in Latera and owns a photo business, FotoFit, in nearby Aquapendente
[Reader, if you are just joining this journey, click on the “About” tab for context. The chronological posts begin in January 2026.]
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.
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.
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?
Former English professor at Marylhurst University for 16 years, then Concordia University. I taught writing, medieval literature, humanities, maps and literature, and history of the book. After five years as a Dean of arts and humanities at Linn-Benton Community College, I am now a writer and an instructor at Willamette University – Pacific Northwest College of Art.
