THE FRANCISCAN ROUTE
Discovering the places he passed through, where he stopped and then went BEYOND...

“A pilgrimage has meaning if done on foot; it means drawing ever nearer slowly,
It is a time space, not just reaching your goal. Pilgrimage is about solitude,
It is about losing oneself to find oneself again”.  Erri De Luca

350 km, or a few more, from La Verna and the woods of the last hills of Tuscany to the lovely wide valley of Rieti in Lazio, through the most meaningful sites in the life of St Francis, up the hills and down the valleys of wonderful Umbria, the geographical heart of Italy, the ancient soul of this minuscule nation at the centre of a sea that is embraced by Europe.
In the first edition of the Guide St Francis passed this way I advised 15 stages in the walk. In the new guide another one has been added that breaks the route in two between Spoleto and Collescopoli, allowing the wayfarer to stop and enjoy the special aura of an ancient Franciscan hermitage at Romita di Cesi.

An on-going walk which now stops at the important Poggio Bustone at the convent of San Giacomo, wonderful for those who have walked to Stantiago to end their walk there! A place dear to St Francis, because it was so important in his Search for the Way. An on-going walk because my dream is to carry on in future Working out a path that will cross Abruzzo, with memories of Tommaso da Celano, la Maiella of Pietro da Morone, of Pope Celestine V, as far as Monte Sant’Angelo in Puglia, where Francis came as a pilgrim, following in the footsteps of other ancient pilgrims, who walked from place to place observing the cult of St Michael Archangel and then, perhaps embarked for the Holy Land. It is an ideal bridge between La Verna, where during the St Michael Lent Francis received the stigmata, to the main sanctuary for the cult of St Michael in Italy.

A new walk
The guidebook, which has been available in Italian bookshops only since June 2004, has had an unexpected success; since then countless people have started to walk the paths it indicates. These were the first pilgrims, like those who left for Santiago in the 1980s, when there were few hostels and fewer yellow arrows.

In June 2006
the revised, improved and enriched guidebook came out, with the inevitable mistakes removed. In the spring of 2007 the German edition will be published and we hope it will be translated into several other languages.

A certainty inspires those who work on this project and support all those who are responsible for it: this itinerary will become like the Santiago pilgrimage and the difficulties of today will soon become distant memories, like the “pioneering period” in Spain, remembered with nostalgia by those who walked a country that was less built-up, but offered greater freshness and adventure.