uspn
New Member
Having previously walked the Camino de Santiago and absolutely loved it, I was curious to see how the Via Francigena compares to it. So in June this year I started walking in Fidenza, nearly as far away from Rome as Roncesvalles is from Santiago.
This is what it looked like to me: http://www.pvv.org/~bct/via/
To sum it up, it was a nice walk, although it was nothing at all like the Camino de Santiago:
- I saw only a handful of other pilgrims during my walk. The few I saw were usually on bicycles, not interested in stopping to chat with a walker. Apart from an evening at the hostel in Radicofani, I never had that "Camino feeling".
- The hostels were generally difficult to find and/or closed due to a lack of pilgrims. I often had to resort to getting a room in normal hotels. In Italy that means really poor value for money. You arrive late in the evening and leave before breakfast is served in the morning, and while the beds were comfortable, I could easily have slept well on any coach or bench anyway.
- Just about no Italian I met had any idea of what the Via Francigena is, and most churches along the way were locked up during the day.
- In Rome it was difficult to figure out where to go to finish up and get my "diploma", and I felt I was drowning in an immense mass of noisy tourists who couldn't care less about what the Vatican means and has meant to the world.
- Dogs. Semi-rabid, over-protective guard dogs and stray dogs kept scaring the hell out of me by coming running at me snarling and/or barking madly wherever I went.
So, basically I hope that you enjoy browsing through the photos from my trip, but I really can't recommend walking the Via Francigena to anyone at all. There are too many other great hikes around that deserve your time and effort instead. I'm sorry, but that's just how I feel.
(I know, I know! People have reported exactly this before. It's just that somehow I couldn't understand or accept that Via Francigena could be SO much less rewarding than the Camino de Santiago is. I had to experience it on my own. Now I have.)
Bjørn
http://bjornfree.com/
This is what it looked like to me: http://www.pvv.org/~bct/via/
To sum it up, it was a nice walk, although it was nothing at all like the Camino de Santiago:
- I saw only a handful of other pilgrims during my walk. The few I saw were usually on bicycles, not interested in stopping to chat with a walker. Apart from an evening at the hostel in Radicofani, I never had that "Camino feeling".
- The hostels were generally difficult to find and/or closed due to a lack of pilgrims. I often had to resort to getting a room in normal hotels. In Italy that means really poor value for money. You arrive late in the evening and leave before breakfast is served in the morning, and while the beds were comfortable, I could easily have slept well on any coach or bench anyway.
- Just about no Italian I met had any idea of what the Via Francigena is, and most churches along the way were locked up during the day.
- In Rome it was difficult to figure out where to go to finish up and get my "diploma", and I felt I was drowning in an immense mass of noisy tourists who couldn't care less about what the Vatican means and has meant to the world.
- Dogs. Semi-rabid, over-protective guard dogs and stray dogs kept scaring the hell out of me by coming running at me snarling and/or barking madly wherever I went.
So, basically I hope that you enjoy browsing through the photos from my trip, but I really can't recommend walking the Via Francigena to anyone at all. There are too many other great hikes around that deserve your time and effort instead. I'm sorry, but that's just how I feel.
(I know, I know! People have reported exactly this before. It's just that somehow I couldn't understand or accept that Via Francigena could be SO much less rewarding than the Camino de Santiago is. I had to experience it on my own. Now I have.)
Bjørn
http://bjornfree.com/