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Some questions (paving, language, guides)

J.Patrick

Active Member
Time of past OR future Camino
Porto 2015.
Northern 2017
Francigena Oct 2023
I will be walking from just north of Lucca to Rome this October, and I have some questions for anyone who has walked this segment of the Francigena. -- Thank you for your time!

1. What is the path like? Mosty paved? Mostly dirt roads? Mostly small dirt paths? In the rain is it hard-packed or muddy?

2. Can you tell me your experiences with or lack of English speakers among the people living along the route? And yes, I'm learning some basic polite phrases in Italian, and can use my smart phone to translate some details.

3. I'm looking for an in depth cultural, historical and architectural guide (not a hospice guide, which I have), to help me dive into the places I am passing. Any suggestions? Particular gratitude if it is downloadable to my Kindle.

Many thanks again,
Patrick
 
St James' Way - Self-guided 4-7 day Walking Packages, Reading to Southampton, 110 kms
I will be walking from just north of Lucca to Rome this October, and I have some questions for anyone who has walked this segment of the Francigena. -- Thank you for your time!

1. What is the path like? Mosty paved? Mostly dirt roads? Mostly small dirt paths? In the rain is it hard-packed or muddy?

2. Can you tell me your experiences with or lack of English speakers among the people living along the route? And yes, I'm learning some basic polite phrases in Italian, and can use my smart phone to translate some details.

3. I'm looking for an in depth cultural, historical and architectural guide (not a hospice guide, which I have), to help me dive into the places I am passing. Any suggestions? Particular gratitude if it is downloadable to my Kindle.

Many thanks again,
Patrick
1. I’m on the VF just now, having reached Radicofani. I started in Lucca. There’s been thunderstorms most afternoons and so some paths were very muddy and thick, particularly the 2 days before Siena. That might be seasonal.
2. Enough people speak enough English that it isn’t a problem. The route is full of tourists so food/drink is much more expensive than the CF.
3. Can’t help
Buen Camino
 
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3. Lightfoot Guides offer a Via Francigena Companion Guide (as well as, separately, more conventional route and accommodation guides). It covers cultural and historical insights covering the whole VF (England, France, Switzerland and Italy). That may be a good starting place; it includes a bibliography for further reading, if it doesn't have the detail you seek.
2. I'm yet to walk the whole caboodle (doing so later this year) but my recent travel experiences in Italy suggest that in cities most people have some English, whereas in smaller, rural places, younger people speak some English but older people less so.
1. In over 2000 Kms of walking I am expecting a whole range of walking surfaces, but I'm hoping that mud from the recent deluges in southern Europe will have dried out by October, at which time I ought to have reached Lucca too.
 
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I will be walking from just north of Lucca to Rome this October, and I have some questions for anyone who has walked this segment of the Francigena. -- Thank you for your time!

1. What is the path like? Mosty paved? Mostly dirt roads? Mostly small dirt paths? In the rain is it hard-packed or muddy?

2. Can you tell me your experiences with or lack of English speakers among the people living along the route? And yes, I'm learning some basic polite phrases in Italian, and can use my smart phone to translate some details.

3. I'm looking for an in depth cultural, historical and architectural guide (not a hospice guide, which I have), to help me dive into the places I am passing. Any suggestions? Particular gratitude if it is downloadable to my Kindle.

Many thanks again,
Patrick
1. It's a mix, though there seemed to be a lot of road walking each day. It was a very wet spring, and from Altopascio to Siena there were a lot of sections with thick mud. From Siena to Rodicofani the route was mostly on gravel roads. The section with the most, and best kept, actual trails was in Lazio, from Lake Bolsena to Sutri. Though Lazio also had the worst sections after that!

2. A lot of places required you to call when you arrived, so I found knowing low to mid-level Italian very useful. Sometimes they would tell you the code to get into the place over the phone, and I'd always stumble on this part. I know my numbers, but didn't understand the Italian words for the symbols (i.e. the door codes would have a # or a ^ and I would never know what they were saying).

3. Unfortunately the absolute best history of the region I've read (Indro Montanelli's Storia d'Italia) doesn't look like it's been translated into English. A lot of the towns actually have Lombard origins, and were influenced by the endless power struggles between the Popes and Emperors. English-language histories seem to jump from Rome to the Renaissance, skipping the whole middle ages in Italy. Philip Daeleader's Great Courses series on Middle Ages is excellent, though it covers Europe as a whole.
 
Can't add to anything on #1 or #2 as it's been covered but #3 is a whole thesis on it's own. You'll be knee deep in culture, history and architecture and that's only the short distance between Lucca and Rome - there's a lot more on the VF itself.

If you have the time and you do not intend to come back this way, stop in Florence, Siena, Bolsena, Montefiascone and any other town that you like and take a guided tour. You'll only scratch the surface.
 
St James' Way - Self-guided 4-7 day Walking Packages, Reading to Southampton, 110 kms

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The official Via Francigena site has published a list of free walks ** happening in 2024. If you happen to be passing through you might want to take part - or avoid that section that day. (**...

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