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Via Francigena del Sud (Rome-Brindisi) this spring.

bval

New Member
Via Francigena del Sud (Rome-Brindisi) this spring.

I was just wondering and I am also very curious, if anyone else has plans to walk Via Francigena del Sud (Rome-Brindisi) this spring? I just bought Flight tickets yesterday and I am so excited. I will be starting Tuesday 07.04 from Ciampio airport and hopefully ending in Brindisi Tuesday 28.04. It could just be fun to know if anyone else is walked in that period and what kind of considerations, you have made.

ci vediamo, Birgitte
 
The one from Galicia (the round) and the one from Castilla & Leon. Individually numbered and made by the same people that make the ones you see on your walk.
@bval Birgitte I wish you a buon cammino. I walked in Sept-October. If you go to this page, at the bottom, is a link to my list of accommodation, and a few additional notes. You will see I took 28 days, averaging 25km/day. It is a very rewarding walk. Very solitary - I met just two others for a couple of days. It is not well way-marked, except in patches. I used GPX traces, which I don't usually.
 
Thank you very much, Tim. I have been expecting a response from you. You are the VF expert in this forum. I know your list of accommodations, and have already studied it closely. I also visited your website. I am grateful for your efforts. It is very useful. I know it will be long days (40+ km via Monte Sant'Angelo) and lonely, but it doesn't matter. I love it and have tried it before. The only thing I'm afraid of is wild boar and loose dogs, good that I have walking sticks with me. I feel prepared, but now that I have you, I have some questions.

At the monks in Velletri, do they expect to eat with them? Sometimes it is a bit cross border if you are the only pilgrim. Do you know how late you can arrive? I'll probably be there by 18-19. Where did you get GPS tracking from? I have one from Waymarked Trails, but I can see that the tracks are not quite the same. I've also been looking at wikiloc and seen people going differently. At Googlemaps, the places I've looked, it seems that all the signs point to Roma, will it change ?. Ok, enough for today :) B
 
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Pedantically : This "Via Francigena del Sud" is a serious misnomer -- it's really one of the Rome Way routes but not a "Francigena" as it does not lead into Rome from France-wards, but mostly it's part of the Jerusalem Way (leading towards an Apulia to Greece maritime crossing etc.).

(I was diverted away from doing it myself in 2000 ... but I have hiked a bit at that end of Italy, and some of the tiny rural tarmac roads & dirt ones winding between orchards and vineyards, and from village to village, are simply gorgeous)

The only thing I'm afraid of is wild boar and loose dogs, good that I have walking sticks with me.

Wild boar basically just leave people alone, and scarper away from them.

And whilst this map is teensy tiny ...

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... it does suggest that your route is mainly through low boar density country.

Packs of feral dogs can be a bit worse, but they are a lot rarer in Italy than in Spain. Wild dogs can be a reason why a hiking staff can be better than poles ; but whilst I'm personally a staff devotee, I'd not necessarily recommend one for such a relatively short hike. It takes longer to learn how to use one than the length of the proposed hike.
 
Thank good that I am living in Denmark😉 Thank you JabbaPapa, it looks like I had chosen just the right way. Last year I saw some and lot of footprints on my way from Bologna to Rome.
 
On the road through the woods, around the lake, out of Castelgondolfo I could hear boar but the only ones I saw close up, a couple of times, were dead on the side of a road and a railway.

Feral dogs (which are more of a problem I found in Greece last year) are not very common, but you do need to take sensible precautions when you see a flock of sheep...there will usually be some working dogs nearby and they can be quite large, but I never had a problem, even though I am not a great dog lover. They will bark a lot but if you stop, (as I have found on probably nearly 100 encounters in Italy, Albania, North Macedonia and Greece), they will not do anything more. If you then walk past slowly, I have found no problem. More helpfully, a shepherd will very often appear - always worth making friends with him. Sometimes (rarely) I have waited 20 or 30 minute for the situation to calm down!

I have never, never, never resorted to raising a stick at them nor to throwing stones. I know other people recommend this but to me it seems counterproductive.

I think this video is helpful

At Velletri, they are not strictly 'monks' - it is a novitiate for young men who are in their first year of religious life, and who are joining the Don Orione Society https://www.facebook.com/DonOrioneVelletri/

So when I went, there had recently been a new intake and there were about 15 young men, only the minority of whom were Italian. If I recall correctly there was Mass and Evening Prayer at 1800 (to which you would be welcome, but it is not compulsory!) and then supper at 1900 or 1930. They have a very positive attitude to pilgrims with a couple of rooms set aside and one of the young men is the 'guest master' in charge of making you welcome. I think you need have no hesitation about joining them for a meal - it was like a boisterous(!) family event. You should ring ahead to say you are coming. You will need Google maps to find the place but it is on the nearside of the town, as you approach it.

I will check out where my GPS tracks came from. You can actually find my own on wikiloc.com, if you search on my name tim.redmond but they are a bit haphazardly labelled and there are 461 trails (most from running) and I have never found a good way of filtering them!
 
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I have never, never, never resorted to raising a stick at them nor to throwing stones. I know other people recommend this but to me it seems counterproductive.

I have occasionally needed to use the staff, but really you just use it to warn them off and out of your personal space -- dogs do understand and respect territory ; I may have struck one particularly vicious aggressive dog ?? (not sure, but I can certainly remember being ready to do so)

As for a stone, really it's just for when an overly friendly dog starts following you -- you do NOT throw it at such a (nice, friendly) dog, but you aim a few feet away and ahead of it to basically just tell it to buzz off.

These are exceptional measures anyway, and NOT to be used against the more typically annoying barking canine !!
 

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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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