WALKING ROUTES ON THE VIA FRANCIGENA
A centuries-old journey through history, faith and landscape
The Via Francigena is one of the oldest and most symbolic paths in Europe. Traveled for centuries by pilgrims, armies, merchants, popes and travellers , it connects Canterbury to Rome and continues to the Holy Land. Its name recalls the “Frankish” people, from beyond the Alps, who undertook the journey to the sacred places of Christianity. Today, the Via Francigena is an international path recognized as a cultural itinerary of the Council of Europe , a destination for modern pilgrims, walkers, cycle tourists and spiritual travellers. But it remains, first and foremost, an interior experience , a journey of the soul that takes place step by step, between encounters, silences and beauty.
At the heart of this thousand-year-old route is Proceno , the first village in Lazio that you encounter when crossing the border from Tuscany, just as it happened centuries ago when entering the Papal State . A place of passage, but also of rest, welcome and reflection. Wayfarers found refreshment, hospitality and spirituality here, and so it still happens today thanks to the renewed attention to walking as a form of slow, sustainable and cultural tourism.
The Via Francigena was not just a road, but a system of routes, places, stages and symbols. The path passed through villages, parish churches, springs, hospices, fords and castles. Travelling in the Middle Ages was tiring and often dangerous: pilgrims set out after making a will, aware of the risks but motivated by spiritual research, the desire for redemption or a religious vow .
Proceno, in this context, represented a threshold: a door between two worlds , a place to cross with the body and the spirit. Even today it retains this vocation of border and welcome, offering traces of the past and ideas for the present , among ancient cobblestones, panoramic views, art, nature and memory.
The contemporary return to walking has restored value to “minor” but very rich places, such as Proceno. Villages that today are rediscovering themselves as centers of identity, spirituality and culture , able to offer the traveler not only a journey, but a profound experience, made of authentic landscapes, genuine encounters and regenerating slowness.
Today, the Via Francigena is also this : a new opportunity for territories like Proceno to be known, experienced and loved, in the name of a walking culture .
