Almost a thousand kilometres of cycling along the Via Francigena from the Milan province to Rome. Two set off and nine arrived at their destination, having made new friends along the way.
Cycling the Via Francigena as a pair — that was Lucia Caffi's dream, realised this summer. It was meant to be something more than a simple holiday, and so it proved. "I felt that going to the sea or the mountains, where I would certainly have rested and relaxed, wouldn't have been enough for me; what I needed was to nourish my heart and my mind," Lucia Caffi wrote in a Varese daily.
Cycling is one of her passions, and the inspiration she had allowed her to fulfil a small dream: the experience of travelling by bicycle. The route was originally intended to be the Camino de Santiago leading to Spain, so a fine alternative could only be the Via Francigena. A ride from Cerro Maggiore, a municipality a few kilometres from Milan, all the way to Rome, covering a total of 995 kilometres as recorded by the GPS track.
The beauty of this journey is the unifying effect it produced day after day. "We set off as two but arrived in Rome as nine. First Andrea and Nicola joined us, then Davide, Paola, Gabriella, and the youngest members of the group, Gianfranco and Antonio. All from different cities, with different stories, but all sharing a common goal." They were able to travel along cycle paths and roads with very little traffic, which allowed them to pedal at a leisurely pace while taking in the ever-changing landscape around them.
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This journey is an example of how the Via Francigena can serve as a tourist attraction as well as a walking route for pilgrims — as will be the case with the extraordinary Jubilee convened by Pope Francis, and as could also happen with the Grab.