5 May 2009, Villafelice – Who knew? Who’d have guessed that southern Lazio could be so beautiful? Not me and not me.

Though I become acquainted with the beauty of the northern half of Lazio two springs ago while I made my way to Rome along the Via Francigena, it wasn’t until I started walking south from Italy’s capital city a few days ago that I realized there is much worth seeing down here as well.

While northern Lazio is essentially a continuation of Tuscany in terms of geography, food, history and all the rest, the southern part of the region has a feel all its own. Perhaps not as stunningly perfect as southern Tuscany (and parts of northern Lazio), but beautiful in a rougher sort of way. The splendid  hills are still there though they are not quite as soft and perfectly rounded. The Medieval hilltop towns are also there with their narrow cobblestone streets and striking churches. The list of these towns, all worth visiting, is endless and could occupy many a holiday. Artena, Anagni, Veroli, to name just a few.

The never-ending procession of these hilltop towns is a challenge for the pilgrim who finds himself spending a lot of time climbing or descending hills, some of which might border on being defined as small mountains. A challenge that I’m quite sure anybody who has the chance to spend a day, or week, walking here in southern  Lazio would enjoy.

Today we continued walking to the southeast, a trajectory that we have respected since leaving Rome five days ago. We slept last night in a terrific B&B (Il Pioppo) just outside of Veroli, probably the most beautiful of the many hilltop towns in the area that we have seen so far. With the cathedral holding the tomb of Saint James’ mother, the town holds a particularly important spot in the heart of all Southern Via Francigena spiritual pilgrims whether they be Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish or atheist.

We have been walking an average of 30 kilometers a day and today came in right at that number. For the first time I am walking with a GPS  receiver, a Garmin that does everything but press your shirt, so I will have an exact record of the route we are taking (the Google map on the home page is an estimation). I’ll post that map when I’m back in Milan.

Villafelice, from where I write on the night of May 5, is a tiny village a day’s walk from Cassino, where we’ll be arriving tomorrow and where we’ll visit the stunning Montecassino abbey that was destroyed in World War II bombings and has since been completely redone. Today we walked for long periods on country lanes with little traffic though we had to brave a busy road for 8 kilometers.