PREFACE
I am very delighted to introduce this revised edition of the Vademecum that accompanies the pilgrims on Via Francigena. The Vademecum is the result of a great commitment of the Association Via Francigena, directed with great enthusiasm and generosity by Adelaide Trezzini, who reconstructed the ancient routes and made them also enjoyable for today.
On the track of Via Francigena, the subject of this Vademecum, that goes from the Gran San Bernardo to Rome, we find so new pedestrian routes that avoid passing heavy traffic streets, and that facilitate the walking pilgrimage diffused already along the Way of Santiago de Compostela, that was still less appreciated on Via Francigena because of the difficulty in tracking down the inhabitated routes.
The new Vademecum overcomes such difficulty, and offers alternative pathways for walking or biking, as well as provides indications of services on break points along the route.
Synthesized in a quick trip tool with smart and quick system of cross-references and symbols, the Vademecum offers, therefore, to everyone who desires taking a walk on Via Francigena a useful guide in which it is possible to find everything necessary for a serene walk. It is also helpful for an inner journey and an authentic “pilgrimage of soul”.
In fact we make the journey spurred by an inner motivation, from a deep search of sense and project that animate all of our existence, or also from a curiosity that will be gradually specified and clarified.
Together with the road, the nature, the artistic beauty, the witness of faith of antecedent generations, there are many messages to receive, to understand, to deepen, and to transform into our personal journey, into our lifestyle, into our basic choices. It happened so for centuries, for many generations that, as Goethe affirmed, in the pilgrimage have formed the conscience of Europe, that Europe which today wants to be united from the Atlantic to the Uralis and looks for its real identity.
During the Great Jubilee 2000, the faithful of Europe and of all over the world met together on the roads of pilgrimage, giving an extraordinary example of dialogue and of peaceful and creative meeting. In the wake of the Jubilee, and in making new inner sensibility for many of our contemporaries, it is important to support and promote the pilgrimage and the journey on Via Francigena, because men and women of good will, particularly young people, going along again on the ancient route can find occasions for reflection, for inner growth, and for dialogue. Today, these routes still speak to us through so many different witnesses about the faith that puts men on journey and urges them to be never satisfied of their own humanity, but continually look for the fullness of their own truth and the sense of human adventure.