Italy’s premier wants to restore the old pilgrimage routes that took the faithful to Italian shrines just like the Santiago di Compostela routes bring pilgrims to Spain even today.
Italian Premier Romano Prodi is pushing for the routes used by medieval pilgrims to reach Rome to be revived for modern-day walkers, religious or otherwise.
Prodi, a devout Catholic, got the idea 13 years ago when he cycled along the pilgrimage route to Santiago di Compostela in Spain and realised that his own country had many pilgrim ways as well.
[…]Prodi is particularly keen on restoring the Via Francigena, the route which started in Canterbury, in southeast England, and meandered down through France, across the Alps near Aosta, down through Parma to Tuscany before reaching Rome.
Very cool. I think it would do much for Europe to see all these old pilgrimage routes re-established and to see pilgrims traveling by foot around Europe bringing the Christian witness just by their presence.
Technorati Tags: Italy | pilgrimage | Catholic | tourism | shrine |
