Day 5 – Crispiano-Taranto – 26km
When I set off this morning, I anticipated the first walk of the young trip oriented singularly towards the destination. Aside from Matera, none of the towns I’ve stayed in thus far exercised much of a gravitational pull; beyond a trip to the supermarket, I didn’t have concrete plans in mind for any of those […]
Tour d’Italia, Days 3 & 4 – Castellaneta-Crispiano – 56km
It’s a funny thing; I’ve been thinking about the Cammino Materano for months now, if not years, and yet I’ve nearly completed my walk on it now, at least for the time being. There’s one firm exception to that statement; I’ll detour onto a variant of the Via Ellenica in order to visit Alberobello when […]
Tour d’Italia, Days 1 & 2 – Matera-Castellaneta – 70km
A walk across Italy offers an excellent excuse–not that any such excuse is required–to spend time rereading Italy’s greatest writer, Italo Calvino. So my journey began with If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, which felt more than appropriate for the occasion. The novel’s conceit is a joyride through postmodernist narration, with the author first […]
Tour d’Italia, Day 0 – Matera
From the moment that I decided to step away from my teaching role and commit to at least a couple of years of walking and writing, I knew, of course, that I would finish the US walk. At the same time, though, I also had this walk through Italy top of mind, to the extent […]
The Tour d’Italia – Part One
One week from today, I fly to Italy to set forth on part one of what I’m dubbing the “Tour d’Italia,” which will lead me across the country twice. This spring, I’ll walk (mostly) south to north, looping down around the heel and then up to the Slovenian border. In the fall, I’ll start on […]
A Preview of My Upcoming Camino Book
One of my frustrations with Camino guidebook-writing is that, by the nature of the format, it requires a mile-wide, inch-deep kind of discussion. There are a million interesting stories on the Camino, which means each gets a line or two in the book and no more. This isn’t a knock on guidebooks; it’s just a […]
From Cluny to Le Puy-en-Velay
Note: in March 2022, I used spring break to squeeze in a shorter pilgrimage from the medieval monastic center of Cluny, France to Le Puy-en-Velay, where the Via Podiensis begins. I never posted this account here, but it’s worth sharing given the dearth of available information on this route. No single place, aside from Santiago […]
Days 102-104 – 10/16-10/18 – Portland to Cape Meares, OR – 84 miles
What’s the point of an epilogue, anyway? I’ve been listening to some mysteries while on the road. It’s not a genre I had consumed much in previous years, but it’s a better fit for audiobooks than more classically literary stuff. I’ve noticed how important epilogues are to these kinds of stories. The final chapters often […]
Days 99-101 – 10/13-10/15 – The Dalles to Portland, OR – 101 miles
The sun burst over the Eastern Gorge, the Columbia River glittering below, as the hills were cast in a soft, pink hue. An early departure from The Dalles saw me climbing steadily into the hills, accompanied by a resurgent urgency. Only two stages–admittedly, two long stages–stood between Portland’s eastern fringe and me. A much shorter […]
Day 98 – 10/12 – Biggs Junction to The Dalles, OR – 24 miles
If you’ve followed the journey thus far, you know that there wasn’t a singular Oregon Trail, with a tidy, uniform line of wagon wheels rolling westward in perfect formation. On the Platte River, for example, Mormon pioneers tended to follow the north side, while the Oregon and California Trail folks held to the south. And […]