Day 78 – Gemona del Friuli to Udine – 39km
Plans shifted late in the game, but it was all for the best. Originally, I had anticipated a much longer walk today, pushing all the way to Palmanova, but the only affordable accommodation in that popular tourist spot cancelled on me. Udine, the largest city in Friuli, suddenly became the better fit, and once I […]
Day 77 – San Tomaso to Gemona del Friuli – 23km
“There are two Friulis,” my host Paola explained to me in San Tomaso. “Before the earthquake and after.” My mind immediately drew a series of inferences from that statement. Life must have been good before the 1976 earthquake that devastated the region. Registering 6.5 was bad enough; hitting a maximum intensity on the EMS scale […]
Days 75 & 76 – Polcenigo to San Tomaso – 73km
Where is the line between wisdom and cowardice? Prudence and timidity? Or, for that matter, between courage and temerity? I spent the better part of a week watching that weather forecast come barreling towards me like my mom’s Samoyed, with zero compunction or restraint. Every day I logged in, expecting that the extreme precipitation projected […]
Days 73 & 74 – Falzé di Piave to Polcenigo – 73km
I spent the morning reading Pope Francis’s “Bull of Indiction of the Ordinary Jubilee of the Year 2025.” Despite having spent the better part of the past three months walking across Italy during this Jubilee year, including a short visit to Roma, I’d never bothered to review the originating decree. Perhaps I just assumed it […]
Day 72 – Castelfranco Veneto to Falzé di Piave – 53km
This was the day I’ve been longing for. Physically, I was overdue for an opportunity to properly stretch the legs, both in terms of distance and elevation, and this stage accommodated. The opening kilometers were familiar enough, still generally following a canal track northward. The small differences, though–a little more windiness to the trail, more […]
Days 69-71 – Rovigo to Castelfranco Veneto – 90km
Nothing was left, but the tongue. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Understandably enough, as there’s once again not too much to be said about the walking. From Rovigo to Monselice, the stage proved to be among the least interesting and enjoyable walking of the trip. It’s difficult; I certainly don’t blame the route designers […]
Days 67 & 68 – Ferrara to Rovigo – 43km
I had forgotten what the daily struggle can feel like. Not the walking; that has been easy for the most part, and all the more so over the course of these shorter, flatter days. No, the struggle to find open wifi. In Emilia Romagna, the region has done a fantastic job of making public wifi […]
Days 65 & 66 – Castel Maggiore to Ferrara – 50km
Ferrara’s Palazzo Schifanoia, once a leisure retreat for the city’s great family, the Este, had been taken over by a tobacco baron in the 18th century. He determined that the palace’s defining space, the Hall of Months, a large room covered with murals depicting the months of the year, should be covered in plaster and […]
Days 63 & 64 – Tossignano to Bologna to Castel Maggiore – 77km
Look, in my head, it’s a logical enough decision. Let’s start with that. One of the things I’ve learned over the course of these last few mega-walks is that it’s not the long, individual stages that wear me out, so much as the relentless parade of moderate-to-long days. In other words, I’d rather alternate 25 […]
Days 60 & 61 – Rocca San Casciano to Tossignano – 73km
I’ve made it out of the high Apennines at last, and continue pushing outward through the foothills. In just a couple more days, they’ll finally release their hold on me. While that sounds awfully nice at the moment, I’ll miss them when they’re gone. What I won’t miss, though, will be the frequent reminders of […]