profane pilgrimage: walking the Via Francigena, Canterbury to Rome

In his solo trek, the author uses a lifetime of acquired skills and interests - geography, maps, hiking, languages, the outdoors, and an appreciation for the random, the ambiguous, and nomadic - to walk across Western Europe along the medieval Via Francigena pilgrimage route. Beginning in Canterbury, he traverses Anglophone Kent in English, switches to French in bucolic France and pristine Switzerland, then to Italian as he crosses the plains and mountains of Italy. He sleeps in his tent, in religious, municipal, and private hostels, and in the homes of welcoming locals. En route, he experiences a full range of weather, encounters friendly and not so friendly dogs, and walks ancient Roman roads, lonely highways, and foot paths through fields and forests. Along the way, he meets the kindest folks.