Ready for another Adventure

Well, we are ready for another adventure. Denise and I are going on an Italian trek. We are going to walk parts of the Via Francigena. This is a journey similar to the Camino in Spain which follows the steps of St. James.  The Via Francigena follows the path of the Archbishop of Canterbury. In order to officially receive his title he was required to present himself to the Pope in Rome. So in the 1100's he traveled from England, down through France, across Switzerland and on to Rome. On his return to England, he kept a detailed journal of his travels thus allowing for an accurate plotting of his trail. We are going to walk a pretty good chunk of his path through Italy. We hope you will follow our blog and join in our adventure with us. We will be walking for a few weeks with some side journeys thrown in. We have an itinerary that we have put together, but a good thing about being on our own is that we are free to change it at any time for any reason, In other words, we have a plan, but are footloose (literally) in Italy. Today we put our packs together. Everything goes in a pretty small backpack. Denise will carry about 12 pounds and me about twice that. Not a lot of stuff for a few weeks in a foreign country. As you can see, shoes take a big precedent. Good hiking shoes, casual shoes for touring, eating, shopping, etc and water shoes for when the trail crosses those pesky creeks. We will be walking in a variety of terrains and surfaces. 

And here it is in the pack. Have gear, will travel. Tomorrow it is off to Milano.

Ciao.