By ATG staff
The Via Francigena is the oldest and most important medieval pilgrimage route connecting northwest Europe with Rome. It runs roughly 2,000 kilometres from Canterbury Cathedral to St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, crossing southeast England, France and Switzerland, before passing into Italy. And after centuries of near-obscurity, it is experiencing a remarkable revival.
Sigeric and the Via Francigena
The Via Francigena, meaning “the way of the Franks”, was never a single road in the way a Roman road was. It comprised several possible routes that changed over the centuries but the route as we know it today owes its survival to a single document. In 990 AD, Sigeric, Archbishop of Canterbury, travelled to Rome to meet Pope John XV and receive the pallium, the woollen cloak symbolising his office, as archbishops had done before him. What made Sigeric different was that his party documented the stages of the return journey. His De Roma ad usque Mare, preserved in the British Library, records 79 stopping places between Rome and the English Channel. It forms the basis of today’s Via Francigena.
Revival of a historical route
At its peak, during the medieval period, the Via Francigena was one of the busiest corridors in Europe. In 1985 Giovanni Caselli, an Italian medieval historian, re-mapped Sigeric’s route which he later published in 1990, on the 1000th anniversary, contributing to a revival in interest in the Via Francigena. In 1994, the Council of Europe designated it a Cultural Route.
In the last 5 years there has been a sharp increase in numbers of people walking sections of the Via Francigena. The 2025 Jubilee drew millions to Rome and gave the Via Francigena unprecedented visibility. The numbers still only represent a fraction of the numbers walking the Camino de Santiago which recorded over 530,000 pilgrims in 2025 but for many walkers this is a reason to choose the Via Francigena and there is growing appetite for turismo lento – slow tourism. People want experiences that are physical, immersive and rooted in place, and what better that a long-distance walk through Tuscan countryside, sleeping in medieval villages and eating locally?
The history of ATG and the Via Francigena
50 years ago, in 1976, Christopher Whinney walked from London to Rome following the Via Francigena. He walked 23 miles a day, stopping every fourth day, as the Romans did. In 1979, he founded ATG.
Then in 1986 he purchased Pieve a Castello, derelict and restored over 20 years. This 8th-century complex served as a major overnight stopping place on the Via Francigena for 700 years. It is the oldest and best-preserved such place on the entire route. It sits between Florence and Siena near Monteriggioni and ATG guests can walk over 200 miles of marked routes from the property, many along historic pilgrim paths.
In 2000, to celebrate the millennium, ATG ran an escorted trip from Canterbury to Rome, walking the best sections over 3 weeks and staying in historic towns en route.
More recently the ATG Trust, set up by ATG in 2000, has part funded the restoration of the Porta Romea at Monteriggioni, the gateway facing Rome through which centuries of travellers passed.
Walking the Via Francigena with ATG
The full route takes approximately 3 months to walk but the Via Francigena lends itself to sections, and the stages through Lazio and Tuscany, covered by ATG’s Via Francigena 990 escorted itinerary, are among the finest walking country in Europe.
The route begins in Lazio’s volcanic landscape. From Sutri, with its Roman amphitheatre carved from tufa and its Etruscan tombs, the route climbs through the forested Monti Cimini to medieval Viterbo, then follows paved Roman road to Montefiascone on the crater rim above Lake Bolsena. The lakeside town of Bolsena – friendly, attractive, refreshingly untouristy – retains its medieval alleyways and 14th-century castle. From here, into the Val d’Orcia in Tuscany: a landscape of undulating hills, cypress trees and stone farmhouses.
San Quirico d’Orcia offers a fine Romanesque Collegiata and nearby Bagno Vignoni’s central piazza is a thermal pool where Romans bathed when travelling along the Via Cassia. The route crosses Brunello di Montalcino vineyards to the superb abbey-church of Sant’Antimo, then north to Siena. From Siena walking through forests and farmland to Monteriggioni, with its 13th-century walls and fourteen watchtowers and the final stretch is to San Gimignano, the “city of the towers”. The last two nights are spent at the ancient stopping place of Pieve a Castello, still welcoming travellers after 1,200 years.
ATG also offers an independent walking option; 3 weeklong self-guided walks – Ancient Paths to Rome I, II & III which closely follow the Via Francigena and cover a total distance of 225 miles from San Gimignano to Rome.
