We are getting our legs in shape for an eight-day pilgrimage through rural Tuscany. It’s a small part of the 2,000 km route that an obscure Archbishop of Canterbury logged by foot or horseback in 990 A.D. from his English cathedral to Rome and back.

This path to Rome, called the Via Francigena, or the way through France, is not as well-known or well-traveled today as the Camino de Santiago in Spain. But in its heyday, it was the pilgrim route from all over Europe to the Seat of St. Peter, and from there, to the Holy Land. Religious penitents and crusaders alike raised the dust of this way in an endless cloud. The restlessness to spread, or escape, the little light of medieval life lasted for a thousand years, until the Industrial Age came to satisfy people in other ways.

Today, as a spiritual alternative to churchgoing or merely as healthy tourism, hiking the Way to Rome has grown popular enough for at least four “Camino” companies to offer alternative self-guided hikes on the Italian side. We chose CaminoWays to book eight hotels for us along the way, and to carry one suitcase to each hotel as we make our pilgrim’s progress.

For Libby and me, 80 miles from Lucca to Siena seems daunting. So we’ve been preparing by hiking trails in the mountains of North Georgia. We’ve hiked on Mt. Oglethorpe, the Burnt Mountain Preserve, the Appalachian Trail sections of Woody Gap and Gooch’s Gap, two approaches to the AT’s southern terminus of Springer Mountain and on private trails through the woods around our family house where we’ve been staying since last summer.

We spent one night in narrow bunk beds at a low-impact lodge called Len Foote. To get there, you leave the top of Amicalola Falls and hike five miles through diverse forests and thick laurel creek beds. It’s called the Hike-Inn trail.

High on a wall in the Hike-Inn bunk house, the evolution of camping gear is displayed with eight backpacks. The oldest is a big basket with straps from around 1915. Next to that is a loose canvas pack donated by Earl Shaffer, the legendary “Crazy One” who first hiked the entire Appalachian Trail in 1948. The most modern a Granite Gear body-fitting pack of lightweight “high tenacity” nylon. 

We are thankful for the lighter weight hiking gear, titanium hiking poles and cargo pants available today. 

But driving an hour or more to some of the most beautiful hikes in North Georgia, then hiking for three or more hours, seems a lot of time to spend getting ready for our pilgrimage. A whole day is pretty much shot.

My brother Walter has a much wiser perspective. He has been out on the Appalachian Trail almost daily since the beginning of February offering “trail magic” – Gatorade and oranges – to the through-hikers setting off from Springer. They accept it with gratitude. Some, like Walter, are old hands, with trail names like “Fresh Grounds,” who serves breakfast at Woody Gap, or “Nibblewill Nomad,” in his 80s, or “Graybeard,” in his 90s.

I am grateful to Walter for giving us the names of 10 great hikes in North Georgia to help us prepare for Tuscany. But setting out with him and his malamute Dealer one morning, I admitted that for all the pleasure of these hikes, each one feels like a day wasted, as far as  getting other stuff done.

Without missing a beat, he said, “For me, a day without hiking is a wasted day.”