Sigeric and His Journey to Rome: The Via Francigena, 990 AD

Walking long distance across a large part of Europe is quite daunting. You tell your friends you’re going to walk from the southeastern-most tip of the UK across France, over the massive range of the Alps and down to Rome and they look at you as though you are crazy. But what would your friends have thought a thousand years ago? Rome must have seemed remote and the journey quite terrifying. Life now is very different from that of the described short, nasty and brutish tenth century. But was it so bad? This book follows two travellers as they set off from Canterbury on their journey to the eternal city of Rome. One is Archbishop Sigeric, who journeyed to Rome in AD 990 to collect the pallium that conferred the Pope’s authority on him, and the other is now in the 21^st century, a thousand years later treading in his footprints. Has the road changed much?

Cecilia has had a long career as both an in-house and freelance picture researcher working for many publishers in the UK on illustrated reference and non-reference books. She is a passionate long-distance walker whose aim is to get people off their sofas and join her in getting healthier and fitter and also caring more about the countryside by respecting the beauty of nature. She is deeply passionate about history and loves spending time researching various fascinating periods of history. She was on the steering committee and was then voted as a founder trustee of the Confraternity of Pilgrims to Rome when it became a charity. She has walked the long-distance route between Canterbury and Rome twice amongst other routes in the UK, Spain and across the hot landscapes of Australia. She has interests in photography, the great outdoors and endless reading of everything. She is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.