Walk A Farewell to Arms, the Italian front to Switzerland
An ambulance lieutenant, a retreat, a desertion and a night rowing across a lake. Your everyday steps follow Frederic Henry out of the war, and Hemingway's words unlock at the places it happened.
- 564 miles
- 13 stops
- Ernest Hemingway, 1929
Out of the war
An ambulance lieutenant crosses the Italian front, survives the Caporetto retreat, deserts the war, and heads north to Catherine. From Gorizia and the Tagliamento to Stresa, Locarno and Montreux, the journey ends far from the guns.
The novel starts on the Isonzo front near Gorizia, where Frederic Henry drives ambulances for the Italian army. In the autumn of 1917 the front collapses at Caporetto, and the retreat turns his war into a walk through mud and rain. At the flooded Tagliamento he escapes the battle police by jumping into the river, and from then on he is travelling for himself.
He takes the train to Milan, finds Catherine at Stresa on Lake Maggiore, and rows her through the night up the lake to Switzerland. Hemingway had driven ambulances in Italy himself in 1918 and was badly wounded there. He never gives the whole distance, so the 564 miles here are measured across the real places, from the front to Lausanne.
- Distance
- 564 miles (908 km)
- Stops
- 13, each with its own passage and plate
- Map
- The real world, on Apple Maps
- Text
- Ernest Hemingway; Project Gutenberg ebook #75201
Where it starts
The road ended in a wrecked village. The lines were up beyond. There was much artillery around. The houses were badly smashed but things were very well organized and there were signboards everywhere.
A Farewell to Arms · Ernest Hemingway
This is the passage Bematist gives you the moment you set out. The other 12 wait at the places they happened, and the only way to read them is to walk there.
How long would the retreat take you?
Henry's escape takes weeks and ends on the far shore of a lake. Yours can take as long as you like. Choose when you'd like to reach Switzerland and Bematist sets the pace from how much you already walk.
A rough guide, at about 0.75 m a step. In the app the pace comes from your own 30-day average in Apple Health, and stays fixed for the whole journey.
On the way
The words, at the places
13 passages, each waiting where it happened. You can see how far away the next one is, but not what it says.
Walk it with friends
Send a link and walk the same road together, each of you on your own streets, wherever you live.
No streak to lose
Steps come straight from Apple Health. A quiet day is just a short one, and your place on the road only moves forward.
More roads like this one
See the whole library, with a new book every month, chosen by walkers' vote.
Set out for Switzerland.
564 miles of A Farewell to Arms, on the walks you already take.
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