Walk the Path to Rome, Toul to Rome on foot
A vow to walk to Rome in a straight line, sleep rough and hear Mass every morning. Your everyday steps follow Belloc over the Jura and the Alps to Rome, and his words unlock where he broke each promise.
- 750 miles
- 13 stops
- Hilaire Belloc, 1902
A pilgrimage, mostly kept
Belloc vowed to walk from Toul to Rome in a straight line, sleeping rough, hearing Mass every morning, and arriving for the feast of St Peter. He broke very nearly every clause of that vow, and wrote the best walking book of his century about failing to keep it.
In June 1901 Hilaire Belloc set out from Toul, in Lorraine, to walk to Rome for the feast of Saints Peter and Paul. He vowed to go in a straight line, on foot all the way, sleeping rough and hearing Mass every morning. He went south through Épinal and Belfort, over the Jura into Switzerland, across the Alps to Bellinzona and down through Como, Milan and Tuscany to Siena and Rome.
He broke very nearly every part of the vow. He missed Mass on the first morning, and ran so short of money at Como that he took the train. The Path to Rome, published in 1902, is still one of the best walking books in English. Belloc called it seven hundred miles or more, and the 750 here follow the places he names.
- Distance
- 750 miles (1,207 km)
- Stops
- 13, each with its own passage and plate
- Map
- The real world, on Apple Maps
- Text
- Hilaire Belloc; Project Gutenberg ebook #7373
Where it starts
It was in the very beginning of June, at evening, but not yet sunset, that I set out from Toul by the Nancy gate; but instead of going straight on past the parade-ground, I turned to the right immediately along the ditch and rampart, and did not leave the fortifications till I came to the road that goes up alongside the Moselle.
The Path to Rome · Hilaire Belloc
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 road to Rome take you?
Belloc walked it in about four weeks, give or take a train. Choose when you'd like to reach Rome 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 Rome.
750 miles of The Path to Rome, on the walks you already take.
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