Cassino’s Valley: The ancient Gate of Rome

Departure: Cassino – 6:00 am
Arrival: Picinisco
Weather: Rainy
Distance of the day: 45,2 Km
Progressive km: 45,2
Moving Time: 8h 08m
Elevation gain: 1.344 mt

For we are strangers before You, and pilgrims like all our forefathers; as a shadow are our days on the earth
(1Cronicles 29, 15)

On the way to Cardito

It was to fulfill a vow, that on an early September morning I took my first step in the direction of Jerusalem. The Bible expressly states, there is no guilt in abstaining from making vows, but there will be if one commits to GOD in sanctioning them, but then does not carry them out. I certainly did not want to incur in this sin, and so considering myself extremely grateful and privileged for all that I have received in this life, I decided to show my gratitude through a sacrifice. So I committed my energies depriving myself of what I consider the most precious thing in everyone’s life, their time, offering it for a higher cause than the usual ones, because a pilgrimage should be done for vocation and not as a normal hiking trip.
I left my hometown without bringing any money or credit cards, trusting only in God’s Providence and in people’s solidarity. Cassino, known in antiquity also as Porta di Roma (Gateway to Rome), is the same place that over the centuries every pilgrim would have had to cross leaving behind the eternal city, geographically located on the Via Francigena, a millenary bridge between East and West.
All my tracks have been recorded by two applications that I have always kept active on my mobile device, thus archiving in a reliable and detailed way all the data that constantly recorded my movements, the speed of travel and the height differences.

Peregrini enim sumus or “we are all pilgrims”, we belong to generations of passage, we come from races of travelers and we are lineage of strangers, because the earth belongs only to the Creator, and not to mankind. During this short journey that is life, we become aware that every Soul in the body is transient, and therefore committing the days we have available to accomplish something of value is the only thing that makes sense the succession of our existences. But this quest implies the need to move, to move through the lands in search of clues that relate to our past, but that will actually serve in our present to be able to move with awareness through the future. Abraham is considered the first pilgrim to leave his family and homeland to follow his vocation, trusting only in the Divine Plan. The decision to undertake my pilgrimage happened so naturally within me that it was like a normal evolution of my questioning about existential issues that everyone, at least once try to face, but few have the opportunity to deepen concrete. Thus began my long but instinctive preparation for the journey, in the conviction that Providence must always be embraced and never challenged. [continues in the book]

Gpx Track Day 1