The Francigena Road

The Francienga Road (Via Francigena in Italian) is a road of pilgrimage that extends from Spain to Jerusalem. In the middle ages, the Via Francigena was integral in bringing new cultural influences and wealth to Siena, which led to Siena’s growth into a well-established city and cultural center. And of course, because it is so important, the Via Francigena is all our Sienese Art and Architecture teacher can ever talk about. Us CET Siena students, then, have come to loathe and adore the Via Francigena in equal parts, integrating the Via Francigena into conversation as often (or as little) as possible.

In fact, when my roommate Andra was about to meet an Italian boy in the city center, my other roommate Sam and I decided to give her a teasing “talk.” “One,” we said, “you are only allowed to kiss.” “Two,” we said, “you can occasionally hold his hand.” “And three,” we said, “you are, under NO circumstances, allowed to talk about the Francigena Road.” Of course we later amended the last rule to say that Andra is either not allowed to talk about the Francigena Road or is allowed to talk about the Francigena Road, meaning she is either silent about the topic or cannot stop talking about the subject even for a second.

The Francigena Road also came up when Kristina, Marcella and I—the only three people in our Italian language class—were asked to write an in-class, collaborative essay about a “discopub.” Of course, we named the discopub “Via Francigena.” And just as pilgrims stopped into churches along the Via Francigena during the Middle Ages for food and shelter, so was our discopub designed to provide a haven for those wanting to eat and party. We also wrote that Piergacamo, our art history teacher, would be the celebrity at the discopub’s fabulous opening, all the while learning important Italian words like “le pellegrine,” pilgrims, and “un buttafuori,” a bouncer.

Not to make our obsession with the Francigena too absurd, one of the highlights of a bike tour we took through the Tuscan countryside also had to do with the Francigena. First off, the bike tour was cool all on it’s own. We got to bike beneath one of the gates to the city, marked by a traditional Sienese “balzana” crest; we got to bike on roads lined by beautiful, golden rolling hills; and we got to look back from the top of a hill to see the walled-city of Siena, snuggled into the hills at a distance. However, as we approached the top of one of the hills on our bikes, we experienced a particularly spectacular moment: we’d found the Francigena Road. On the left of the dirt road was a modern day sign with a small logo of a pilgrim and, in bold white letters, the words VIA FRANCIGENA. “Take a photo of me hanging off the sign!” my roommate Samanthat exulted, climbing up the sign like a monkey and initiating a whole round of photos we took with this celebrated sign.

We didn’t get to bike all the way from Siena to Jerusalem on the Francigena, unfortunately; but it’s always extraordinary to me that, as silly as we make the Francigena, in Siena, there’s always a good chance that you’ll stumble across history and an older time.