Day 3 Gravesend to Rochester

Today was a lovely walk, very varied and stimulating. We started in industrial Gravesend and, after walking along the Thames with views of Essex across the river, trended south-east along the footpath beside the abandoned Thames and Medway Canal. This led through flat farmland towards the rolling green North Downs which got closer and closer as we walked along.

Then the canal vanished into a tunnel cut through the Downs and we found ourselves route-finding across farm fields. Lovely views. Eventually we reached the outskirts of Strood, a suburb of Rochester. As we descended down through the town we were rewarded with the first views of Rochester Castle and the Cathedral across the Medway. For the first time we really felt we were on pilgrimage.

After a late lunch we crossed the Medway and entered the Cathedral, a beautiful Norman building with Perpendicular additions:

















Somewhat poignant for Catholics as it was the cathedral church of St. John Fisher. As Bishop of Rochester he was the only bishop in England to stand against Henry VIII and was executed for his resistance (he shares the same feast day as St. Thomas More -- June 22). Rather touchingly, there is a statue of him with other medieval worthies at the entrance to the Choir. Touching, because it must be a recent addition and, therefore, a gracious Anglican gesture.





We were chatting with a volunteer guide when a lady in a wheelchair came up. The guide introduced her as the chaplain of the Cathedral. I assume she was an Anglican minister, but I didn't ask and I didn't get her name. We chatted a bit about our pilgrimage and she, very perceptively, asked if the spiritual dimension of our pilgrimage had hit us yet. We rather sheepishly said "no" and she asked us if we would like to pray. So we went with her over to the Lady Chapel and lit a candle and prayed.

12 miles in a little over 4 hours. We're now spending a lot of time (and money) getting to and back from our walk each day. Looks like it might be time to start staying overnight: "get out and stay out". And it would feel more like a pilgrimage.

Footnote: After writing this, I found the following in Wikipedia: "In 1980, More was added to the Church of England's calendar of saints, jointly with John Fisher, on July 6, the anniversary of More's death."

Day 2 Slade Green to Gravesend

We were dreading this day as there are no trails or footpaths and the walker has to follow the main roads which are very busy indeed. Nor did we know whether there were any pedestrian paths along the highways.

Well, thankfully there were and the day went quite well. As a bonus, the sun shone out of a nearly cloudless sky. Most of the walking was on the level and in the middle we did find a leafy lane followed by a footpath -- with a Burger King in the middle where, at 11:30 we stopped and had a Whopper.

Once in Gravesend we went to the Tourist Office to get our passports stamped and then admired the statue of Pocahontas. Poor thing: she left Virginia with her husband and young son, visited London and the Court, was introduced to the King and Queen and then took ship back to Virginia. But, when the ship was anchored at Gravesend, she took sick, was put ashore and died.

10 miles today in four hours which included lunch. Again, I can't be more accurate because the GPS stopped again. It was the second day and our legs were feeling it. We certainly didn't feel like going any further. But I expect we will get stronger as the days wear on; or would if we weren't headed for Africa at the end of the week.

Day 1 Limehouse to Slade Green (near Erith)

We walked out our door this morning and down the Isle of Dogs to St. Edmund's Church where we prayed for the intentions of our pilgrimage. Our Parish Priest, Fr. Peter Harris, gave us a blessing. It included a long passage from the book of Tobit and was quite beautiful. We were moved.

While we were in the church it had started to rain, so we walked in the rain, but when we exited the Greenwich Foot Tunnel under the Thames it had, thankfully, stopped. In Greenwich we made a brief stop at the Hawksmoor church of St. Alphege in Greenwich. St. Alphege was a holy Archbishop of Canterbury killed by his Viking captors in 1012 and canonized shortly thereafter. Saint Thomas Becket prayed to him just before his own murder in Canterbury Cathedral. General Wolfe, the victor of the battle of Quebec, is buried in the church (his parish church).

We walked on through Greenwich park, waving to General Wolfe's statue up the hill by the Observatory. We soon joined the Green Chain Walk which took us through a series of quite lovely parks. A lot nicer than walking through the urban cityscape of the endless London suburbs. Very pleasant until the rain came down again.

Eventually the rain stopped and, soon after passing the ruins of Lesnes Abbey, we came to the Thames riverside near Erith. It was 3 o'clock and well past our lunch time so we went into Morrison's supermarket in Erith and had some fish and chips. Then out into the gathering dusk and on to the Slade Green railway station and home.

We walked about 15 miles but, because the batteries on the GPS gave out this is only an estimate. About 10 hours from Limehouse to Slade Green. Not very fast, but there were a lot of stops.

Why Rome?

Until two weeks ago we weren't going to Rome at all, but Santiago de Compostella. We've known a number of people who have done the pilgrimage to Compostella and, for a long time, we have found the concept intriguing. “One day”, we said. Three weeks ago, we decided to finally act. We would start as medieval pilgrims did, by simply walking out our front door.

Since our front door is in London, this means walking to a port in England and joining a route across the Channel in France. I bought a map of Santiago pilgrim routes in France and I studied possible routes. As I did so, the idea of Rome as an alternative destination for our pilgrimage started to grow.

Years ago, in my twenties, I read Hilaire Belloc's “The Path to Rome”, the story of his own walking pilgrimage in the early twentieth century. Belloc was a Catholic and his pilgrimage religious. I was then a recent Catholic convert. Belloc's story fired my imagination but I had put it to the very back of my mind. Now, looking at the map of France, it came again to the fore.

Rome: its impact on the history of Europe and on the Christian faith is incalculable. It had been the centre of the ancient and medieval worlds and remains the centre of the Catholic world today. Our own city of London (Londinium) was a Roman creation . The pilgrim roads of the middle ages were Roman roads. Ironically, today it is difficult to follow the authentic pilgrim routes across Europe because the ancient Roman roads have become the modern highways. All roads led to Rome (omnes viae Romam perducunt).

Today Santiago is the biggest centre of pilgrimage in modern Europe and it grows more popular each year. But in the Age of Faith it was second to Rome. Santiago has one saint and his story is legendary. Rome has many, starting with Peter and Paul and their stories are history. The first Christian churches were built in Rome after Constantine granted toleration to the new religion in the fourth century. The city is filled with historic churches, some converted from even older Roman buildings. It has a wealth of pilgrim sites.

And Rome has Pope Benedict of whom we are great fans. We will be be able to see and hear him in person at the end of our pilgrimage.

So, Rome it is. We shall be “roamers” (medieval English for a pilgrim to Rome).

We're Off! (rather unexpectedly)

Well, the idea is (was) to walk out our front door and head for Rome. This means following the Via Francigena, a modern pilgrim route following the route of Archbishop Sigeric from Canterbury to Rome in to receive his pallium of office from the Pope in 990 AD.

And that means walking from London to Canterbury first. As I said, we were going to walk out our front door and do just that. But today (Saturday, October 31, 2009) we went to an “open office” at the Confraternity of Saint James in Southwark. We were chatting about our plans when Janet, one of our hostesses, said, “but you should leave from Talbot Yard, it's where the Tabard Inn was.” So, Talbot Yard being on our way home and only ½ a mile away, we walked over to the lane, saw the sign memorializing the Tabard Inn and Chaucer and walked home (about 3 miles). So we have started our pilgrimage, albeit unofficially and without priestly blessing and approval.

From the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales:

“Then longen folk to goon on pilgrimages

(And palmers for to seken straunge strondes)

To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes;

And specially, from every shires ende

Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,

The holy blisful martir for to seke,

That hem hat holpen, whan that they were seke.

Bifel that, in that seson on a day,

In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay

Redy to wenden on my pilgrimage

To Caunterbury with ful devout corage....”

So, we pilgrims are off, via Canterbury, to seek foreign shores, on pilgrimage to distant shrines....

Why Walk?

Walk to Rome? Why? Surely it's much faster to fly – and much cheaper.

The short answer is that I love to travel, I love history, I love adventure, I love to walk and I love the Catholic faith.

I remember my father saying that air travel had made a generation of “travelled illiterates”. He meant that air travellers had no sense of the distance of their journey, no sense of its difficulty, no sense of the territory between the airports of departure and arrival. He preferred to drive, if he could.

And so do I. But while driving permits (demands) more contact and engagement with people, it also can be pretty superficial. But to walk – this really is the way to engage with the terrain, with its history, and with the locals and their culture.

Walking is the natural pace; all our senses have evolved to process sensations at a no faster than walking speed. Modern transportation is like a radical speeding up of a film.

Modern transportation is very recent: roughly 50 years for air travel, 100 for cars and 160 for trains. For all of previous history people walked from A to B. If they were rich, they might use a horse or a boat. But most folk – soldiers, merchants, pilgrims – walked.

So to walk through Europe at 15 to 20 miles a day will be to re-connect with the past, to see the world as Europeans saw it for most of their history. And to experience the difficulties they faced: the vagaries of the weather, route-finding, language, crossing the Alps in the winter....

Two years ago I broke my femur cross-country skiing and I'm still recovering. Perhaps a good long walk will speed the process.

But why Rome? That question will be the subject of another blog.

Testing the blogsite

We have this idea, Wendy (my wife) and I, of walking to Rome from our front door in London. And to make a blog about it, for the interest and amusement of our friends and family. So, one of the first jobs is to set up a blog site, something we have never done before. This is a first test of the site.