“In 1213 Count Orlando Catani of Chiusi gave Francis a mountainous parcel of land called La Verna to use as a place of retreat. Tucked into the wilderness east of Florence, La Verna features a solitary peak, known as Monte Penna, and is covered with …
Eat, Pray and Walk the Way of St. Francis
Some of the highlights along The Way of St. Francis Santuario della Verna (La Verna, our starting point) We start our walk from La Verna, a remote mountain retreat. As we leave the Sanctuary of La Verna, through the Casentino park, it is like walking back in time …
Have you met St. Francis?
A Mystical encounter in Tuscany By: Andrew Harvey When I was 18, I spent eight months hitchhiking around Italy. At the time, I was about to go to Oxford, and I thought that I wanted to be an art historian. So I visited all the …
Walking with St. Francis
BY Gretel Ehrlich | MAY 1, 2000 Gretel Ehrlich walks in the footsteps of St. Francis through the Umbrian countryside and ponders the life of a saint who was “radical without bitterness, vital yet gentle, dramatic—even outrageous at times—without narcissism.” The road to Gubbio veers north …