Bologna to Florence on the Way of the Gods

I have a new appreciation for Italian trains.

Five SAIS students including myself spent Easter weekend hiking from Bologna to Florence along the Via Degli Dei (Way of the Gods), a road dating from the Roman Empire.

Martin House, Ben West, Jag Ningthoujam, Brian Fox and Fritz Lodge on the road

Starting at 5:30 Saturday morning in Bologna and ending Monday evening at the Duomo in Florence, we covered more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) in three days of hiking through the Emilia-Romagnan and Tuscan country and over the Appennine mountains.

We enjoyed country cooking, got lost, found our path and then got lost again, all the while walking back through history along this ancient route.

From Etruscan hunters to the Allied invasion of Italy, the Via Degli Dei has connected Bologna and Florence over difficult terrain for thousands of years.

Now, of course, one can go from a bottle of San Giovese to a glass of Chianti in under 30 minutes by train. But there's surely something special about doing it on foot.

Ben West (BC14/DC15)
(Photographs by Jag Ningthoujam)