It was a friendly bunch of twenty-plus walkers who set off for Dover from St Andrew’s church in Shepherdswell on a decidedly chilly morning in early January.

There was even a gorgeous and highly attentive little girl called Stella sitting contentedly in a back pack. At eighteen months old she is the youngest member of the Confraternity of Pilgrims to Rome, the body who had organised the day. I had just the day before been reading an article in the Pilgrims to Rome Newsletter by Stella’s father, Alex, who wrote of how he’d been walking from London with his daughter in stages, the first time when she’d been just six weeks old.

A few months before, the group had walked to Shepherdswell from Canterbury, the official starting point of the Via Francigena, the ancient pilgrimage route to Rome. Although, as I also discovered from the Newsletter, the stretch from London to Canterbury that Alex had been doing with Stella has been named the Francigena Britanica and approved by the General Assembly of the European Association of the Vie Francigene as a Via Francigena link.

We were soon out into the open fields and although it was freezing, the sun was shining brightly which made for pleasant hiking conditions. I was excited to see that we were following footpaths that are now signposted both ‘North Downs Way’ and ‘Via Francigena,’ with a little picture of a Franciscan monk on the posts! As happens on pilgrimage, there was a variety of animated conversations as we paced along. There is just something about the simple and age-old act of walking long distances that brings people into connection and draws forth their stories. When I spoke with Alex later in the day (Stella having fallen asleep in the backpack) we affirmed the importance of story-telling and agreed that a story was an organic thing that changed with each re-telling.

Several of the group had done the whole of the walk to Rome. One person I spoke to told me how it had been “life-altering.” I asked her to say more about that and she explained that it had helped her to be more open, more trusting and more able to step out of her comfort zone. Two veteran walkers, Ian and Alison, who I was delighted to see again, have done the Via Francigena twice. I had walked with them back in September when we were part of the London to Nottingham leg of the Pilgrimage of Hope. I had also interviewed the couple for a book I was writing about pilgrimage. They’d told me how grateful they always were for the experience and of how it gave them a sense of “awe and wonder about the world.” They had mused as well about the liminal nature of pilgrimage, whereby we step out of our normal life and into a different space, a space where interesting people are encountered and interesting, sometimes miraculous things happen.

I’m always delighted by the connections that reveal themselves when on pilgrimage. I was chatting in the morning with a woman called Mairead who was telling me how she had first met Kathryn, another of the group. Kathryn had been doing the whole of the Via Francigena and had met Eoin, the husband of Mairead, who was cycling to Rome and with whom she shared a birthday. They agreed to meet in Rome and celebrate together. Mairead mentioned to me that Eoin had cycled on the recent Pilgrimage of Hope. “Yes,” I said, “he spent the last night with us and walked with us into Nottingham.” When I spoke with Kathryn I quoted to her the wonderful Spanish expression that I’d learnt the first time I walked on the Camino: “El mundo es un pañuelo,” (the world is a handkerchief).

We arrived into Dover and were warmly welcomed and given a tour of the stunningly beautiful Maison Dieu. This 800-year-old building was originally a hostel for pilgrims from the continent who were coming to the last leg of their journey to the shrine of Thomas Becket. What is now a huge banqueting hall would have been where pilgrims spent the night on straw mattresses, having been given a meal of vegetable stew and beer. After our bracing ten mile walk I would happily have lain down on a straw mattress and been fed stew and beer! But a totally acceptable alternative was a hot cup of tea in the café at Dover Priory as we waiting for our trains and chatted about the special day we’d had. And in between the Maison Dieu and the station was another memorable moment: a visit to the ancient St Edmond’s Chapel. This, we were told, had been the chapel for Maison Dieu’s cemetery, where there would be buried those pilgrims who, following a long and gruelling trip, had died just short of Canterbury. The places you see and the things you learn when you’re on the pilgrim path!

And one final fascinating thing was the discovery that Vicky, with whom I got off the train in Canterbury, had just completed a PhD on ‘Pilgrimage and transformation.’ She was equally intrigued to hear of the title of my most recent book: ‘Another Day in Paradise- stories of transformation from the Camino and other places.’

Life-altering and transformational: pilgrimage is certainly that. It’s also hugely enjoyable, and our day’s walk to Dover along the Via Francigena was testament to that.

Eddie Gilmore is a pilgrim, musician and writer. More about Eddie and his books can be found here.

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