Hi, I’m Peter, and you’re reading Anywhere Italy. Our mission is to cover the 1,000 Italian towns most travelers skip, in person, one at a time. Come along for free, or pay to keep us on the road.
There is a very touching scene in the movie, The Two Popes. I know, I’m referencing this movie for the 3rd time in my articles, but hey, it’s a great movie, and it’s partially about Italy itself, so… Anyway, it’s a scene where Pope Benedict XVI talks with the future Pope, Francis, then a cardinal. Benedict says that God does not change. God is omnipotent, eternal, immovable, and static. Francis replies that God does change, it evolves, it moves through us and with us. Before Francis could continue his reply, Benedict interrupts him by quoting the Bible: “I am the way, the truth, the life!” and asks, “Where should we find God, if he is always moving?” Francis destroys the argument: “On the journey?”
I wanted to write about Capranica, a small sleepy town built on a tuff ridge just outside of Rome, near Ronciglione and Caprarola, and about a wonderful evening, and indirectly, a lot about the Francigena pilgrimage.
Let’s start with that night. We remember older memories differently. If an emotion is attached to a memory, we can hardly forget it, our memory is crystal clear, and probably will be clear even after decades. I can’t really remember some of my days in Rome, or even here in Versilia, but I do remember that night in Capranica, even though it was more than five years ago.
I mentioned that Ronciglione was my baptism to the other Italy, where I have experienced how a small, hidden, sleepy town can bring joy just by letting you slow down and do nothing. I also wrote about Caprarola and the Villa Farnese, and how I learned that smaller sights and landmarks can be better alternatives to the popular ones in the usual towns everyone visits. Now, Capranica was my first borgo experience in Italy. A borgo is a late medieval, High Renaissance small town, often on a hill or mountain, often walled, with narrow cobblestone streets and stone houses. Before that, I only visited popular borgos, like the ones most people see in Tuscany. But Italy has hundreds of these towns, and most of them are completely off the map, and no one visits them. Some of them are dying out and emptying out. Capranica was well alive, and it was everything you could ask for from a small borgo.
We visited the town twice: first when we spent a few weeks in Ronciglione and around the Tuscia area, and second when we were living in Rome and did a 1-day sleepover road trip around the Northern Lazio lakes. This night happened on the second visit.
We have stayed many times in Ronciglione, so we wanted to spend the night in a super small borgo instead, so we ended up in Capranica. The town is built on a ridge of volcanic tuff. The original foundations are Roman, BC, the town was a stop on the Via Cassia, the road connecting Rome to Northern Tuscia (present-day Tuscany and Florence). The town overlooks the Sutri Valley, where this road still runs. Today, it is a paved, proper main road, not the cobblestone route from Roman times. The town has three parts: the modern one in the valley, which doesn’t matter for travelers, the Renaissance, late-medieval part, where most of the roads and services are, and the old town, the borgo.
We usually park below the borgo on the Via Cassia, so we did this night too. As I described, Capranica might sound like a big town. It absolutely isn’t, we are talking about maybe 10 streets and the old town’s alleys. Our plan was to buy a box of pizza, walk into the old town, sit on the walls somewhere, take a good stroll, and then go to our Bnb.
It was many years ago, so we didn’t speak much Italian back then, and this was a small town in Lazio, literally zero tourists come here. Many Romans have their holiday homes here, but there are almost no foreigners. So we did our best to figure out the pizza toppings and tried to explain what we wanted with all our acting skills. Then, someone in the background yelled at us in English, “Hey guys, I can help.” Like an angel ascending, just for us. He was Travis. Bro, if you are reading this, endless love.
Long story short, Travis invited us to dinner at his friend's. He just got married to a German girl (Travis was American from a Midwest state, can’t remember, sorry), both of them were people of faith, I could tell immediately (will be important). So we, he and his wife, and their friend who was on a getaway from work in Rome. Travis picked up us from the pizzeria, walked inside the old town, narrow alleys after even narrower cobblestones to old houses. Then, we arrived on a stone terrace in front of a deep, windowless, almost cave-like house, just next to the old walls and the edge of the ridge. It was his friend’s place.
Turned out the friend was working for the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Rome. Which meant that, when it turned out, I thought we would have a great conversation. We did. We also brought pizza, so I didn’t feel that ashamed that we drank all his wine that night. Between two heated debates about the future of European culture and politics (what else would you talk about with someone who works in public policy and is center-right), Travis told us that he moved here, because he is a walker. By walker, he is somewhat of a pilgrim, so he walks huge distances. And one of the routes he did was the Via Francigena. So much so, that his goal was to make this route more popular. His project, Road to Rome, is still on, though I don’t know the updates.
So a borgo like Capranica, and especially Capranica, has nothing to offer except this vibe. After darkness sets, the town becomes the same medieval village that it was 500 years ago. The only difference is the electric lighting and some satellite dishes on some roofs. Otherwise, if someone came in front of you on a horse, you wouldn’t blink. I personally love this and am considering buying a small house in a very small borgo like this somewhere, as a holiday home. I wouldn’t live here. But I would happily spend some weekends there.
Aside from this borgo, Capranica was famous for being a stop on the Via Francigena. Ok, so you might have heard about the Camino, the road to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Paolo Coelho wrote about it. And almost everyone has a friend who did it and says it changed their life. So, Camino is basically the McDonald’s of pilgrimages. Yes, it is amazing that people are doing it, but the discovery and uniqueness factor is closer to finding a good deal on Amazon than to something life-changing and special.
Now, the Via Francigena is a bit different. Travis was the first person to tell me about it, and since then I've always spotted the signs for the route and am considering doing the entire journey once. I did some research. In 2025, around half a million people finished the Camino. Meanwhile, only slightly above 12K people did the Via Francigena. In both cases, you get a finisher sign if you do the last 100km on foot, which is only a portion of the journey. The Camino goes from France to Spain, and almost no one is doing the French part. The Francigena is much, much longer anyway, and most people do only the scenic route from Tuscany to Rome. So the purist pilgrims who do it all are just a small portion. Still, the difference is insane: 500K vs 12K.
Since the Francigena has no marketing, I need to explain it quickly. Sigeric, the Archbishop of Canterbury, originally walked it to Rome to get his new pallium (a ceremonial cloth) in 990 AD. He recorded the stops on the return journey, the British Library now holds the list, and this is how we know the current route. It has about 80 overnight stops and covers about 1,600km (20 per day).
First stop is Canterbury, then Calais, Reims, then Switzerland through the Saint Bernard Pass, entering Italy via the Aosta Valley. The main, most popular route starts around here, continuing from Aosta down through the Magra Valley in Aulla, then my home, Versilia, Lucca, and down to San Miniato and Siena. From Southern Tuscany, straight road down to Rome. So, it’s a Canterbury-to-Rome journey. To get the finishing stamp, you have to do the last 100km on foot and the last 200km non-motorized travel (bike). Almost everyone does only the Tuscany-to-Rome section because it involves no mountain climbing.
The original list doesn’t say how Sigeric did it, but he was an Archbishop with a crew traveling with him, so he most likely did the trip by cart or, at most, by horse. I don’t think he did any mountain climbing on foot, so you will be just fine doing it fully on a bike. Purists, of course, walk it through. They also extend it a lot: starting in London and not ending in Rome, but in Puglia, because historically, some pilgrims went straight up to Jerusalem from there. Jerusalem is the most important pilgrimage, the first crusades were armed pilgrimages. Nowadays, the route is, well, you know the Middle East. Probably not the best idea to walk down from Turkey till Israel. But you can totally do the Francigena.
Capranica is a stop on the journey. Back to the Two Popes: according to a recent survey, around 30% of pilgrims do this for spiritual reasons, similar to people who do the Camino. Most people do it for cultural experience and the feeling of community togetherness, though the Francigena is not as crowded as the Camino, so you probably won’t meet anyone walking with you. The Camino goes through the Basque Country, which is beautiful on its own. The most popular Francigena route goes through Tuscany and ends in Rome. Also kinda famous for its scenery. As Francis said in the movie, you find God on the journey.
Whatever you find, regardless of your faith, beliefs, and ideals, one thing is certain. It will be yours, and yours only. It is unshareable and ununderstandable by others, and it has meaning only to you. A pilgrimage, and frankly, almost any longer solo travel, belongs only to the one taking the journey. Travis, thank you for your kind invite to that evening.
