We made the decision to stop walking the Via Francigena while we were in Siena. We decided that the hot, long days on the trail were not conducive for seeing everything we wanted to see. And drinking all the wines we wanted to drink.

So we rented a car and turned our long walk into a leisurely road trip. It turns out the stages of the Via Francigena are much longer than the stages of the Camino in Spain, with way fewer places to stop and enjoy a cup of coffee or a lunch on the trail.

And since this is a holiday, we felt we were missing too much by getting up at the crack of dawn — to avoid the heat — and walking 8-10 hours a day.

Our Volkswagen T-Roc is much faster than our hiking shoes, and more comfortable to boot. So we are now wandering backroads and rural byways from hill town to hill town, stopping where and when we like and still walking almost ten miles a day.