Speaker 1: 0:00

The ancient cobblestones of our city echo with centuries of prayer and secrets whispered by saints. The path we walked weaves together the four papal basilicas, each a celestial gateway, cloaked in awe and silence. As we walked, the city revealed its hidden rhythms Incense rising like mist from all chapels, golden light dancing through stained glass and the quiet hum of eternity beneath our feet. This was more than a journey. It was a step-by-step encounter with the divine.

Speaker 2: 0:50

Hello travelers, and welcome back to another live report episode of Go Far, an adventure podcast. I'm your host, anna, and today Edo, and I would like to share with you the recording that we made in the field during a recent walk all in one day, right here in the city of Rome. This is a walk that I've been wanting to do for a very long time and now that we are in the middle of a jubilee year, it seemed like the best time to finally do this walk. That was often done during a jubilee year, but let's get right into it. We'll tell you all about the history of the walk as you listen to our actual experience of walking it.

Speaker 1: 1:30

Okay, it is currently Thursday, April 10th. It is 8.15 in the morning. We're like 45 minutes behind our original schedule. Here you tell people what's going on while I set up the watch and the map and everything.

Speaker 2: 1:45

Okay, so we are doing a pilgrimage in our home city. It's called the Walk of the Seven Churches, the Walk of San Filippo Neri. It's a pilgrimage in Rome that people have been doing for centuries, but it was really made famous by San Filippo Neri in the 16th century and what it is is you walk from the four papal basilicas, the four most important churches in the world, plus there's other three, so there's seven really important churches in Rome and you walk in between them. So it's around 25 kilometers, and it's something I've always wanted to do. Lots of famous saints people in the church have done it, would come to Rome to do it, and I thought it's a perfect time.

Speaker 2: 2:43

It's the Jubilee year. Why not? Why not do it? So here we are. It's a bit strange because we're at home in our home city. I work at St Peter's Basilica nearly every day, but it does feel like we're on a walk. We're on a pilgrimage, but it does feel like we're on a walk. We're on a pilgrimage. We're up fairly early, we've got our walking gear on and we're excited to start this adventure.

Speaker 1: 3:12

Obviously, it won't be as the other ones, because instead of the sounds of nature, you hear the sounds of the city, which means right on cue. This was not added later. This was the glass garbage truck that just poured a lot of bottles and so, yeah, somebody was trying to sell us an umbrella. It's gonna be loud. As Anna said, it will be around 25 kilometers, maybe a little more, around 16 miles, I think, and we are currently At Trinidad de Monti, on top of the Spanish Steps. So if anyone wants to follow around, we'll be going down the Spanish Steps, yeah, and west. We can actually see the dome of St Peter's right now. So that's where we're heading, going through crossing at Castel Sant'Angelo, and which will also give us a chance to see a newly renovated piazza that was made entirely pedestrian. Well, it's a pedestrian area now, it wasn't up until a year ago because we have a new mayor. That's great, and I'm rambling on. So, yeah, we're gonna be walking now. Might update later. Bye, okay. So, oh, look, an old dog, basilica number one knocked it off the list. I will give you some technical information about our walk and then Anna can give you historical information. She said a very funny thing. She said it was like bring your kid to work day. I'm the kid, it's fine.

Speaker 1: 4:55

So we are currently outside of St Peter's Basilica. We went in, we went through security, we went through the holy door Is that what it's called, the holy door? We've been walking for 58 minutes and 22 seconds, including the time that we were inside the basilica, and we were just shy of four kilometers 3.87. So yeah, we're one seventh of the way there, actually surprisingly, both in terms of churches to visit and distance-wise. So now we're walking down Via della Conciliazione.

Speaker 1: 5:31

What we'll be doing now is we decided to go down by the river because there's a very nice bike path that when we were younger, we used to bike all the time. Remember that was nice. That was where we fell in love. Not really, but we went there a lot. The reason for that is that we can avoid traffic and traffic lights and noise, and we can probably make good time down there. Our next stop is the Church of San Paolo, of St Paul, which is a few kilometers away. We will be going south, following the river, then outside of the river, do we need to go to the Isola di Berina? Do you want to go to l'Isola di Berina, because we can walk the path all the way to San Paolo. Okay, yeah, we'll discuss that later. Here's some more information.

Speaker 1: 6:19

But first I wanted to say and Anna can tell you more about this I did not like, as a Roman, having to stand in line.

Speaker 1: 6:28

I don't want to sound pretentious, but we went through the Holy Door. I'm not particularly spiritual, as much as Anna is, but I didn't like these tourists just scuttling around and taking videos as they walk through the Holy Door and having to stand in line like we're at Disneyland so there's the we and having to stand in line like we're at Disneyland, so there's the we didn't even stand in line, we stood, we walked behind other people. We didn't stand in line, we walked in line. And this I don't know how to define it, but like this parallel between what is sacred and behaviors that are typical of a capitalism. So, you know, going through security, walking in line, standing behind people with their phones up, it's a little jarring to me, and I didn't even go on a roller coaster at the end, so I'm a little disappointed, even though obviously, the basilica was beautiful and I think I've only been once in my 37 years, yeah, so I was very impressed. But here's Anna with some more information.

Speaker 2: 7:32

I understand Edo's points, but at the same time, this is Rome. We are behind this group of German teenagers and they're adjusting their hair, getting their hair like getting ready to take pictures as they walk through, but they're teenagers. I don't know if they were a religious group or a school group. But also people from other parts of the world deserve to come here and have this experience as well. So actually St Peter's Basilica was not that crowded, given that in these days usually it's very crowded, maybe a little bit later on in the day because of the Jubilee year, this holy year where lots of people want to come to Rome, walk through the holy doors and see these basilicas. But St Peter's can certainly accommodate lots of people. It is the biggest church in the world, it's the biggest Catholic church in the world by law, but actually other denominations of churches respect that law, although they do not have to, and it looks beautiful right now. It looks beautiful right now.

Speaker 2: 8:43

Many features of St Peter's Basilica were closed for the past year as they were getting ready, sprucing it up for the Jubilee year. And I do have to say that when you do go in, there are places, there are chapels, where they're having Mass, where they're reserved only for quiet prayer. So you can find those corners. But you do have to put in the effort to make the pilgrimage spiritual. But it is an extraordinary church. It can hold around 80,000 people, they say, and it does get quite full, especially when Pope Francis says mass there for special holidays, for important holidays, as Pope Francis draws very loud crowds. But it's a really. I think it's a special place and I was trying to give it a kind of a different feeling as I'm here with Edo on a personal pilgrimage and not just here for work, because I go most days inside of St Peter's Basilica, but it was special to come here with him. So I will speak to you all in a little bit, maybe when we're down along the river, when it's a bit quieter.

Speaker 1: 10:05

Okay, so Basilica number two, right Two. We just went through yeah, it's loud. Second Holy Door. There's a helicopter. Okay, there's a helicopter. Okay, second Holy Door. Basilica of st Paul. Outside the walls. We're at the southernmost point, right now, of our walk. Today in the Ostianse neighborhood. We went down the river, but then we had to go back up and do a little detour Because they were walking on a. I thought he was calling me, but no, they were walking on a bridge that caught on fire a couple years ago. So we had to do this detour along a very crowded street. It was nice, but it was kind of crowded. Very crowded street. It was nice, but it was kind of crowded. So I wonder who he's talking to. Maybe this guy? Anyway, we made it here. We've been walking for 12 kilometers. We had lunch at 1130 because I was starving, and yeah, and now maybe Anna can tell you more about what this basilica means and is and whatever.

Speaker 2: 11:30

So this basilica it's the second biggest in Rome and, like St Peter's I should have said before, it's very important because it was built on top of the tomb of St Paul. Because it was built on top of the tomb of St Paul. So, like St Peter's, was built on top of the tomb of St Peter by Emperor Constantine in the early 4th century. But the basilica that's standing there today it was rebuilt in the 1500s. So here, at St Paul's same idea, it was built originally by Emperor Constantine on top of the tomb of St Paul. That's why it's outside of the historic center of Rome. This was where they buried their dead in ancient times, further away from where people were living. Then this basilica was kind of rebuilt, enlarged in the late 4th century AD, and it was basically untouched, perfectly preserved, from the late 300s until 1823. In 1823, there was a terrible fire that destroyed the Basilica of St Paul's outside the walls.

Speaker 2: 12:43

So the basilica that we just visited was rebuilt in the mid-1800s, but what's really cool about it is they built it exactly the way it looked in ancient times, so you get a really good idea of what these ancient churches looked like. They tried to stay very faithful to the original ancient church and we walked through another holy door. So this is another papal basilica, so one of the four most important churches in the world. They're called papal basilicas because they've been given this extra special distinction by the Pope. So now we are heading to the third basilica, which is actually one of the minor basilicas. So it's not a papal basilica, it's not one of the big four, but we'll tell you about why it's so important when we get there.

Speaker 1: 13:47

Okay, so this might be a little louder because there's a lot of traffic. We visited the fourth, the third, yeah, san Sebastiano, and I will tell you everything about it. We're currently on the Via Appia Antica, which is an ancient Roman road, which Anna will tell you about as well. We're 17 kilometers in, a little more, because I forgot to turn it on when we left San Sebastiano and we also forgot to record. That's why we're recording now.

Speaker 1: 14:21

The church was almost 1.5 kilometers or like a mile back. It was very small compared to the other ones, but still kind of impressive, and saint sebastian was the guy that was shot by arrows. Right, yes, yeah, cool. So here's anna, but wait. So we're 17 kilometers in. We have nine left. Approximately. We're feeling good. Right, I was feeling it like at the eight kilometer mark when we were at St Paul's, because it was simply because I hadn't been fueling myself properly. But now I've had more food. We've had my rice with eggs and tomato sauce at St Paul's, then I had well, we had an orange juice, and then I had my apple, and then we had a protein bar and we just finished eating a sandwich. So, feeling good, the feet are feeling it Also because shout out to North Face I'm walking with my new hiking shoes. What? This is the Quo Vadis Church. Oh, it's the Quo Vadis Church. Okay, do you want to go in? No, we can keep going. So new shoes, still breaking them in, but we're in good spirits. So here's Anna.

Speaker 2: 15:45

So we just passed the Quo Vadis Church, which is, the legend goes, that this was where St Peter met Jesus, as St Peter was walking out of Rome, escaping, trying to get away from his martyrdom he didn't want to be killed by the Roman soldiers and then he meets Jesus and Peter says to Jesus, like where are you going? Because Jesus is on his way, walking towards Rome. And he says Signore covadis, lord, where are you going? And Jesus says to be crucified a second time. And Saint Peter was like, oh, I guess that means I've got to turn around and go back to Rome to be crucified.

Speaker 2: 16:28

And these, it's not actually the footprint of Jesus, but there are these two stone footprints like outlines of feet in marble, supposedly the feet of Jesus, and this relic we saw inside of the Church of San Sebastiano. So the Basilica of San Sebastiano is one of the minor basilicas, so it did not have a holy door, but it's still one of the most important, of the lesser important churches in Rome and it also has catacombs, extensive underground early Christian burial places. Right here we are standing in front of a sign for the Via Francigena. So this is part of another walk, another pilgrimage, the Via Francigena, which goes all the way from Canterbury.

Speaker 1: 17:20

Make sure to check out our episode from Siena to Rome that we cycled the Via Francigena.

Speaker 2: 17:25

And so passing through Siena and all the way to Rome, when part of it is right here along the Appiantica. So three churches down, four to go and feeling good. As you can hear there, there is a bit of traffic along the Api Antica. But now we'll be coming back into the city, so we'll pass through the ancient walls marking the border of the ancient city. So the last four basilicas are actually quite close together and I will tell you about them soon.

Speaker 1: 18:16

Here we are, church number four 20 kilometers in A little over five hours approximately in movement. But we left like six hours ago. We just visited San Giovanni, st John. It's very interesting because we're very close to home, like, very like Anna's house is like 10 minutes down the road but we still have five more kilometers to go, which is not that much, honestly. It's interesting because we walked I'm thinking like three kilometers this morning to get to the first stop from my house and then we walked seven more to get to the second one, to get to the second one, and since then we did four or five to get to San Sebastiano, but from then on it's basically all the remaining. The last five ones are all together. So it's interesting. But yeah, we're almost done and I don't have much more to say except we've been walking for 20 kilometers and five hours and we have five left to go. So here's some more historical information.

Speaker 2: 19:29

So this church, we are back inside the ancient walls just barely, and people say that this is the first church built in the world, the first official church built by Emperor Constantine in the early 300s, and it's the most important church in the world because it's the Pope's Church, so the Pope is the Bishop of Rome and the Bishop's Church is called the cathedral, so this is the cathedral, the cathedral, so this is the cathedral of Rome, so it's officially the Pope's church, and actually the Pope isn't Pope until he comes to his church, until he comes to this cathedral of St John and Lateran and sits upon the cathedra, the throne.

Speaker 2: 20:21

So it's a very important church, very ancient church. The popes lived here until the early 1300s, and so it does have a holy door here that we walked through. The thing is, the church was basically rebuilt in the 1600s, kind of restored in the 1600s, but it's still quite beautiful. It has a really interesting history. And so now we're heading just down the street to another church that is also just within the ancient city walls, the Church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, the Holy Cross of Jerusalem.

Speaker 1: 21:06

Church number five, santa Croce in Gerusalemme, 21 kilometers in. We have less than something like four and a half kilometers to go, I think, and two more churches San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura and Santa Maria Maggiore, which is Anna's home church. Basically Not much else to say. We saw some relics here. Talk about the relics.

Speaker 2: 21:32

So this church, it's one of the minor basilicas, so no holy door, but, as the name says, we've got a piece of wood that comes from the cross that Jesus was crucified on, along with many other relics, including a nail from the cross, thorns from the crown of thorns, st Thomas's finger, that were brought to Rome by Saint Helen, who was like the first pilgrim. She was the first person to go to the Holy Land and she brought back lots of holy stuff, lots of relics. So it's a nice church quite dark the chapel where the relics are was redone in the early 1900s, but still very beautiful and good to see. Good to visit a church that I don't visit so often. I don't know, had you ever been here before? No, no, he hasn't been here before. So that's exciting. And now we've got a bit of a walk through a more of a traffic-y area, pasporta Maggiore, through the neighborhood of San Lorenzo, to get to Basilica no 6.

Speaker 1: 22:57

Church no 6, with a bit of a bitter surprise, because we got here 23 kilometers in, six hours in, and it's closed. The gates are closed, so we're not getting in. Which kind of sucks. I mean, we've been here before, we've seen it, but it's. You know, it's the. Is this, it's the? Is this a holy door? No, ah, it's not a holy door. Well, who cares? Well, give us a little bit more information, then we'll be on our way. I think we have three kilometers left or something, two and a half, and then we'll be done.

Speaker 2: 23:32

So this is a minor basilica, doesn't have a holy door, and it was also built by emperor constantine originally. But this basilica was like its neighborhood around. It was basically the only neighborhood that was damaged in rome during world war ii, so it was rebuilt. But that's an interesting thing about the San Lorenzo, st Lawrence neighborhood. So San Lorenzo he is the special relic here, along with his grill. He was martyred by being grilled alive, burned alive, supposedly after he says I'm done on this side, turn me over. See, supposedly said this and he is now the patron saint of chefs cooks.

Speaker 2: 24:23

Yeah, so unfortunately it's closed. I think it reopens at four, but we have fortunately been here together before and so we won't go in today, and I guess this is a thing to note. If you want to do this walk when it's a bit hotter, maybe it would be a better idea to start a bit earlier and then even take a lunch break so that you could get here for four o'clock. I guess could be a way to avoid this problem, because San Lorenzo, it closes quite early. I think it closes at noon, like many churches in Rome, it seems it takes a lunch break from about 12 to 4. But it's all right, we've still got one more church, and it's one of the big ones, one of the four papal basilicas Santa Maria Maggiore.

Speaker 1: 25:17

Yeah, we did leave a little late, I think, this morning, because it was past 8 and we wanted to leave at around 7.30. But then again, st Peter's opens at 8, you said so okay. Well, yeah, we kept a good pace though, because I was expecting to be done at 5, but it looks like we'll be done by 4. And we did take some breaks here and there. I just checked on google maps it's 2.3 kilometers. Google maps says 33 minutes. I think we can probably do it in less than that. Yeah, then we'll go in, and I'm planning to be done by four, so we can go home and then go on with the rest of our day. All right, okay, so closing thoughts. We just got home because we decided to record our closing thoughts at home, because it's way more quiet than outside, because the last one was Santa Maria Maggiore. It's a very busy square. So, in total, I I'm gonna give you the these and these tidbits. Let's see. Let me open it up. We walked 25.5 kilometers, which for me was 35 000 steps approximately, and we walked for six and a half hours approximately, so leisurely pace. It wasn't a race, it was fine. So we're a little tired.

Speaker 1: 26:49

We set off this morning. We left the house like at 8.15. It took us eight hours, basically, with breaks and stuff. We stopped to eat, that's it. The last thing we recorded was at San Lorenzo. It was closed and we were sitting outside and we were a little over two kilometers away from our last stop and we went in there. We walked through security. I got upset at the people taking a picture at the holy door holding up the queue and I couldn't care. I just went through like sorry, I think it's inconsiderate. I don't know, I'm very tired and I was walking to stretch her feet. I think how many are you at 39?

Speaker 2: 27:32

939 okay.

Speaker 1: 27:37

So she has like 60 more steps that she has to take here. Do this talk while you walk. I mean you're gonna get to 40 000, because it's not like we're gonna stop moving so we walked through the fourth and final holy door.

Speaker 2: 27:53

So that is the plenary, plenary indulgence. So we got the full forgiveness, the full blessing, walking through all of the four doors. And St Mary Major is my parish church and one of my favorite churches in Rome, so it was really special. To finish there, we saw the Salus Populi Romani painting of Mary with baby Jesus that is very venerated here in Rome, and Santa Maria Maggiore is actually the church where Pope Francis has chosen to be buried. Usually, popes are buried underneath St Peter's Basilica, but he is actually going to be. His plan is to be buried at Santa Maria Maggiore.

Speaker 2: 28:45

So overall, I think this pilgrimage it was really fun and it's a great way to see the city as well. We got to enjoy and see neighborhoods that we weren't too familiar with. For Edo, he got to see churches that he had never been to before. He got to see churches that he had never been to before. I got to see churches that I had not been to in a long time, and this is a walk that I've been wanting to do for many years, and it was amazing to do it in the Jubilee year, which was just special and it felt like a pilgrimage. That was a fun thing to be able to do something in our home city, but it did feel special, even though we were like going through a walk through our home city. It was a neat thing to do.

Speaker 1: 29:32

Yeah, it's good to be able to do these things. You know we like to go on adventures, but it's always nice to look closer to where you live. You don't really have to get on a plane or catch a train ride. Obviously it wasn't like walking in the woods. There was, it was loud, we there was a whole other set of challenges that came with walking on concrete for seven hours.

Speaker 1: 30:00

We have hiking boots. I have well trail shoes, so I don't think they're really made for very hard surfaces. So my feet are kind of feeling it right now. The only problem I have, apart from my feet, is my shoulder, because I think my backpack wasn't adjusted right. Anna's are a bit sore, but yeah, it was fun. It's fun to have some objectives. We managed to see some neighborhoods that we've been to like. We've been through them, but it was good to cross them on foot. We got to see how vastly different all these neighborhoods are, so it was very interesting, and now we're absolutely devastated. So I think we're going to lie down for 30 minutes or so. What do you think? Yeah, all right.

Speaker 2: 30:52

Bye. We hope you enjoyed this up-close-and-personal recording of our city pilgrimage. For us, it's important to just get out there, even if it means putting on our walking gear and taking a 25-kilometer walk in our own hometown. Fortunately, it was a walk that led us to some very special places. We hope to have some new adventures to tell you about soon. Thanks again for traveling with us and, as always, go far.