Walking among the rolling hills of Tuscany. “At the oak tree where the road forks, turn right past the olive grove and you will see a shed with four red doors. Turn left. Go 100 metres down a hill ...

I nodded in acknowledgement. To me, San Miniato was, at that moment, no more than the starting point for a trek. It was my first day of walking the Via Francigena trail with Sloways, a tour operator.

Completed in 2016 after a 10-year campaign of marking and mapping, the Via Francigena is the longest signposted cycle route in Italy: 620 miles from the Great St Bernard Pass to St Peter’s.

WALK Inntravel's Hilltop Towns of Tuscany self-guided seven-day walk includes accommodation, two dinners and seven breakfasts, route notes, maps, information, luggage and route transfers.

I was on day two of walking the Via Francigena, a 1,000-year-old pilgrimage route that extends around 2,000km from the English city of Canterbury all the way to Rome.

The Via Francigena is a lesser-known cousin of Spain’s Camino, writes Yvonne Gordon. It's arguably more beautiful, too... San Miniato in Tuscany. Photo: Caminoways.com “San Miniato is halfway ...

Relics, monasteries and churches are scattered all along the Via Francigena, which was the religious highway of the Middle Ages, crossing Britain, France, Switzerland and Italy before reaching Rome.