The seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the spiritual heart of English Christianity, Canterbury Cathedral marks the very start of the V

Founded by St Augustine of Canterbury shortly after he brought Christianity to the Anglo-Saxons in 597 AD, this ruined Benedictine abbey lie

The oldest parish church in the English-speaking world still in continuous use, St Martin's was the private chapel of Queen Bertha of Kent b

Guarding the narrowest point of the English Channel, Dover Castle is one of the largest and most powerful fortresses in England, nicknamed t

One of the masterpieces of French Gothic architecture and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Notre-Dame de Reims was the traditional coronation c

Crowning a rocky spur in a tight loop of the River Doubs, the Citadel of Besançon is a masterwork of the military engineer Vauban and part o

The last major French town before the Swiss border, Pontarlier sits high in the Jura mountains and has long guarded the natural pass, the Cl

Rising on a crag above the Cluse de Pontarlier, the Château de Joux has guarded the narrow Jura pass between France and Switzerland for a th

Rising above Lake Geneva, the Cathedral of Notre-Dame of Lausanne is considered the finest Gothic church in Switzerland. Consecrated in 1275

At 2,469 metres the Great St Bernard Pass is the dramatic high point of the Via Francigena, the crossing where the route leaves Switzerland

Standing at the eastern entrance to Aosta, this triumphal arch was raised in 25 BC to celebrate the Roman victory over the Salassi tribe and

Aosta was founded in 25 BC as Augusta Praetoria, a Roman colony guarding the approaches to the Alpine passes, and is sometimes called the 'R

The Certosa di Pavia is a monumental Carthusian monastery just north of Pavia, renowned as one of the most lavish examples of Italian Renais

This richly decorated Romanesque basilica in Pavia takes its name, 'St Peter in the Golden Sky', from its once-gilded ceiling. It is celebra

Founded by the Romans in 218 BC as Placentia at the western end of the Via Aemilia, Piacenza was a key crossing of the River Po for travelle

The Cathedral of San Donnino at Fidenza is one of the great Romanesque churches of the Via Francigena, its façade carved by the school of th

Pontremoli guards the northern approach to the Cisa Pass, the gateway between Emilia and Tuscany, and its very name, 'trembling bridge', spe

The Cathedral of San Martino is the spiritual centre of Lucca, an elegant Romanesque church whose asymmetrical façade is crowded with carved

The basilica of San Frediano is one of Lucca's oldest churches, instantly recognisable by the great golden mosaic of the Ascension that blaz

Lucca is famous for its perfectly preserved Renaissance city walls, a four-kilometre circuit of broad ramparts that completely encircle the

Famous as the 'Town of Fine Towers', San Gimignano rises from the Tuscan hills with its skyline of medieval stone tower-houses, fourteen of

Monteriggioni is a tiny, perfectly preserved walled village crowning a low hill in the Tuscan hills, built by the Republic of Siena around 1

Siena is one of the great medieval cities of Italy and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, built across three hills of warm red brick. Its heart i

Set in the golden hills of the Val d'Orcia, a UNESCO World Heritage region, the walled town of San Quirico d'Orcia preserves a fine Romanesq

On the shore of Lake Bolsena, the largest volcanic lake in Europe, the Basilica of Santa Cristina rises over an early-Christian catacomb and

Crowning a hill above Lake Bolsena, Montefiascone is dominated by the Rocca dei Papi, a fortress that served as a summer residence for medie

Viterbo is known as the 'City of the Popes', and its grandest monument is the Palazzo dei Papi, the Gothic papal palace built when the popes

The small town of Sutri guards one of the most extraordinary sites on the Via Francigena: a Roman amphitheatre carved entirely out of the li

St Peter's Basilica is the goal of the entire Via Francigena, the reason a thousand years of pilgrims walked from Canterbury to Rome. Built