How Long Does the Via Francigena Take to Walk?

"How long does the Via Francigena take?" has a precise answer and a realistic one. The precise answer comes from the stage data behind the stage pages: the route as published here is 90 stages, which add up to 2,179 km and 578.5 hours of estimated walking. The realistic answer is that you will not walk 90 days in a row, and the section you are actually planning is probably one or two weeks.

This guide gives both — the full-route arithmetic, then day counts for each section — using the same figures as the stage pages.

The whole route in numbers

By country: England 2 stages and 31 km; France 34 stages and 954 km; Switzerland 10 stages and 193 km; Italy 44 stages and 1,001 km. Italy is a little under half the route, by distance and by climbing.

Walking days, rest days and the real total

Walk one stage a day and the route is 90 walking days. Nobody does exactly that, for three reasons.

Rest days. One a week is the usual rhythm — a day off in a city with a station, a cathedral and a laundrette. Across thirteen weeks that is thirteen rest days. Reims, Besançon, Lausanne, Aosta, Pavia, Lucca, Siena and Viterbo are the obvious ones on this route.

The Channel. Stage 2 ends at Dover port and stage 3 starts in Calais. Even with a morning ferry the crossing eats most of a day.

Weather and the mountains. The data lists best months of June to September for the Jura and Alpine stages and warns of snow outside that window on the pass; if you arrive early you may wait, or take the bus through the tunnel (see the Great St Bernard guide).

Put together: 90 walking days + 13 rest days + 1 ferry day = about 104 days, or 14 to 15 weeks. A three-month walk, not a two-month one. If you can only take ten weeks, you will need to double up some of the short stages (the two into Dover, the three short days between San Gimignano and Siena, the two short Lazio days at Capranica and Sutri) or skip the Po Valley by train. If you have 100 days, you have ten spare days, a little under one a week, and very little slack.

The 20–25 km a day reality

The stages here average 24.2 km, and the shape of the distribution matters more than the average:

• 25 of 90 stages are 20–25 km — the standard day.
• 33 stages are 28 km or more, and 14 of those are longer than 32 km. Eleven of the fourteen are in France, from Licques–Wisques to Besançon–Ornans; the others are Vercelli–Mortara and Santa Cristina–Piacenza in the Po Valley, and Pontremoli–Aulla in the Lunigiana.
• 20 stages are under 18 km, clustered where the towns are close together: Canterbury to Dover, Calais to Licques, Bar-sur-Aube to Clairvaux, the Rhône valley, the Great St Bernard crossing, the Lunigiana, San Gimignano to Siena, and northern Lazio.

The estimated hours follow the same pattern: 6.4 hours is the average, an hour and a half the shortest, eleven and a half the longest. Add an hour for lunch and stops and a typical trail day is seven to eight hours. That is why 20–25 km, not 30, is the sustainable pace for weeks on end: a 32 km day is a nine-hour day, and two of them back to back — Fidenza–Fornovo–Berceto, or Ornans–Pontarlier–Jougne — are the days people remember for the wrong reasons. The longest day in the stage data is Péronne–Seraucourt-le-Grand: 42.6 km and eleven and a half hours.

Days per section

"Realistic days" adds one rest day per week and, for the Apennines, a spare day in Berceto for weather. The section guide explains what each of these stretches is like.

The sections people actually book

A week: Lucca to Siena. Stages 70–76, seven days, 133 km, 36 walking hours. Four easy stages and three moderate, and the three days between San Gimignano and Siena are 14, 16 and 17 km — short enough that strong walkers pair two of them. Full detail in the Lucca to Siena guide.

A week: Viterbo to Rome. Stages 84–90, seven days, 110 km, 27.5 walking hours, no stage over 24 km, and — because you start more than 100 km from St Peter's — enough for the Testimonium.

Two weeks: Siena to Rome. Stages 77–90, fourteen days, 278 km, 71.5 walking hours. The first three days south of Siena are the long, exposed ones (28, 27 and 32 km); after Radicofani the stages shorten. See Siena to Rome.

Two weeks: the Alps. Lausanne to Ivrea, stages 40–52, thirteen days and 238 km — Lake Geneva, the Rhône, the climb to the pass and the whole Aosta Valley down to the plain. June to September only.

Three weeks: Lucca to Rome. Stages 70–90, twenty-one days, 410 km, about 108 walking hours. With rest days in Siena and Viterbo, 23 days.

Six to seven weeks: all of Italy. From the pass to Rome, stages 47–90, 44 days and 1,001 km. Add six rest days and it is seven weeks.

Estimating your own pace

The stage-page hours assume a steady walker with a light pack and no long stops. Three adjustments are worth making:

1. Ascent. A stage with 850 m or more of climbing — there are five — takes longer than its distance suggests. Fornovo–Berceto is 30 km but nine hours.
2. Heat. In the Po Valley and south of Siena the stages are marked minimal shade and the warnings say "carry extra water" and "start early". A 28 km day in July starts at dawn or does not finish comfortably.
3. Luggage. Carrying everything adds time on the climbs; a transfer service lets you walk the published hours. Both are listed under transfers.

A useful rule: if you have never walked a fortnight of 20 km days, book a week first. The route will still be there.