From Rome To San Marino: A Walk In The Steps Of Garibaldi

a walk in the steps of Garibaldi

Plot

In the spring of 1980, Oliver Knox Set out to follow on foot the track of Garibaldi's retreat from Rome over what is still a very beautiful and little visited part of Italy. The Walk he describes is a long zig-zag up Central Italy, along the foothills and over the high Apennines. The author's experiences and encounters are interwoven with the story of the retreat from Rome to San Marino during the summer of 1849 after the fall of the short-lived Roman Republic.The ghost of the romantic General is ever-present to enhance the scene that meets the traveller's eye. Oliver Knox has drawn on contemporary diaries and accounts, hitherto unpublished in English, to tell a vivid story of skirmishes and escapes, of ambushes and 'miracles', of the losings of the way on the stony mountain-tracks, of kidnapping of monks, of hunger and thirst endured and satisfied. These adventures touch a sympathetic chord in the author, whose enjoyment of the weather and wild country. of small towns and the company he finds in them sharpens his appetite for what is set before him. He does not allow the figure of Garibaldi to obscure the feeling of the citizens of Orvieto, Todi, Arezzo and other towns suddenly faced with the incursion of this strange army that numbered among its officer a distinctly disreputable ex-Coldstreamer as well as a Barnabite priest and a wine-merchant.It is this awareness of people and the enjoyment of their welcome that gives especial delight to this enchanting account of a long walk through out-of-the-way parts of Tuscany, Umbria and the Marches. Everyone who enjoys travelling in Italy will enjoy this book.