Il Cammino di Sant'Antonio

The basis of the Walk is the journey completed in June 1231, when St. Anthony, feeling himself near to death, had himself carried in an ox-drawn cart to his monastery in Padua. The route of the journey would long be the course of a pilgrimage, with the devout following the exact course of the cart track. With the advent of cars and the huge increase in road traffic, the route as such became too dangerous. Hence, in 1995, Father Alberto Tortelli would, with the assistance of various other people, draw up a pedestrian route that linked the Santuari Antoniani in Camposampiero to the Basilica of St. Anthony in Padua. In agreement with the monks of the Basilica, the Walk was then extended in the direction of Montepaolo, and would, in 2015, be extended even further to the Sanctuary at Verna.
The first part of the Walk – from Camposampiero to the Basilica of St. Anthony in Padua – is 24 km long; it is also known as the Final Journey, given that it follows the route taken by a dying St. Anthony who, wishing to die within his monastery in Padua, had himself taken there in an ox-drawn cart. The following stretch – as far as Bologna – is almost 160 km long; it is almost entirely over flat terrain and can be walked in 7-8 days.
In the second part of the Long Journey, from Bologna as far as the Sanctuary of Verna, the entire route alternates frequently between up- and downhill stretches, the entire distance covered over terrain at a gradient being around 11 kilometres. Running through protected Natural Parks, the full route covers a total of 109 km.