Italy: Where pilgrimage is at its most beautiful. Following in the footsteps of the Normans and St. Francis of Assisi through the wild Abruzzo region. When St. Francis traveled to the Orient in 1219, he did so along an ancient pilgrimage route: from Rieti, he followed the well-trodden path through Abruzzo and Molise, which had been frequented since the 6th century, to the sanctuary of the Archangel Michael on Monte Gargano in Apulia, on the Adriatic coast. The 500 km long route leads through untouched valleys, to historic towns, and mysterious rock sanctuaries. It traces the early medieval cult of Michael as well as Franciscan oases of silence and prayer. Pilgrims experience the boundless hospitality of the simple mountain dwellers of Abruzzo and discover at the journey's end one of the very first pilgrimage sites in Europe: the rock church of San Michele, built where the Archangel Michael is said to have appeared to a shepherd in 492.