Padua - Days 3 & 4

Love is all you need. 

We've spent our third and fourth days in Padua (Padova in Italian) quietly organising our thoughts and feelings, as well as our bags, ready to start on our way home tomorrow. 

Although these last three weeks have been somewhat difficult, overall we've had a wonderful time. 

The Via Romea Germanica is often referred to as the Path of Encounters and we found this to be true. We met so many people along the way who shared their stories and their homes, and gave us help when we needed it. So many showed great interest in where we were from and what we were doing. It was the people who made our pilgrimage special.

And by walking day by day through cities, towns, villages and the smallest of settlements and out into the countryside again, we learnt so much about the history and culture of the places we walked through, and different ways of living. 

We walked in the cold, and in the heat, we walked through flatlands and up into the mountains. We're grateful for everything we experienced. 

Although we didn't walk as far as we had planned and hoped to, being able to still finish our pilgrimage in Padua was wonderful. 

"There never was a pilgrim who did not come back to his village with one less prejudice and one more idea."