Verdera Media
An Italian Odyssey
Verdera
Media is proud to announce the release of their first
publication
An Italian Odyssey: One
Couple’s Culinary & Cultural Pilgrimage
The Story Line
An Italian Odyssey is a story about a midlife couple who embarks on a great adventure — walking 1,000 km on the Via Francigena, an ancient, elusive medieval pilgrim trail through the heart of Italy.
Historically, the Via Francigena was a broad network of trails originating in ancient Francia, an ever-changing backbone of Roman and medieval roads leading to Rome. Today, unlike the Camino de Santiago in Spain, only a few hundred people have walked the entire Via Francigena through Italy during the past decade. It is a barely discovered, obscure, and sometimes challenging trail to navigate.
The couple’s initial plan was to walk and eat their way through Italy using their own homemade guide and map books. But their adventure takes on a life of its own as they face unexpected challenges. With both themselves and each other, they struggle with the constant physical and emotional demands and outcomes of navigating an arduous route that is not well signed.
But with dollops of Roman and medieval history, a dash of contemporary culture, plenty of sensual food and wine, and gracious Italian hospitality, they also share many romantic and magical moments. Only after they endure sweat, tears, and frustration, when the strange concoction comes to a boil and the flavours and juices ooze out, do they realize and discover the true meaning of their journey.
In the end, An Italian Odyssey is a classic bittersweet tale of the couple’s experience of walking and eating through Italy — a unique culinary and walking pilgrimage. An Italian Odyssey will appeal to readers who love all things Italian, its history, culture, and food, and those who like traveling and walking.
Readers will also appreciate the rewards and discoveries that come about from tackling real life challenges and struggles. It is a story that combines a great adventure of personal growth, individually and as a couple, with the backdrop of Italian history, contemporary culture, food, and wine.
Buon viaggio!
Reviews
James Martin of Wandering Italy calls An Italian Odyssey a bittersweet journey…What you have here is the grubby truth about pilgrimage, the yin and yang of it, the supreme lows interspersed with moments of enlightenment. That’s what makes the book compelling.
Buy yourself a copy of An Italian Odyssey. It will introduce you to many places way off the beaten track that are all the more compelling because the locals remain pure to their own way of doing things.
Brandon Wilson; author of Over the Top & Back Again: Hiking X the Alps says An Italian Odyssey is uniquely personal exploit, told by both travelers in their own voices. As usual, in our quest to discover the unknown, we learn just as much about ourselves. Since this is far from an easy journey, readers share the humor and wonder, as well as the doubts and raw emotions that erupt between couples where they depend on each other like never before.
Blisters and all, it is a banquet to be slowly savored and best accompanied by a glass of Chianti and pasta with pesto.
Babette Gallard and Paul Chinn authors of the LightFoot guide series state that Julie and Neville are honest, sometimes brutally so, about their conflicts with each other and the people they meet. But, as a counterbalance, they also manage to convey the essence of pilgrim travel – that evocative sense of history as one walks along paved roads used by pilgrims hundreds of years before, the discovery of new landscapes and those personal and so memorable chance encounters.
In short, this book is honest, revealing, often amusing and always informative - a welcomed addition to any travel library.
Eric Sylvers of “Walk for Italy” states authors Julie Burk and Neville Tencer take you on a trip down Italy showing you both the trials and tribulations they face as well as the joys that Italy has to offer. They did an excellent job of capturing that highs and lows that one must confront on a long pilgrimage.
Even for those readers that do not plan to make such a pilgrimage, this book is an excellent way to get an introduction to parts of Italy that not too many people have written about.
An Italian Odyssey is a story about a midlife couple who embarks on a great adventure — walking 1,000 km on the Via Francigena, an ancient, elusive medieval pilgrim trail through the heart of Italy.
Historically, the Via Francigena was a broad network of trails originating in ancient Francia, an ever-changing backbone of Roman and medieval roads leading to Rome. Today, unlike the Camino de Santiago in Spain, only a few hundred people have walked the entire Via Francigena through Italy during the past decade. It is a barely discovered, obscure, and sometimes challenging trail to navigate.
The couple’s initial plan was to walk and eat their way through Italy using their own homemade guide and map books. But their adventure takes on a life of its own as they face unexpected challenges. With both themselves and each other, they struggle with the constant physical and emotional demands and outcomes of navigating an arduous route that is not well signed.
But with dollops of Roman and medieval history, a dash of contemporary culture, plenty of sensual food and wine, and gracious Italian hospitality, they also share many romantic and magical moments. Only after they endure sweat, tears, and frustration, when the strange concoction comes to a boil and the flavours and juices ooze out, do they realize and discover the true meaning of their journey.
In the end, An Italian Odyssey is a classic bittersweet tale of the couple’s experience of walking and eating through Italy — a unique culinary and walking pilgrimage. An Italian Odyssey will appeal to readers who love all things Italian, its history, culture, and food, and those who like traveling and walking.
Readers will also appreciate the rewards and discoveries that come about from tackling real life challenges and struggles. It is a story that combines a great adventure of personal growth, individually and as a couple, with the backdrop of Italian history, contemporary culture, food, and wine.
Buon viaggio!
Reviews
James Martin of Wandering Italy calls An Italian Odyssey a bittersweet journey…What you have here is the grubby truth about pilgrimage, the yin and yang of it, the supreme lows interspersed with moments of enlightenment. That’s what makes the book compelling.
Buy yourself a copy of An Italian Odyssey. It will introduce you to many places way off the beaten track that are all the more compelling because the locals remain pure to their own way of doing things.
Brandon Wilson; author of Over the Top & Back Again: Hiking X the Alps says An Italian Odyssey is uniquely personal exploit, told by both travelers in their own voices. As usual, in our quest to discover the unknown, we learn just as much about ourselves. Since this is far from an easy journey, readers share the humor and wonder, as well as the doubts and raw emotions that erupt between couples where they depend on each other like never before.
Blisters and all, it is a banquet to be slowly savored and best accompanied by a glass of Chianti and pasta with pesto.
Babette Gallard and Paul Chinn authors of the LightFoot guide series state that Julie and Neville are honest, sometimes brutally so, about their conflicts with each other and the people they meet. But, as a counterbalance, they also manage to convey the essence of pilgrim travel – that evocative sense of history as one walks along paved roads used by pilgrims hundreds of years before, the discovery of new landscapes and those personal and so memorable chance encounters.
In short, this book is honest, revealing, often amusing and always informative - a welcomed addition to any travel library.
Eric Sylvers of “Walk for Italy” states authors Julie Burk and Neville Tencer take you on a trip down Italy showing you both the trials and tribulations they face as well as the joys that Italy has to offer. They did an excellent job of capturing that highs and lows that one must confront on a long pilgrimage.
Even for those readers that do not plan to make such a pilgrimage, this book is an excellent way to get an introduction to parts of Italy that not too many people have written about.
Kindle Ebook Edition
File Size: 1224 KB - 40 color images and maps
ASIN: B005EUR55
Publication Date: July 2011
Distribution: Free international wireless delivery from Amazon
Please click on the links below to purchase the kindle edition:
Paperback Edition
5.5 x 8.5 perfect paperback
288 pages - 33 black & white images and maps
ISBN: 978-0-9865887-0-9
Publication Date: July 2010
Distribution: 30 plus Online Worldwide Booksellers
Please click on the links below to purchase the paperback edition:
- Amazon.com
- Amazon.UK
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- Barnes & Noble
- Powells Books
- Abebooks
- Buy.com
- ibs.it
- The Book Depository
- buch.ch
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Feel free to ask your favorite local bookseller to order a book for you today.
Sales and distribution inquiries: verderamedia <at> gmail.com
