I like Belloc very much, I truly do.
However, I must admit that when I read him, I always have to take a nap.
His prose, his descriptions of his adventures do not bore me, they drain me.
I suppose it’s that he explains it all so well that I feel exhausted from accompanying him on his journey.

The Path to Rome was a pilgrimage he made at the turn of the 20th century. It was to reaffirm his dedication to Catholicism.
He started his journey in early June in Toul, France where he had served in the military. He traveled (mostly) on foot over 700 miles to Rome usually averaging 30 miles a day. His goal to reach Rome and hear high Mass on the Feast of the Apostles.

“…..Let me put it thus: that from the height of Weissenstein I saw, as it were, my religion. I mean, humility, the fear of death, the terror of height and of distance, the glory of God, the infinite potentiality of reception whence springs that divine thirst of the soul; my aspiration also towards completion, and my confidence in the dual destiny. For I know that we laughers have a gross cousinship with the most high, and it is this contrast and perpetual quarrel which feeds a spring of merriment in the soul of a sane man.”

“Oh, blessed quality of books, that makes them a refuge from living! For in a book everything can be made to fit in, all tedium can be skipped over, and the intense moments can be made timeless and eternal……we, by the art of writing can fix the high elusive hour and stand in things divine.”

“There, from the summit, between the high villa walls on either side—at my very feet I saw the City.”

“Across the valleys and the high-land,
With all the world on either hand.
Drinking when I had a mind to,
Singing when I felt inclined to;
Nor ever turned my face to home
Till I had slaked my heart at Rome.”

None

An exceptional ride...Belloc (shamefully, really only known as G.K. Chesterton's friend and not in his own right) is a spectacular wit, perhaps more brilliant than Chesterton, and you see it joyously displayed through about 230 pages of rollicking one-liners, fantastic recollection (with sketches!), and the most sublime beauty and reflection. His whole auctor/lector thing kept me rolling (what other author tells his reader to shut up?!). A couple of caveats: 1, this was written in the early 1900s, so he reveals much in his nationalism (which can be heavy at times)--it pays to speak French, Latin, and Italian or have a reliable translator nearby, and he sees the world from his Euro-Catholic faith so that the story is watermarked with his observance of that tradition being the sun around which everything else (esp. German Protestantism) is weird and uncivilized. But it is a moving and very spiritual portrait of a time and place even before the amazing idea of walking from France to Rome as a sacred devotion. And I do so love his wit.

A delightful travelogue that is really about religion and history and the meaning of life. He was only about 32 when he made the pilgrimage to Rome. He broke most of the vows he took before he embarked on this exploration of his soul. Belloc is at his snarky best here. One can see the determined, almost ruthless polemicist that he was to become. His literary skills are first class and his humor is unforced and springs from deep within his being. It is truly a wonderful excursion into life with a most literate and compassionate companion.

Just a delightful little book.

I would like to live my life in this way.

Catholicism is not supposed to be angry and joyless.

This book almost feels postmodern which I think is fun.

Also I need to start looking in people’s eyes lol.

An odd yet amusing travelogue of Hillaire Belloc’s pilgrimage to Rome. He tended to be a bit poetic at times as he described the landscape. He had plenty of amusing moments like declaring a man a heretic because he wouldn’t give Belloc coffee and proceeding to sing songs about it as he continued on his way. This was published in 1902, so I laughed pretty hard when he asked some Germans if they had “antisemitism” in their village.
By the end of the book he was talking quite a lot to himself in the terms of “proctor and lector”. Seemed like his journey left him a bit loopy.
Overall this read like a conversation with an aging grandparent who was gradually losing his mind.

"Society for the Prevention of Annoyances to the Rich"... hard a good laugh reading that.
I had this idea of Belloc being so taciturn and moody - clearly not the case in this book. The Auctor/Lector breaks were very funny. I had a book with the illustrations but I wish the published put forth some more effort to get the contrast back into those pictures. Those that I could make out where very beautifully drawn.

Some people might think that a book with this title would necessarily be about converting to Roman Catholicism. It's not. It's quite literally about the physical path to Rome, the hiking trail that Belloc trudged along from eastern France to the City of Rome in 1903.

Hilaire Belloc was a French-English, turn-of-the-19th/20th century writer and a very enthusiastic Catholic indeed. No, not of the Bernanos variety. Not into serious suffering. Back in 1903, as a young man, Belloc felt he needed to carry out a vow he had made by walking from France to Rome. He did this dressed in a suit, a tie and city street shoes. No baggage. No hiking equipment. No knapsack. No. He just up and took off from an eastern French town, walked across the Alps, and walked down to Rome.

Not a change of clothes with him. By the end he did indeed require a new pair of shoes. His wingtips had been worn out. He went on to write a zillion books and articles. He was very well-known and appreciated in his time, though in certain respects he was a dork. But many people think that "The Path to Rome" was his best book. He was a very, very good and entertaining writer.

The Path to Rome is available for free here: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7373

An interesting recounting of Belloc's pilgrimage to Rome. I enjoy travel literature and the sub-genre of walking tours in particular, but this wasn't a favorite. I would have appreciated some translation for the frequent bouts of Latin, Italian, and French, and my Kindle version did not include some images and probably some maps, which would have helped me keep track of the geography better. Pretty good overall.

Absolutely breathtaking, marvelous experience; as others have said, I truly feel like I was walking along, in my hard worn shoes, all those enchanting (and disheartening) miles to Rome with my good friend Hillaire Belloc. We chatted about the past, God, and Europe, while all along the way we encountered quaint hamlets, worn down towers, breathtaking mountain tops, magnificent cathedrals, treacherous river crossings, salt of the earth peasants, and even a run in with the law.

This novel, more than anything else, filled me with the zeitgesit of the early 20th century-- really the vestages of the 19th-- as the soul of Old Europe-- its lonely valleys, hospitable hamlets, communal market days, and Catholic peasants-- took its last gasps before the destruction of the Great War and the march of technocapital.

This is a travel book; it is a history book; it is a humor book; it is an art book; it is a literary book; it is a theology book. It is a book about the land; it is a book about people; it is a book about God; it is a book about not taking yourself too seriously. I was extremely sad when this book ended because I wanted the pilgrimage with Belloc to go on forever and ever.

Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Chapter 12, as one of Ten Books by Hilaire Belloc Well Worth Reading.

Recommended by James Schall in Another Sort of Learning, Intro to Part Three, as one of Schall's Unlikely List of Books to Keep Sane By---Selected for Those to Whom Making Sense Is a Prior Consideration, but a Minority Opinion.