The Path to Rome by Hilaire Belloc: "...amore Antiqui ritus, alto sub numine Romae"

It's difficult for many moderns to even understand or know what "Catholic culture" is.

Read this book and then you will understand exactly what it is.

If I had to write a book of my own adventures in Europe, I would just reproduce this book; it hits the nail on the head.

Ignatius Press reprinted this volume in 2003, but of course it's always fun to get an older edition, too.

This is the story of a young university-age guy who was born in a little village by the name of Toul in a French valley. Raised in England he went back to visit the place of his birth and in the village chapel he offered a prayer and then had the idea and made a vow to walk to Rome by foot, as pilgrims did in the Middle Ages. He went as the crow flies in a straight line from his map (and in the end he did have to take a train twice for just several miles before Milan and then before Siena as he had run out of money).

With the linen clothes on his back, boots, a hat, a cotton jacket and a sack with maps, a watch, sketch-book, a flute, pipes, a card-case, two pencils, a bottle of wine, a cup, a scrap of newspaper, a needle and thread and with no passport, he left on this wonderful journey and such an adventure that befel him! Read a book like this and see why truth is better than fiction and why it is so important to keep Europe Catholic - our Christian continent.