Via Postumia

At a Glance

• Start / Finish: Trieste / Genoa; the Camino Ninja map ends within the Genoa city limits, and the map point for the center lies 1.3 km off the route
• Length: 1,021.7 km
• Duration: 48 stages, averaging just over 21 km; realistically seven weeks with rest days
• Elevation: ↗ 7,451 m / ↘ 7,486 m
• Highest point: 822 m at km 988.3 on the Apennine ridge between Fraconalto and Pietralavezzara; lowest point −8 m
• Landscape: edge of the Karst, the Grado lagoon, plains laced with rivers and canals, the Monti Berici, Lake Garda, the Po levees, the wine hills of the Oltrepò Pavese, the Ligurian Apennines
• Operator / Waymarking: no single operator with a reliable website that we could verify; waymarks exist in some sections, so plan on using the track in the app
• Traces of St. James: in Trieste the church of San Giacomo, consecrated on St. James's Day 1854; in Castelfranco Veneto San Giacomo with a pilgrim hospice from 1217; in Trieste the link to the Slovenian Jakobova pot
• Accommodation: B&Bs, agriturismi, hotels, occasionally parishes and monasteries; pilgrim hostels are the exception
• Connecting routes: in Trieste the Camino Slovenia (Primorska), in Piazzola sul Brenta the Via Romea Germanica (Italy), in Piacenza the Via Francigena (Italy) and the Via Domitia, in Genoa the Via Aurelia
• Best time: April to June and September to October; in July and August the Po Valley is hot, muggy and full of mosquitoes

Overview

The Via Postumia is the route for anyone who wants to cross Italy not top to bottom but left to right – or, to be precise, right to left. It starts in Trieste, where the Slovenian Jakobova pot reaches the sea, and ends in Genoa, where the Via Aurelia carries on toward France. In between lie six regions, six World Heritage Sites right on the route, and a plain so flat that over the roughly 750 kilometers between Monfalcone and Piacenza the trail rises above 150 meters only twice: in the Monti Berici and near Pastrengo. You start at the village that gave Prosecco its name, then walk 1,021.7 kilometers without seeing a single Prosecco vineyard.

The route takes its name from a road, not a saint. In 148 BC the consul Spurius Postumius Albinus had a military road built from Genoa over the Apennines to Tortona, Piacenza, Cremona and Verona, all the way to Aquileia. Our route follows it for long stretches but makes detours the Romans had no need for: to the Grado lagoon, along the Sile near Treviso, to Lake Garda. To be honest, this isn't a pilgrim trail that grew organically with a chain of hostels; it's a line through cities that are each worth a trip in their own right – and through a lot of flat kilometers in between.

Other Names

In Italian the route is simply called the Via Postumia, and as a hiking trail also the Cammino della Via Postumia. The name goes back to the consul Postumius Albinus. Part of the eastern section still bears it today as a state highway, the SS 53 Postumia.

In the background are the Roman place names: Trieste was Tergeste (Trst in Slovenian), Tortona was Dertona, Piacenza Placentia, Oderzo Opitergium.

Who It's Ideal For—and Who It's Not So Ideal For

Ideal if you want to experience art history not in a museum but at walking pace: the basilica of Aquileia on day four, Palladio in Vicenza, the Arena in Verona, the Gonzagas in Mantua and Sabbioneta, violins in Cremona, the cathedral in Piacenza. Ideal, too, if you're coming from Slovenia or heading on to France – and if you like walking alone.

Honestly, though, it's not for you if you're expecting a pilgrim community, hostels and pilgrim menus: you'll almost always sleep in B&Bs and hotels and pay accordingly. Not for you if flatland wears you down – between Latisana and Piacenza there are weeks when the horizon stays the same, and so does the asphalt next to the canal. And not for you in high summer: in July the Po Valley lies under humid heat, and the mosquitoes are waiting on the levees.

Route & Landscape

Trieste to Verona (km 0–506.1): The first day is the only one by the sea with any elevation: along the edge of the Karst, past Prosecco, to Duino (km 25.2). From Monfalcone (km 35.0) it flattens out – the mouth of the Isonzo, the lagoon, Grado (km 73.8), Aquileia (km 85.7) – followed by the Friulian plain with Palmanova (km 115.9), the Tagliamento at Latisana (km 163.7), and the drained bonifica land up to the Piave. Along the Sile you come to Treviso (km 309.9), then head west via Castelfranco and Cittadella to Vicenza (km 418.2) and through the Monti Berici to Verona (km 506.1).

Verona to Genoa (km 506.1–1,021.7): Beyond Verona the route crosses the moraine hills to the shore of Lake Garda at Peschiera (km 548.2), follows the Mincio down to Mantua (km 606.9), and then enters the Po Valley proper: poplars, levees, rice and corn fields all the way to Cremona (km 739.7) and Piacenza (km 784.4). There the wine hills of the Oltrepò Pavese begin, lasting until Tortona (km 913.2). Via Gavi (km 954.6) and Voltaggio (km 970.1) you climb onto the Apennines, 822 meters at km 988.3, and walk down the Polcevera Valley via Pontedecimo (km 1,003.5) into Genoa.

Stages, Terrain, and Difficulty

We show the route in 48 stages; the distances come from the Camino Ninja map, calibrated exactly to 1,021.7 km. Stage towns have accommodation; where one lies off the route, we say so. The lagoon stage to Grado can only be split with lodging off the trail, and a few short city days leave time for sightseeing.

1. Trieste → Sistiana (22.0 km) — across the Karst, past the village of Prosecco, with views over the gulf.
2. Sistiana → Monfalcone (13.0 km) — short, with time for the Rilke Path and Duino Castle.
3. Monfalcone → Grado (38.8 km) — the longest stage, flat along the edge of the lagoon, with no town on our map.
4. Grado → Cervignano del Friuli (23.4 km) — over the causeway to Aquileia; time for the basilica.
5. Cervignano del Friuli → Palmanova (18.7 km) — across the plain to the star fortress.
6. Palmanova → Carlino (20.4 km) — fields and canals via San Giorgio di Nogaro.
7. Carlino → Latisana (27.4 km) — to the Tagliamento.
8. Latisana → Concordia Sagittaria (25.8 km) — into the Veneto; Concordia 1.5 km off the route.
9. Concordia Sagittaria → San Stino di Livenza (18.5 km) — bonifica land; San Stino 0.6 km off the route.
10. San Stino di Livenza → Oderzo (25.8 km) — via Motta di Livenza into Roman Opitergium.
11. Oderzo → Noventa di Piave (21.6 km) — along the Piave.
12. Noventa di Piave → Portegrandi (26.6 km) — on the edge of the Venetian Lagoon.
13. Portegrandi → Treviso (27.9 km) — upstream along the Sile.
14. Treviso → Badoere (16.1 km) — to Badoere's semicircular piazza.
15. Badoere → Castelfranco Veneto (19.3 km) — into Giorgione's hometown.
16. Castelfranco Veneto → Cittadella (18.8 km) — to the walled town.
17. Cittadella → Piazzola sul Brenta (16.6 km) — across the Brenta; crossing with the Via Romea Germanica.
18. Piazzola sul Brenta → Quinto Vicentino (24.2 km) — flat and rural.
19. Quinto Vicentino → Vicenza (13.3 km) — a short day for Palladio.
20. Vicenza → Grancona (25.6 km) — into the Monti Berici.
21. Grancona → Arcole (22.6 km) — via Lonigo back down to the plain.
22. Arcole → Zevio (16.6 km) — orchards; Zevio 1.1 km off the route.
23. Zevio → Verona (23.1 km) — into the city of the Arena.
24. Verona → Pescantina (17.1 km) — up the Adige.
25. Pescantina → Peschiera del Garda (25.0 km) — via Pastrengo to Lake Garda.
26. Peschiera del Garda → Volta Mantovana (20.8 km) — along the Mincio.
27. Volta Mantovana → Rivalta sul Mincio (23.6 km) — river landscape; Goito 0.8 km off the route.
28. Rivalta sul Mincio → Mantua (14.3 km) — via the sanctuary of Grazie.
29. Mantua → Borgoforte (20.2 km) — via Pietole to the Po.
30. Borgoforte → Marcaria (26.0 km) — to the Oglio; Marcaria 0.7 km off the route.
31. Marcaria → Sabbioneta (20.1 km) — to the Gonzagas' ideal city.
32. Sabbioneta → Gussola (17.2 km) — via Casalmaggiore onto the Po levees.
33. Gussola → San Daniele Po (25.5 km) — levees and poplars; San Daniele 0.9 km off the route.
34. San Daniele Po → Cremona (23.8 km) — into the city of the violin makers.
35. Cremona → San Nazzaro (18.3 km) — across the Po into Emilia.
36. San Nazzaro → Piacenza (26.4 km) — into the city of the Via Francigena.
37. Piacenza → Gragnano Trebbiense (13.0 km) — a short day across the Trebbia.
38. Gragnano Trebbiense → Ziano Piacentino (23.9 km) — the first wine hills.
39. Ziano Piacentino → Canneto Pavese (17.3 km) — in the heart of the Oltrepò Pavese.
40. Canneto Pavese → Casteggio (24.0 km) — up and down the hills.
41. Casteggio → Voghera (21.1 km) — along the foot of the hills.
42. Voghera → Volpedo (13.8 km) — to the village of the painter Pellizza.
43. Volpedo → Tortona (15.7 km) — down into ancient Dertona.
44. Tortona → Sardigliano (26.4 km) — into the Scrivia hill country.
45. Sardigliano → Gavi (15.0 km) — via Serravalle Scrivia, with a detour to Libarna.
46. Gavi → Voltaggio (15.5 km) — into the Lemme Valley.
47. Voltaggio → Isoverde (24.9 km) — mountain stage over the ridge at 822 m.
48. Isoverde → Genoa (26.7 km) — down the Polcevera Valley, via Begato to the sea.

Much of the surface is asphalt: back roads, levee paths, bike paths along canals, and cobblestones in the cities. None of it is difficult except for the length and the monotony. The only serious climbs come in three places: in the Monti Berici, in the Oltrepò Pavese, and on the Apennines, where you climb more than 450 meters in one go between Voltaggio and the ridge.

A Coppersmith Almost Melted Down the Road

The Via Postumia is one of the few Roman roads that turns up in a document from its own time. On December 13, 117 BC, a good thirty years after it was built, the brothers Quintus and Marcus Minucius Rufus, acting for the Senate, settled a dispute between the Genuates and the Viturii Langenses in the Polcevera Valley: who owns which piece of land, and where do the boundary stones stand? They had their ruling cast in bronze, 46 lines of Latin on a tablet measuring 38 by 48 centimeters – and several times it names the Via Postumia as a boundary line. So Liguria's oldest document is also a trail marker.

In 1506 a farmer named Agostino Pedemonte found the tablet in the bed of the Pernecco stream near Pedemonte di Serra Riccò, a few kilometers off the route in the Polcevera Valley. He sold it to a coppersmith in Genoa who intended to melt it down; the bishop and historian Agostino Giustiniani persuaded the Republic to buy it. Since 1993 the Tavola di Polcevera has been in the Museo di Archeologia Ligure in Genoa-Pegli – and on your last day you walk through the very valley whose boundaries were being fought over back then.

The road itself was a tool of conquest: Rome had founded Aquileia in 181 BC and fortified Cremona in 218 BC as an outpost against Hannibal. The Postumia tied both to Genoa and thus to the sea route to Rome. On the Tabula Peutingeriana, the late antique road map, it visibly ends at Oderzo; whether it ran all the way to Aquileia is disputed among scholars. Near Bedriacum, today's Calvatone a few kilometers north of the route, the Year of the Four Emperors was decided on this very road: on April 14, 69, Vitellius defeated the emperor Otho; in October Vespasian's troops defeated Vitellius and then sacked Cremona. Pilgrims came too: the anonymous Bordeaux Pilgrim used the roads of the Po Valley in 333 on the way to Jerusalem, and the monks of Bobbio kept the Apennine crossing open into the 8th century.

In practical terms: you'll see hardly any Roman paving, since the road lies beneath state highways and farm tracks. The traces are in the towns – in Libarna near Serravalle Scrivia, the remains of a Roman town on the Postumia, and in the forum of Aquileia.

Highlights Along the Way

• Prosecco (km 11.0, 1.1 km off the route) — a Karst village above the gulf; in 1593 the Englishman Fynes Moryson noted: "Here growes the wine Pucinum, now called Prosecho, much celebrated by Pliny." Since 2009 Prosecco has been a protected place name, and the grape is called Glera.
• Duino Castle (km 25.2) — built in 1389 on Roman remains; this is where Rainer Maria Rilke began the "Duino Elegies" in 1912. The Rilke Path to Sistiana has been a hiking trail since 1987.
• Aquileia (km 85.7) — founded in 181 BC, with a basilica holding more than 760 square meters of early Christian floor mosaic from the 4th century, reconsecrated by Patriarch Poppo in 1031.
• Palmanova (km 115.9) — a nine-pointed fortress town founded by Venice on October 7, 1593, a World Heritage Site since 2017 together with Peschiera del Garda (km 548.2).
• Castelfranco Veneto (km 345.3) — town walls, Giorgione's altarpiece in the cathedral, and the church of San Giacomo, whose hospice was approved in 1217.
• Mantua and Sabbioneta (km 606.9 and 673.2) — a joint World Heritage Site since 2008; in Sabbioneta, Scamozzi's Teatro all'antica from 1590, the first purpose-built theater building of the modern era. In between, at Pietole (km 613.5), Virgil's birthplace.
• Cremona (km 739.7) — the city of Stradivari (1644–1737) and the Amatis; its violin making has been Intangible Cultural Heritage since 2012.
• Forte di Gavi (km 954.6) — a Genoese fortress, expanded with six bastions from 1626 to 1629, a prison from 1859.
• Genoa (km 1,021.7) — old town with the Strade Nuove and the Palazzi dei Rolli, a World Heritage Site since 2006; the Tavola di Polcevera in the museum in Pegli.

How Pilgrims Find Their Way onto This Path

Those who walk the whole route usually come from the east: the Camino Slovenia (Primorska) runs from Ljubljana across the Karst to Trieste – exactly where the Via Postumia begins.

Along the way there are three places where you can join or switch routes:

• Via Romea Germanica (Italy) — crosses at Piazzola sul Brenta, on its way from the Brenner Pass to Rome
• Via Francigena (Italy) — arrives in Piacenza, on its way from the Great St. Bernard Pass to Rome
• Via Domitia — starts in Piacenza and leads via Turin and the Montgenèvre Pass to Arles

A side trip with no shared town is the Prosecco Hills Trail between Vidor and Vittorio Veneto: it lies a good 20 kilometers north of Castelfranco and Treviso and can be reached by train and bus. The Via Postumia itself never touches the Prosecco hills – only the Karst village near Trieste that gave the wine its name.

Continue the pilgrimage?

Yes – all the way to Spain. In Genoa the Via Aurelia begins, running along the Ligurian coast and the Côte d'Azur to Arles; there the Via Tolosana continues via Toulouse and the Somport Pass. If you'd rather turn west already in Piacenza, take the Via Domitia over the Alps, which also ends in Arles. If you stop in Genoa, you've crossed Italy from the Gulf of Trieste to the Ligurian Sea. There's no Compostela for that; you only get one in Santiago, for the last 100 kilometers on foot.

Preparation & Practical Information

Pilgrim passport and app. As on every Camino, you need a pilgrim passport (credencial) to collect stamps and to stay in the few pilgrim lodgings and parishes that ask for one; if you go on to Santiago, it counts toward your Compostela. It's best to order it online in advance so it arrives in time for the start of your trip. With the Camino Ninja App you have the map and track offline – more important on this route than elsewhere, because the waymarking is patchy; the easiest way to plan the 48 stages is right in the app, where you put together your stages and build in suitable accommodation as you go.

Accommodation. Expect B&Bs, agriturismi and small hotels; pilgrim hostels are rare. In the villages of the Po Valley and the Oltrepò there are often only one or two places to stay, some of them off the route; book a day ahead, and earlier in Verona, Mantua and around Lake Garda.

Season and gear. The best time is April to June and September to October. In late fall the Po Valley is foggy; pack mosquito repellent and sun protection for the shadeless levees, and rain gear for the Apennines, even in spring.

What the journey will cost you

A room in a B&B or agriturismo usually costs 50 to 80 € for one person and 70 to 110 € for two; in Verona, Mantua, around Lake Garda and in Genoa, more like 80 to 130 €. Where there are pilgrim lodgings or parishes, you'll pay 15 to 30 € or a donation. Dinner in a trattoria runs 20 to 35 €, a lunch menu in a bar 12 to 18 € (as of October 2026).

All in, budget 70 to 100 € a day if you're traveling alone, or 55 to 80 € per person as a couple. To be honest, that's the price of having almost no pilgrim infrastructure – and the reason many people walk the route in sections.

Getting Here

To the start. You can reach Trieste Centrale by train via Venice or Udine; from Austria and southern Germany usually with a change in Udine or Venice, from Slovenia by train or bus via Ljubljana. Trieste Airport is at Ronchi dei Legionari near Monfalcone, so practically on the route.

From the finish. Genoa has two main train stations, Piazza Principe and Brignole, with trains to Milan, Turin and Rome and on toward Switzerland and Germany; Cristoforo Colombo Airport is on the west side of the city. Joining partway is easy: almost all the stage towns from Treviso to Tortona are on the rail line.

• Rail: trenitalia.com — regional and long-distance trains throughout northern Italy, Trieste and Genoa
• Rail: oebb.at — connections from Austria and Germany toward Udine, Venice and Trieste