Quest: Land of kings & athiests. London falling -- A Canterbury Tale -- At the cliff of the kingdom -- Besieged at Calais -- The Lost City of Saint-Omer -- A night at the monastery -- War and peace on the Western front -- The miracles of Laon -- Sluts and saints along the Chemin des Dames -- When God anointed kings -- The highest use of monks -- Napoleon was bullied here -- Wars of religion -- Wanderings -- Lost: Land of heretics & heroes. The hollowed house of light [House of Enlightenment] -- United Europe's ticking clock -- The betrayal -- Refuge and reform -- A theocracy on the lake -- The permanent prayer of Saint-Maurice -- Answers: Land of miracles & wonder. A pilgrim over the Alps -- Monastery in the sky -- Mountain myths -- Proving the existence of God -- A farewell to Augustine -- A series of unfortunate events in a small car -- The way out of a labyrinth -- In the path of the little poor man -- Allegories on the wall -- The miracle of Montefiascone -- The women who live forever -- Companions of the Camino -- Pilgrim's Progress.;Following an ancient pilgrimage route a thousand miles from Canterbury to Rome, the bestselling and award-winning writer weaves history and culture into an exploration of why Christianity is struggling in the world it created At a time when Britain, America, and much of Europe have never been so secular, Timothy Egan sets out on a thousand-mile pilgrimage along an ancient route, through the theological cradle of Christianity, to explore one of the biggest stories of our time: the collapse of religion in the world that it created. Egan sets out along the Via Francigena, once the major medieval route for the devout to Rome, and follows the course described by Sigeric the Serious, Archbishop of Canterbury, when he walked through Europe to see the pope in the year 990. Traveling a landscape laced with some of the most important shrines in Christian history, Egan brings us into the chapel where Queen Bertha introduced Christianity to pagan Britain; visits a French town built on miracles; and journeys to the oldest abbey in the western world, founded in 515 and home to continuous prayer over the 1,500 years that followed. He is accompanied by fellow pilgrims and by the towering figures of the faith-Joan of Arc, Henry VIII, Martin Luther. The goal: walking to Saint Peter's Square over the old Roman road, in hopes of meeting the pope who is struggling to hold together the world's 1.3 billion Roman Catholics. A thrilling adventure and revealing history, A Pilgrimage to Eternity looks for our future in its search for God.