“Happy are they who have come to know the rural gods.” – Virgil

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A flock of sheep on a transhumance trail on the outskirts of Rome | ©Enza Valenti

Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe. Transhumance, for those who are not familiar with the term, is the movement of herds of domesticated animals to different feeding areas across the course of the year. Often this might involve a shepherd or a goatherd or similar moving animals from winter feeding grounds at low altitude, to summer pasture on hills or mountains. Sometimes considerable distances might be involved. This is quite an efficient and sustainable way of raising animals.

With Pan and old Silvanus in the rural idyl

The Transhumance Trails are authentic routes taken by flocks and herds in Europe and in Mexico, showing a startling diversity of landscapes. They allow you to walk in the footsteps of pastoralists.

And we do mean footsteps. These pathways have been produced over millennia by the constant interaction between humans and nature. From the earliest domesticated herds 7,000 years ago, hugging the Mediterranean coast, but taking their animals into the hills that abut it, through to the first legally protected pastoral routes - the cañadas reales in Spain - up to the Council of Europe's Transhumance Trails today, the routes live on that margin between settled and wild, and tell us something about who we are as Europeans.

The trails aim to promote European identity and integration as the routes are a cultural legacy common to both northern and southern Europe. This creates a net of cultural links between itineraries with similar histories, preserving and reinventing a cultural landscape of pastures and meadows

If you are getting away this summer, why not consider making one of the Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe part of your holiday. Get away from everything on shepherds' paths that connect to the Mesolithic age. Or, if transhumance is not your cup of tea, why not check out some of the Council of Europe's other Cultural Routes, like the Phoenecians' Route, the European Route of Ceramics, and the Historic Cafés Route. Each of them is a thousand holiday ideas on their own.

Getting out to the countryside is good for you. That is a truth, after all, that has been self-evident since Virgil's days.

Learn more about the Council of Europe's work on cultural heritage