So, why are you doing this again?

Yes, the words that are on everybody's lips. What many took to be sheer lunacy 2228 years ago is still considered as a task only an idiot or a nutcase would undertake.
So why walk from Sagunto to Turin?

Simple answer, obsession. On a more romanticized note its because on a rainy Tuesday morning in September 2008 I was doing a bit of shopping in Camden town. The rain had stirred from the remains of Camden canal markets a burnt mustiness from the fire that had gutted the markets several months previous. We made our way across the street to the indoor stables market and it was there that I found it....hidden at the back of a pile of old printed maps, mounted in a water stained frame, printed by F.C. & J Rivington on July 1st 1808 a Monsieur D'Anville print of Hannibal's march from Saguntum over the Pyrenees through France crossing the Rhone and finally conquering the Alps (as well as the imagination of every school boy since) with his 26 thousand men and thirty seven elephants.
With an asking price of 36 pounds sterling it was mine for 25.
After a futile shopping expedition I retired with my treasure to "The Worlds End" tavern for an ale.

Whilst pouring over the map at the table just inside the door with a pint of bitter and a tin of pilchards, an idea began to form, what if, yes what if I traced Hannibal's steps, twenty two centuries after the man himself concocted the idea. Maybe it was the bitter talking, frothing its foam and swirling images of elephants and jagged white peaks as it settled. Or maybe the map itself expunged long forgotten memories of mr Stakelums 4th class history lessons about how Hannibal caught the Romans in a trap at Trasemine and outsmarted 2 consuls at Cannae and lead the Romans on a merry dance throughout Italy, top to bottom for 16 years.

For me his biggest victory was the Psychological one he had dealt the Romans before ever raising a sword, by marching War Elephants over the impenetrable Alps, the natural fortress to the north of Rome, it didn't matter that the battle of the Trebia was the elephants swansong, they had already inflicted their damage on the Romans by achieving the unachievable.

So I have been consumed with this project for the past 21 months and in less than 2 months time I shall pass through the ruins of Saguntum, and march..... towards Rome.