The Wife of Bath
Visit major pilgrimage sites with Chaucer's Alison of Bath, who "koude muchel of wandrynge by the weye."
Bath
A good Wif was ther of biside Bath...
Bath was renowned for its Roman baths and, in Dame Alison's day, for its weavers--a fitting home for an expert cloth-maker.
Canterbury
We meet her en route to Canterbury and learn that she has travelled far and wide.
Jerusalem
Thries hadde she been at Jerusalem.
A single pilgrimage to Jerusalem would be an impressive accomplishment, a journey that might take a traveller from England couple years to complete. That Alison has visited the holy city thrice speaks to her hardiness and love for adventure.
Rome
At rome she hadde been.
Bologna
and at Boloigne
The Basilica of the Madonna of Santa Luca hosts the icon of the Virgin Mary that was purportedly painted by Luke the Evangelist.
Compostela
In Galice at Seint Jame
Santiago de Compostela, the capital of Galicia, grew up around the shrine of Saint James the Greater. As a souvenir of her visit, Alison might have picked up a pilgrimage badge representing James's emblem, the scallop shell.
Cologne
and at Coloigne.
At the Basilica of Saint Ursula, Alison could have seen the skeletal remains of the legendary virgin martyr Ursula, slaughtered at Cologne with her eleven thousand companions (mostly fellow virgins). What would Alison have thought of all those women martyred for virginity? The skull reliquaries and intricate patterns of bones in the basilica's Golden Chamber are a macabre tribute to the abstinence she adamantly rejected.
If she visited the Cathedral, Alison would have seen the magnificent golden shrine that supposedly housed the relics of the three kings/magi/wise men who, according to the bible, visited Jesus following his birth.