Alongside Nick Havely's present-day narrator and traveller, the cast of characters includes major writers and poets, such as Dante, Montaigne, Goethe, Shelley, and Stendhal, together with a multitude of less well-known figures whose journeys, experiences, and responses cast new light on a landscape that is close to yet remote from the sites typically visited by modern travellers to Italy. Havely draws these earlier travellers' stories from a wide range of published and unpublished sources such as letters, journals, memoirs, poems, and interviews. Together, they illustrate several significant themes: the histories of mountain passes, remote lakes, and ancient sanctuaries; perceptions of the mountains; the social and religious culture of the Northern Apennines; the preoccupations of literary tourism; the impact of campaigns and conflict during World War Two; and the effects of depopulation and deforestation.

The Apennine region features in its full literary, historical, and cultural richness. Included are twenty-six illustrations, with maps for the whole route and for the sections covered by each of the book's seven chapters.