So, if you are writting an application -not a website- and you need to resolve the directions from one location to another, how can you get the information from Google Maps without using Javascript?
I am wondering if there's any set of special URL or APIs on Google Maps that given a pair of locations (two city names) would return the route coordinates that makes the path of the route from city A to city B.
Well, the GMaps javascript sends out a HTTP request and receives back a JSON response. See what the format of the request is and make such requests yourself.
Not sure about a XML path, but you could convert the JSON to XML easily - after all, both are tree structures.
Edit: Although the above is technically possible, this may or may not be allowed; you probably shouldn't want to break the ToS.
If you are interested in the what Google explicitly allows you to do with the Google Map API, you should check out the Terms of Service.
I did find the following section which seems to imply that reverse engineering their protocol is considered by Google to be naughty:
reverse engineer, decompile or otherwise attempt to extract the source code of the Service or any part thereof, unless this is expressly permitted or required by applicable law;