14th May 2016 Sutri to Campagnano di Roma
21.7km
Bad, bad, weather
As I left Sutri I decided to have an early cappuch to make up for the bad breakfast. Speaking to the barista I asked him the secret of an excellent cappuccino and he said it was to not to heat the milk over 60c, maximum 65c, and added that as I had asked for a hot drink he had heated the cup first with boiling water!
Leaving the town I tried to see the archeological site, with vestiges of both Etruscan and Roman civilizations, through the opening into the site but a girl popped out of the ticket office and said I couldn’t look in! As I didn’t have time to really visit, I walked on.
I walked along small roads and then on to a track through hazelnut plantations when it started to rain. There were still some beautiful flowers to see.
I plodded on regardless and after passing a fountain where one could stock up on drinking water (I have often seen people going to public fountains with big containers to get water), I could see what I thought was Monterosi but it seemed too close. Only later did I realize that I was in fact walking around a golf course to get there.
In order to get in from the rain as I arrived in Monterosi, I walked into the Gorgeous (I kid you not) Bar, and a very busy and lively place it was. If one likes them, they had the best selection of all types of croissants and brioches, etc, that I have seen. But they also had big slices of jam tarts (‘crostate’) which I do like (bitter cherry is delicious) but the slices were too big for me!
As I left the town I passed through the big piazza-roundabout named for “the dead of all wars” but as it wasn’t very busy I didn’t think they’d have to add dead pilgrims to the name!
I then started to follow the Via Cassia, first by track beside the road and then on the old Via Cassia running next to modern one, for some kilometres, with traffic coming towards me only but still a little hairy, all the time with rain. I stopped to tighten my shoelace and I saw a snail moving across a rock and I felt in symbiosis with it.
I made a couple of wrong turns but these were quickly corrected – you can’t imagine how complex some configurations of roads or paths can be. At one time I was on a dirt road parallel to the main road, but separated by a big hedge of all sorts of shrubs, and I came to a big closed gate into a property, so I looked around and along came a car with three young men in it. They indicated I should turn through the rough hedge, above the road, to my right…branches of bramble everywhere but at least they waited (& perhaps would have come to my aid) until I was through & gave the thumbs up sign.
At which point the fun really started as I had to face the on-coming traffic on the main road for 700m…and I laughed as my knee went down the food-chain as my life itself was now in top position, all in pelting rain, until I could get on to a side road towards Campagnano for the final 4 km. This was almost worse as I was right next to on-coming cars which sailed through all the puddles on the poor road at speed and I was the recipient of the sprayed water. I saw a fig tree with dozens of figs on it and I stopped to take a photo and lost a couple of minutes during which a deluge came down.
A kilometer later I was pointed to path which was, well, horrible. It was washed away on one side where a torrent was coursing down and thus the other muddy side was on a slope. I was cursing that such a path could exist at the end of the third last stage towards Rome…but I suppose if you now had a captive audience you wouldn’t have to make such an effort to keep your clients. No photo here as I was too busy coping with the rain and the torrent running over the path! This continued for the last three kilometres, turning into a very steep sealed road towards the end into Campagnano which I entered in a tremendous deluge.
I had seen publicity for two or three hotels so went towards them thinking that there’d be no problem in such a small place on a Saturday night – but the woman in the first one said they were full (there was some motor car event nearby over the weekend), so I asked her to call the other but ‘it is also full’ and when I asked about a third she replied ‘that hotel is very expensive’! I replied that it would be fine, completely soaked as I was, and then the waiter who’d been cleaning up after the last lunch clients said that there was a mistake and there should be a room available. So they had a discussion and it seemed there was a double room but I’d have to pay double. As if I cared! I quickly asked if I could eat something, although it was 3pm, as I was frozen as well as wet and, after another long discussion between three people, I received a big bowl of bean soup, a salad, water and wine.
They left me to it in the restaurant and I had to eat before I changed out of my wet clothes…there were no other public areas in which to sit so I made the most of the wifi connection in the restaurant.
However I’m not a baker’s daughter for nothing and what did I spy when I was leaving, but the pizza oven already heating for the evening with wood burning in it like when I was a child. This big restaurant was principally a pizzeria and I could see why once I tasted one later! Once I’d had a shower and changed into something dry and tried to hang my things out to also dry, I decided to take my soaking walkers down and put them in front of the half-open oven door.
Between showers I went out to visit the town, through the inevitable stone monumental gate into the main street of the old town, but it was a completely forgettable place, very poor looking. I returned to the restaurant and, thinking this was too good to be true (as the bedroom was cold with no drying possibility), I went and got my jacket, my knapsack, my gloves and socks, and put them around me, sitting not too far from the oven, the queen of my realm as I worked on my iPad.
When the woman pizzaiolo arrived I explained about my soaking shoes and she said ‘no problem’ and opened a big sliding door under the oven and put them in there so I got her to add the socks and gloves which she insisted on putting on newspaper.
All this time the last line of Frank McCourt’s introduction to ‘Angela’s Ashes’ was going through my mind “…and we were wet!”
So, I sat at the same table for dinner with the wine and water remaining from lunch, still with knapsack and jacket around me drying. I had one of the best pizzas ever – the dough was of organic stone ground flour with natural leavening and left to rise a long time – a white pizza (no tomato sauce) with fiordilatte mozzarella, fresh spinach and Taggiasca olives (no less!) which was delicious!
This was a very big restaurant which was full, with people coming and going all the time, and the woman pizza maker was directing her female helpers with brio. Many people also came in for take-away pizzas. I sat there with my iPad until late & then recovered all my clothes and shoes and went up to a cold room but to a welcome bed after what had been a less than easy day but I had survived and my knee had held up. And what was most important?