15th May 2016 Campagnano di Roma to La Storta
27.5km which should have been 24.5 but that’s a long story…
Beautiful weather at first but then atrocious weather.
Well-wishers watch
In wonderment
Willing wanderers
Withstanding weary walks
Without waiver
While wending way to well earned rest
Received this from my versifying friend who thought it not very good but necessary to get me to Rome!
Up early to try to benefit from some good weather before storms which were predicted for the afternoon.
Poor breakfast but straight out and on to a new path (different from guide book) and it was lovely to walk up and down along little mostly-bitumen country roads on a quiet Sunday morning. Fields of crops, wooded hills, wild flowers.
Easy walking. After 5 km I arrived at the Sanctuary of Madonna del Sorbo but when I walked in and up the road to visit and all I saw were portable toilets – what goes on here? – and as it was too far up to the main building and also very quiet (so probably closed) I continued on my way.
I walked on and eventually I came across a big open area where the local police were talking to some people but a bit further on there were many people assembling for a “walk” in favour of the intellectually and physically handicapped. I saw many others of all ages arriving as I walked on.
On to Formello, taking a new route through the town centre (as I was told it was shorter but I also needed a cappuccino) and it was an interesting place (very old). Had my cappuch in a nice bar and watched the whole town either walk by or else be seated in all the public spaces. I walked through an arch into the older part of town and there just before 11am were all the young people, dressed in long white robes, with their families waiting for their first communion mass. Lovely!
I walked on through lovely old streets and little squares with so many flowering plants.
Then down steep steps to the “foot gate” and straight onto footpaths through the bottom of the valley for a few kilometres.
People walked with dogs and none of them barked! On a woodland path and then on small roads and cyclists went past, participating in some sort of race. When they saw me, the hands went out down the line…but no “ciao” chorus. At one point I met people who had walked 7km for the organized walk and took a photo with them.
Shortly afterwards the waysigns disagreed with my guidebook & I was studying both and a woman relaxing on a grassy spot opposite said the VF went through the woods (which seemed to correspond to my map).
After a few km on a made path I came up on to a small road and followed it but only came to a waysign signaling a secondary VF path (which was longer) but the normal waysigns seemed to have disappeared. So I consulted the guide book again and tried to make sense of where I was (and she spoke of path ‘1’ and ‘2’) but the book seemed to be coming from another direction. I should have been a kilometer or two max from the little town I was headed towards but… I wandered around searching along this road and that until I saw a sign into a field which signalled a number ‘1’ VF path so followed it. Then a storm finally broke right over my head so I quickly kitted myself out for the rain and it poured down as I walked through this field which had some waysigns painted on tree trunks and I continued and then there no more signs.
At that point it not only poured but it started hailing and I tried unsuccessfully to shelter a little under an oak tree but to no avail. I was fully soaked as lightening and thunder were right overhead and by this time my feet, previously dry, were squelching. The lightening and thunder continued…and I decided I had to go back towards the road. As I went I saw a sign I had missed which pointed down to a dirt path through undergrowth so I followed it down, down, down or rather, because it was like a torrent, I walked each side if it. Finally at the bottom and no more signs… I continued on through a field and then another, each lined with trees. At one point I thought there were buildings not far away but there was always a stream lower down hidden behind trees between me and them. I continued on so far from field to field that there was no way I could find my way back (and there was certainly no way I could walk back up that path) so I figured that someone must own these fields and that if I continued long enough I would find a road… On and on and then I saw a sign painted on a tree trunk so I continued till I came to a road, but which way to go as the signs disappeared again!
Then along came three German women walkers! Hallelujah! Karin, Birgitta and Miriam were completely lost and had a GPS but didn’t know where they were. But for me I was blessed to no longer be alone. Karin said we should go in a certain direction and we walked and eventually came to a bitumen road. While walking one of them asked me had I met Enrico whom they’d met several times! There was a farm opposite the end of this road and Karin went up towards the farm to ask for information but I feared no one would be there on Sunday afternoon.
I halted a car and asked someone where La Storta (our final destination) was and she said about 1.5km down the road. I was willing to chance it but then Karin called us to come up. And there we received real Italian hospitality – we were all dripping but ‘no problem, come inside, take your backpacks and vests off’ in the big kitchen-dining room with an enormous table. This family (Rita, Febo, 2 grandchildren and an apprentice bee-keeper from Rome, and a young woman cleaning up) had just finished a late lunch. They brought towels, made us tea, offered food, and said they’d drive us to our accommodation. I tried to look for accommodation in my ‘deluged’ guide book which had been in my trouser pocket (as the others all had somewhere to go) and when Rita saw the state of my poor guide book she optimistically brought me a hairdryer (but it would have taken a long time to be effective…). I turned it on and it blew a fuse! In good Italian fashion, they knew nothing about accommodation in this town so close…so I asked if I could connect to the Internet – another very complicated affair which was finally resolved by the 11 year old grandson – and eventually I made a booking.
Rita was an expert bee-keeper and another woman who is learning this “art” was there as they had planned to move a swarm today but the storm stopped them ( otherwise they wouldn’t have been at home).
Finally Febo, drove us to our various accommodations. I was sitting in the front seat talking to him and it seemed his parents who were in Egypt at the time had sent him to school in Switzerland (because his grandmother had been Swiss) and he had gone to university in Geneva! He goes to Geneva once a month so I said to call me next time and I’ll buy him a drink. He also spoke about the high taxes they pay and that they have no service to show for it…such as the poor wifi, without speaking about the roads…
So into my hotel and everything was completely soaked, except for things inside my waterproof bags in my backpack… I don’t think my walkers, knapsack (even with its waterproof cover some parts got soaked), gloves, jacket, hat, socks, pants, etc, will dry before tomorrow and no pizzeria oven here this evening… I eventually walked 700m along the road to a restaurant and when I was ready to walk back another storm had broken! I had borrowed an umbrella but…
So, I have had the best (I found help in some fellow walkers and the overly generous Italian reception at the end of a harrowing experience) and the worst (being completely lost in rain and a deluge and hail and being wet right through in cooler weather) but I am alive and in La Storta, on the outskirts of Rome, and my knee has held out very well. I will take my last remaining magic pill this evening and hope the effect lasts until I get to Rome tomorrow.
Unfortunately my poor guide book which used to fit into the pocket of my trousers has not withstood two days of pelting rain…and will never recover. I just hope I can prise open the pages I need for tomorrow and the two days after in Rome…
Of course I will be dropping notes into the Suggestion Box of the Via Francigena Association on the state of the waymarkings and the quality of the paths on the final stages of the Via.
Last year when I had to stop walking I received a lovely message from a friend in New York and it comes to mind today as I am at the final stage before entering into Rome, and I’m sure she won’t mind my sharing it with you:
“Oh. On a bus crosstown in New York. Reading these last few installments with tears in my eyes. I wanted to follow you all the way to Rome! But, in fact, this is a great ending to what I’m now thinking of as volume 2 of your walking journal. Will it be a trilogy? Will our friend and heroine arrive in Rome at the end of book 3? Next summer? I can’t wait to find out!”
Me too!
So, let’s see what happens tomorrow.