2nd June 2015 Ponte d’Arbia to near Torrenieri on foot for 15km, lift in a truck to Torrenieri, taxi to San Quirico d’Orcia, ambulance to Nottola hospital near Montepulciano, taxi to Chiusi, train to Florence!! What a day.
Beautiful weather.
Shorter version:
After breakfast with my room-mates, I set off towards Buonconvento then towards Torrenieri, finally in my favourite part of Tuscany the Val d’Orcia! In the midst of the Brunello di Montalcino vineyards. Started having problems with my knee and finally a few km later it was so difficult to walk that I was able to hitch a ride into Torrenieri. Taxi to San Quirico d’Orcia, them ambulance to hospital near Montepulciano & next a taxi to Chiusi on the start of my way home. Finally to Florence by train for o’night stay. No more Via for me at the moment…but while disappointed I am so grateful for what I have seen and experienced and the encounters I have had! All well.
Longer version: (& quite long…so get a cup of tea)
One of the very best as well as the most difficult day of my Via. This was the second of the three days which I thought would be the biggest challenge of the Via (all very long stages and ending up at 800m in Radicofani), one down & two to go, as I thought that if I could get through these I would have a chance of getting to Rome…but I kept reminding myself, one step at a time.
Woke early, refreshed after a really good night’s sleep & didn’t even hear the woman who was apparently snoring next to me… The Italian group kindly said I should eat breakfast with them and they were very welcoming & sent me off with a marmalade sandwich!
On my way out of the village I walked via the bar for an early cappuch & found five men from the group there having a coffee also!
I set off before 8 and the scenery of the rising mist on the multiple valleys was so beautiful.
Gravel road on flat terrain, across country for 6km into the old bourg of Buonconvento where I hoped to get some food as the following stretch to Torrinieri, 12km, would be in deep countryside with nothing available and I had only learned the night before that today is the Italian national day so a public holiday…
However a delightful bar was open so I had a coffee and even had a delicious tiny jam tart with it (the bar woman said they came from a well-known pastry shop in Sienna). Then I found an alimentari where the woman (the women which run these little shops are fantastic) made me a sandwich of tuna, artichokes, and pepperoni and packaged it in two separate wrappings of grease-proof paper, then a paper bag with serviettes, then a little plastic bag, so I was set up for the day. Walked through the older section of the now small town which has some of its 13th C city walls intact and a couple of gates remaining through them (in the past it had numerous inns and hospices).
All this was set in a rolling landscape with either a large farm or a castle on every hill-top. I took an older, shorter and flatter route out of town (as per my guide book and map) but all signage has been removed to encourage pilgrims to take the newly-marked hillier, longer and quieter route. I followed a railway line on a path covered by grass, sometimes quite high but I was careful in watching out for snakes! Back onto a main road and then quickly onto a quieter road going to Montalcino (with a well-made path for walkers beside it) for a couple of km and I was now in what I consider to be the jewel of Tuscany, my favourite Val d’Orcia (which I first discovered in 1996 and have revisited several times since).
I could see Montalcino on top of a hill in the distance and saying to myself Thank goodness I don’t have to walk up there… Then I was on small excellent dirt roads but going up-hill all the time. My knee was starting to give me problems so I tried to apply my best Nordic-walking technique (which takes 20% pressure off the knees) but it was still painful.
The countryside was simply mind-blowing with the beautiful and so healthy-looking vineyards like a sea of shining green with rose bushes in full bloom at the end of the rows of vines (to test for any disease) and not a weed to be seen anywhere, olive trees, rows and rows of cypress trees lining roads wherever one looked, pine-nut trees, and fields of crops and some fields with cut hay with the bales strewn around, more undulating and yellowy than further north.
However the road was still going up and up and I now was more looking across towards Montalcino instead of up at it! I was making very slow progress what with stopping often to look at the views, to lament my knee, to study every word describing the route in the guide book to try to work out how much distance I still had to cover and the inclines etc…and trying to will the distance to be shortened.
I was also going past a beautiful fattoria or two where I could finally have tasted wine! These were very good but unfrequented roads after the fattorias but I could hardly walk on and progress slowed further until, when I still had about 3km to go, I finally decided to ask the next vehicle for help. So I sat down under a road-side tree and ate my delicious sandwich and drank some water (to lessen my load) while awaiting a possible lift. After a while an old man came along in a little vehicle but he looked very fearfully at me and refused. A second one was only going to his vines so I continued on slowly as thinking I had to keep moving on…and eventually, as I was speaking to a couple of Spaniards on bikes, a third farm vehicle with an unprepossessing-looking driver in overalls came along the road. When I asked for help along for a km or two he looked at me doubtfully and then got out to put my sack and sticks into the back muttering to himself, as if acting against his better judgement, “when one is good, one is good!” (as he explained people who were sick of walking had asked for help in the past) but we were soon chatting away and he has vineyards but sells his grapes to the Consorzio of Brunello who vinify them.
He kindly took me all the way into Torrenieri and left me at the bus stop opposite a bar. It appeared that a bus “just might” come along (public holiday so Sunday timetable) so I went up steps into the bar opposite (another Circolo) but no-one knew about buses so I asked about a taxi. They all knew “the” taxi driver but no answer to his phone but he “might come in later”. No sooner said than done and he drove me to San Quirico d’Orcia and, again kindly, right to the bottom of steps leading up to the main little piazza where the church, hostel and main municipal building were.
Got up there where a man saw me struggling and came towards me and took my rucksack and showed me to a water fountain and gestured that I should drink (before he knew I spoke Italian). Then he, Marco, discussed my situation with the woman municipal police officer in the main palazzo on the piazza and called 118 for assistance as there was no medical centre in the town, just two doctors who would work tomorrow. Marco lived elsewhere and had come to San Quirico to visit his partner and was my new angel and he stayed with me for over an hour and a half until we had spoken by telephone to the doctor on call who said I’d need an X-Ray so better to go to hospital. Then the ambulance turned up & I was taken away in style (4 men) while Marco said he’d notify the hostel which opened at 16h00 of my problem. So kind of him as I kept saying that he should go and how embarrassed I was to take his time on his day off but “no problem” and his partner arrived just before the ambulance came to see what the situation was.
On the way to the hospital we came upon an accident where a motorcyclist had lost control of his bike so we stopped to help but another ambulance arrived to take over. The ambulance men were all volunteers who had other jobs and who worked when they had time off… They stayed with me at the hospital until I’d been taken into care. One sold pizza and gelato so was impressed when I showed him the photo of the gelato “flower” from Fidenza!
Eventually I got to see a woman doctor who said I probably had a ligament problem but that they didn’t have the machine to do the scan. She gave me an ice pack and a couple of painkillers & I was on my way without paying anything as no office open and all too complicated to do anything else. I got a taxi to Chiusi (which came from Chiusi to pick me up) to the train station as previously it had been possible to take a night train from Rome to Geneva from there, and another angel entered my life. Anelio drove me through the extraordinarily beautiful countryside in the soft light of the late afternoon over 20km to the station where he proceeded to come in and help me buy a ticket (he knew the man at the ticket office and seemed to also know a lot about the various train possibilities) and stayed for ages until it seemed (night train no longer operates…) the easiest thing would be to go to Florence 30 mins later as impossible to get tickets for further on… He took me to the platform with my rucksack & sure enough he came back 20mins later to help me get on the train in the right carriage!
What a privilege to have encountered all these incredibly kind souls and how grateful I am to them. Into Florence at 21h00 & the ticket office no longer open so I had to walk to find a hotel nearby (with access to wifi as I wanted to look for a flight as trains looked pretty difficult) and eventually found one on the second floor on a building with three small private hotels in it. I got onto the Internet and found a flight for tomorrow late morning. So no dinner, as no restaurant within “easy” walking distance, but was assured I could get home. All’s well that ends well.
As I went to bed I was reflecting on how one’s life can change so unexpectedly (as a friend one said to me “life is what happens to you when you are busy planning it”…). I had had a wonderful day with the incredible beauty I had seen, the unexpected kindness of so many people, and now some deception at not being able to continue on to Rome at this time…but I am so grateful for so much and this thought accompanied me into my dreams.