I am back on the Via Francigena since Sunday 3rd May 2015 & now feel that I can continue longer so will start to give you my news.
Last time you heard from the Via was in June last year so to fill you in I will first publish the walk of the first two stages which I did last August. I will then give you this year’s updates. So here goes…
“And in the beginning…” Here are my impressions from last summer when I slipped away in some finally (!) fine weather in August to the mountains to do the first two day’s walk (on the second half) of the Via Francigena up to and over the Great Saint Bernard Pass which snow had prevented me from doing in May, especially as my tendons were now well-healed & I was encouraged by the following lines from my versifying friend
Taut tendons
thwart
tireless trekkers
treading tricky
tracks
but…….
Toned tendons
taught
techniques
to tackle
taxing tracks
triumph!
5th August 2014 Bourg Saint-Pierre to Great Saint-Bernard Pass – 13.5km
This morning I took the 5.53am bus from home to catch 2 trains and a bus to arrive at Bourg Saint-Pierre at 9.20am to start my walk up to the pass. After a coffee and croissant & a trip to the local municipal centre to get my pilgrim passport stamped I set off on a beautiful morning (you need to know that the summer so far in Switzerland has been very mixed with lots of rain…). I started from 1600 metres altitude and was walking up to the pass at 2450 metres but what with ups and downs I was to walk up 1,100 metres in all. The mountains were spectacular and the path well-marked but unseasonally inundated with the recent rain-water. There were a couple of dams so I walked by two man-made lakes as I went up. One really has to look where one puts each foot so I was thankful to have my sticks to steady me as sometimes I was hopping from one stone to another. One great consolation was the wild-flowers of so many colours and sizes – fantastic! I saw some type of wild dark-red irises which I’d never seen in the mountains before among the whites, yellows, purples, pinks, blues in all tones, of other wildflowers. However, I have to admit that at one point I missed a sign and took a wrong path which became quite hairy but fortunately I met some local people coming down who had been up to see their animals (which are in the higher pastures for the summer) and they were able to set me straight which I was SO pleased about. At times I was a little parallel to the road up to the pass (only open from end May/early June until end September as after that cars have to take the tunnel from further down the mountain) and there were many cars taking it as well as the inevitable (moto) bikies who simply love roaring up mountain roads with all their curves…but also cyclists of all ages battling up and rolling down the curves.
After the final effort up to the pass with the last part over rocks which I thought quite hairy (it took me over 5 hours to do the walk with a couple of breaks for a drink & lunch & to look at the views & flowers) I arrived at the mythical Hospice which has existed here and been continuously open since 1050 AD to house pilgrims (the first Roman road was built in 12 BC although a track over the pass existed long before this). The Hospice is inhabited all year round by the Catholic friars (they are priests, not monks, who also minister to local communities, with lay volunteers in summer) and open for pilgrims or other visitors (who often arrive on skis or snow shoes in winter). I was warmly welcomed with hot tea and given the hours of all meals, religious services, etc. The big stone building of 5 floors is very cosy and welcoming (I have a lovely room under the roof all lined with wood and with a wash-basin while there are modern facilities of 4 showers with plenty of hot water, 6 toilets and 10 wash-basins just along the corridor for people on this floor) with a surprising church in Baroque style on the ground floor as well as a beautiful chapel in the crypt (where I attended sung vespers before dinner). The Saint-Bernard dogs are no longer used for rescues (although they are still bred here in summer) as they are too heavy to transport e.g. in a helicopter, and difficult to train so German Shepherds are now used instead.
I walked around the site which has a lake and a couple of other buildings on the Italian side of the border which is 100 metres from the hospice. There is a plaque outside describing how Napoleon crossed the alps in May 1800 with 46,000 men, animals, equipment, etc – what an incredible feat this must have been…and in the hospice is the monumental marble mausoleum of his favourite general, General Dessaix (who died in battle in 1800) which he, Napoleon, had had sculpted in Paris and then transported here in 1806 at much cost and effort so that “the alps would be his tombstone and the friars would be his guardians”… He commandeered 800 men to transport it here, with many lives lost – just imagining how they got the enormous blocks over the narrow rocky path to the top with vertiginous drops along it boggles the imagination, although when one thinks that Hannibal also crossed the alps (but not here) 2000 years earlier…
After a hearty 4 course meal at long tables in the dining room (at least 60 people with a couple of groups in other rooms) there was a superb concert of Russian music in the church by 3 musicians with 2 balalaikas and a Russian guitar. The musicians are part of a 31 day project of 9 musicians from around the world with the goal of walking from mountain hut to mountain hut each day in the Swiss, French and Italian alps, carrying their instruments on their backs, and giving a concert at night. They said that for the first 6 days (ours was the twelfth day) there was a double base player and an accordian player! And the guitarist was in bare feet as he had terrible foot problems… I met some interesting people at dinner including a French family with 3 young children (the eldest 12 year old was carrying a pack of 10kg and I learnt that the tent in which the 3 children slept weighed 2kg!) who had walked along the full Swiss section of the Via Francigena from Porrentruy in the Swiss Jura and were ending up two days hence in Aosta. I retired to my little room & climbed under the cosy eiderdown & slept like a log for 9 hours.