Day 21 2015) Belgioioso to Orio Litta

Great breakfast in hotel, set off along the route, followed signs faithfully but they varied from guide book (& strip maps) & ended up doing 5km more than planned so took a train at the end (common sense won out!) and then walked to the wonderful ostello in Orio Litta with a warm welcome & only two tiny blisters of no importance (in odd places) which don’t hinder me.  Delicious meal in the ostello with fellow pilgrim offered by the mayor’s wife as the trattoria closed on Tuesdays!  Tomorrow will cross the Po river by ferry and go to Piacenza.

There are some people who should go straight to Heaven when they die and the young woman in the hotel is one of them!  It turns out she is Romanian, in Italy for the last 12 years, is the “fiancée” of the hotel owner/cook, is 35 years old (but doesn’t know when she will get married…) and the older woman with her is her sick mother (has leukaemia) and they do all the work in the hotel with a very bright and generous outlook on the world.  She had set me up a royal breakfast with good cereal, a full array of fruits, biscottes, biscuits, jam, water, tea, then a coffee to finish off with.  All for a minimum cost and a lovely cheery manner.  When she took my passport she remarked that I would have my birthday this week which I’d not thought about.

I left the hotel and walked to Torre de Negri (literally the tower of the blacks) but no tower and when I asked a local man confirmed there was no tower (& “it’s always been like that”).

Walked through flat countryside of the Po valley again.

“All roads lead to Rome” so they say and I can confirm that there are several ways to cover the same territory…among those of my guide book, of the strip maps I have (with GPS coordinates, probably meant for technies or cyclists with GPS), and of the official way signage.    I followed the way with all the signs but realized when I reached the main road I wasn’t where the guide book (or the maps which had taken a completely different route…) said I should be.  As I couldn’t work out where I was and the official signs kept pointing onwards I followed them.  They took me by a very long and circuitous but pleasant route through fields on soft sandy paths and then I came finally to the river which the guide book said I would have to cross on a main road & I met a couple of men whom I think worked for the canal maintenance enterprise (there were many canals as I was back in rice paddies and corn fields) and I asked how far it was to the town of yesterday’s mechanic and was told I was on the way to Santa Cristina, the following town!  So I plodded on and finally got there after confirming with passers-by several times that I was on the right track (& at least I didn’t have to risk my life walking along a busy main road without footpaths as per the route of the guide book…) One group of 3 women in a very small place, seeing that I was walking through the fields alone, said I should be very careful (another just raised her eyes to the heavens) but on my way I only encountered farmers who were working their fields and all gave me a cheery wave.  When I arrived in Santa Cristina, I had done  4 km more than the guide book said I should – already 12 instead of 8 km – & promptly met one of the women I’d seen before (she’d said it was roughly 1.5km when it was in fact 3) as she’d come by car…  After a well-earned cappuccino I moved on to a 4km track beside the railway line with a dry canal between the two (as specified in the guide book).  Fine for a while then the track seemed to peter out with high grass and weeds ahead and the signs said to go away from it along a dirt road.  I did this for 500m but was going further away from the railway line so back-tracked and then had to fight my way through the metre-high grass but could see that the track has been used so was comforted but fearful of tripping up…and all the time the canal bed about 4 metres below me was dry and flat.  I had seen that there were some paved tracks down to it near little covered water channels which crossed over it and that tractors had been down there so at the next opportunity I took to the canal and then prayed that there would be another paved track up out of it further along as I knew I could not climb up its steep sides with my rucksack.  You can perhaps imagine my relief when I saw a path up out of it as I’d imagined I might be backtracking…  And when I got up again the track was much better.  To cut a long story short when I came to the railway station I had already done 17km and the guide book said I had another 11 to do!  As my mother always said that one of the best attributes to have in life was “good old garden common sense” (& which I think I am singularly lacking at times) I took stock of the situation with respect to my feet & when I went into the bar next to the station I asked about the next train (10 minutes later!) so I quickly bought a ticket for two stations and then that would have left me about 3km to walk.  So I jumped on the train which was mostly transporting secondary students homewards and when I was getting off I decided to jump on and go all the way!  It was just then that the conductor came along to check the ticket which I had to get out of a transparent pouch holding my maps around my neck but as I was fossicking to undo it he could see part of it folded through the plastic and said OK, so I didn’t have to show that I had gone a station further than I’d paid for (perhaps it would have been the same price)…  So I walked into the village of Orio Litta approx 1.5 km from the station  and was sitting down in a little piazza just about to eat a late lunch when a man came to show me to the ostello where a lady who does everything (like in my previous hotel) welcomed me and showed me around the truly magnificent building.  About 5pmthe mayor (& to whose wife we had spoken in the morning to reserve a bed) turned up in cycling clothes to stamp my “passport” & receive my donation for the night.  I spoke to him (who is also a primary school teacher) about cycling & about my nephew who would be riding in the Giro which starts this week so he asked for Michael’s name & insisted on a “selfie” with me as the relation of Michael!

Those who read me on the Via last year might remember the importance of the church declaring a holy or jubilee year…well this ostello dates from the 13th century and was almost completely fallen down but rebuilt and renovated in the year 2000, a jubilee year (when money must be available for such projects).  It is a truly beautiful place.  The mayor told me he’d see me at the trattoria where I intended having dinner and mentioned that he had met a Spanish pilgrim (while he was out cycling) who would be arriving for the night. He, Gonzalo, eventually arrived, a lovely young man from Madrid who had walked everywhere (from Madrid into France last year where he had an accident & he restarted this year and has been walking incredible distances to arrive here)!

I went out to the trattoria but, guess what, it’s closed on Tuesdays.  I met a woman in the street & asked her where I could eat & she said she’d show me to a pizzeria but took me via the mayor’s house & rang the bell & his wife came out & offered to make me a meal & I was embarrassed and said “no thanks” but she insisted so I said we’d be two (with the Spanish pilgrim) & so Pier-Liuigi (the mayor) turned up a little while later with a big dish of pasta with a tuna & tomato sauce, a mixed salad, 4 boiled eggs, bread, packets of biscuits & a bottle of wine!  Soooo generous!

In the meantime he had also looked up Michael on the Internet and asked if Michael could send him an autograph(!) which I promised to arrange. I saw Gonzalo caring for enormous blisters which he said he pierced but he just had to be careful of infection – no Compeed for him…  So I had a delicious and interesting meal with Gonzalo (in a mixture of languages as I’ve lost so much of my Spanish since learning Italian), a real pilgrim who is searching for something, and who has limited resources (as he says, “money for eating but not for sleeping” – he’d slept in the street in Belgioioso as the priest would not let him into the hostel if he didn’t pay €20…).  While eating I asked him if he’d walked through the long grass and he said Yes, until he saw a snake when he quickly opted to walk along the railway line…gave me the shivers to think what I’d escaped but fortunately I had had long trousers on.   The mayor didn’t expect a donation from him to sleep the night and he is travelling with  nothing but the names of his stopping points written on a piece of paper (information gleaned from other pilgrims & when I expressed surprise he said that you always meet someone to help you…) as compared to me with guide book, maps, Garmin watch, etc!  The mayor also telephoned to Danilo the ferry-man to pick us up tomorrow morning to cross the Po – he’ll come for us at 9am.  Gonzalo didn’t know about the ferry & if he’d followed the signage he’d have done several more km…  Am off to bed in my room in the “torretta” (little tower) as we have to walk the 3km to the ferry for the 20 minute ride across the Po River.    What generosity of spirit and it certainly showed in the faces of both the mayor and his wife (who thanked the lady for bringing me to her!).  I will have a blessed sleep tonight.

Today’s highlights and things seen & learnt today

– Am back in Juventus territory again with the team’s flag flying from many balconies as the team has just won the Italian championship…but Gonzalo was teasing the mayor as the Juve must have just lost a match to Real Madrid…

– Missed Corteolona so no chance to see the mechanic & a ride on his moto!

– Missing the snake in the grass…

– Such generous welcome in Orio Litta