7th May 2015 (my birthday).
From Piacenza to Fiorenzuola d’Arda – 27.25 km
Fine weather, mostly with a light breeze, but at the end very threatening thunder and black skies to the west, with rain for the final kilometre.
Short version:
Bad breakfast, long stretches walking along a dangerous main road, good cappuccino stop, finally off the main road & zig-zagging over country roads in cultivated fields, having to “ford” two fast-flowing streams, doing many more km than the guide book said, finally arriving at the destination on the edge of the threatening storm further away and then having to walk a further 1.5 km to the hotel in rain, but very happy to arrive! Very so-so birthday dinner but good glass of Prosecco!
Longer version:
What an eventful birthday!
I have never had such an awful birthday breakfast. The Italian breakfast (especially in cheap accommodation, although not in Belgioioso!) is really bad with mostly sweet breads and biscuits – how could so many extraordinary constructions of all types and beautiful works of art have been created on such a breakfast?
Anyway I set off with a high heart and then walked 4.5km on a straight very busy road through the outskirts of Piacenza. At the beginning there were footpaths but these soon disappeared and I kept crossing the road to find them when I thought “the grass looked greener on the other side of the fence” but only to be often disappointed…
After a couple of km who did I see coming towards me but my pilgrim friend Gonzalo walking back into Piacenza to meet a pilgrim friend for lunch(?). He was intending to go to the same town as me this evening…
I stopped for a cappuccino to have a break from the awful traffic careering beside me and went into a renovated cafe which had plate glass windows at the back onto a lovely old-fashioned garden so I sat out there and savoured my morning treat. A big shrub of my favourite peony roses was about to bloom.
Back on to the road which is the ancient Via Emelia going to Rome and the locals still refer to it as that. I walked on for another straight 8 km on this road praying for my life before being able to get off onto small paved roads/gravel roads which zig-zagged all over the countryside and which eventually led me to my destination. I found that it was better to keep on the bitumen (or even on the gravel) than to go on the grassy verges which are uneven, take longer to walk over and cause the feet to slip around… The land was very flat and although I only saw fields of corn, wheat, etc, Danilo had said that this is a major area for tomato cultivation. There were many big important looking farmhouses & buildings but also many deserted and dilapidated buildings. In several places I saw signs for asparagus festivals this weekend so these must also be grown here. Hope I find some this weekend.
At one point I had just stopped to tighten my shoe laces to stop my feet slipping around in my shoes, then encountered two horrible barking dogs on the road which I had to fend off with my sticks, when I came to a stream which the guide book had said to “ford” but I didn’t think it meant literally this! A few times the book had said canals, streams or rivers would probably be dry but they were all flowing (it’s been a very wet spring) so I should not have been surprised to be confronted by 10-20 cm of water…but I was! So after considering my options and thinking of what Archbishop Sigeric had had to confront in 990, I got as close as I could to the water before taking off shoes and socks and tentatively walking through the fast flowing water…only to get to the other side (a little stone dirt road up) when a fellow comes the other way in a big 4 wheel drive and he had to wait for me to get out of his way. I started to greet him but he just ignored me and drove on by so I had no regrets at not waiting for him to come as there was no way he’d have been ready to back back across the stream with me on board.
So I got my self all kitted-up again and walked on only to find another such stream less than a km further on but this one much deeper, so I had to roll my trousers up to my knees & repeat the whole process. However it was very refreshing for my feet…so all was not for nothing. By this time, I was really beginning to have doubts about the kilometrage marked in my guide book as the route was exactly the same as my maps which predicted 26 km whereas the book said it would be 19… So forewarned is forearmed for the future. It is really good having the maps as they provide a visual guide to the descriptions in the guide book.
Over to the west it was getting very dark indeed and then I heard rolling thunder so my feet picked up speed as I didn’t want to be caught in a storm. I arrived in Fiorenzuola and asked two people where the street of my hotel, or the hotel itself, was but guess what, the first two people I asked weren’t from there – they were from Rome and Florence! But another local turned up and said I should follow “the Emilia” to the other side of town but to be careful with the traffic!
So I plodded on and by this time it was raining but I didn’t bother to put my waterproof jacket on or to put the waterproof cover over my rucksack (all my possessions are safely stowed in waterproof bags inside the rucksack) as I just wanted to arrive, after what finished up being more than 27km on the road.
I was so pleased to find a reasonable and clean room with bathroom that I thought I was in Heaven. One really has to study the possibilities for accommodation before deciding where to walk to as many small places have no accommodation at all.
I have had a glass of Prosecco and a so-so meal in the hotel restaurant and will be sleeping well tonight! Tomorrow I will go to Fidenza (the seat of the Via Francigena association which I will visit) and stay two nights and have a rest and wash some clothes. Both guide book and map agree that it should be about a 17-18km walk so we’ll see.
Today’s highlights were
– daisies which appeared in big clumps along a stretch of a small road
– a video surveillance sign on a deserted country road so I wondered where the camera was and why it was there
– a moving memorial to a 20 year old resistance fighter on a country road who was killed in 1944 by the German army but who has not been forgotten as there was a big laurel wreath placed there, possibly on 25th April the anniversary of the liberation of Italy
– first live encounter with horrible barking dogs which I had to fend off
– fording 2 streams and being none the worse for it!
– becoming aware that my guide book might be misleading…