After returning to Piacenza, Chad and I continued our pilgrimage south. The first day we walked a short distance to the town of Pontenture where we were welcomed in like family.
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| Pontenture |
The pilgrimage accommodation there didn't have any beds but they allowed us to sleep on the floor of their sports team locker room. Unfortunately the soccer team had practice until ten that evening so in the meantime we were not able to get in. All that afternoon we hung out in the town club house which was very similar to our Boys and Girls Club. Every Friday night the kids in the town cook a communal dinner and eat together and so a bunch of 16 year olds cooked us dinner that night and we ate with all of them and a priest. The dinner was simple but filling and the company was very enjoyable. A few of the kids could speak some English and I was able to translate most of the other conversation for Chad. We were asked a lot about the election between Trump and Hillary. Throughout this trip, locals would ask our opinions on the US election and who we wanted to win. We had to think of a good answer since they all seemed to want to know exactly what we thought of the situation. It really brought home how ignorant the US is about international affairs.
After the soccer team was done using the locker room the floor was a mess of sod, dirt and rain so one of the gentlemen cleaned up the whole room for us. That night was a little rough sleeping on the floor of the bathroom. Chad had a very rough night laying straight on the cold bathroom tiles since he had given me the sleeping pad to sleep on. The next day was the start of several weeks of walking in and out of rain-- but on the plus side an elderly man bought us our coffees the next morning, which Chad reallyyy needed :)
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| Trucking along! |
An hour or so into the walk we passed by a gorgeous castle surrounded by colorful vineyards and trees. This is the Castle of Paderna. First documented in the 11th century it has been heavily remodeled since then.
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| Outdoor oven |
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| The castle's vineyards |
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| Break time! |
Legend states that the prison in the castle is heavily haunted by the headless ghost of a man wrongly sentenced to death. Apparently the current owners have stated that a skeleton was found during recent excavations without a skull-- while this could be true I think it sure helps lure in the tourists...
Leaving the castle, Chad and I continued walking along back roads until it started drizzling. Shouldering our ponchos we continued doggedly ahead. We were stopped a while later by a man in a Semi who wanted to give us a ride to the next town. We awkwardly clambered up the steep steps into the cabin of the vehicle, both of us still wearing our huge bags, and profusely thanked the man. We had thought he was taking us to Fiorenzuola-d'Arda, the town we were planning to stay at that night, but instead he drove us to another town that ended up being a little ways further away from Fiorenzuola. So in the end, after a break in a cafe for a coffee and drying our feet, we started walking again with an added two kilometers to our distance that day!
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| Petting tiny horses in Roveleto |
Fiorenzuola was an adorable town and our accommodation was right next to the parish church in the main square. It was rather damp still that evening and Chad walked a short distance around the corner for some pizza and then went to bed early. I was getting a sore throat and wanted to try to nip the cold in the bud if I could. I had been surprised that I had had such good health leading up to that point but we can't win them all!
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| Chad ripping my shirt with his giant muscles. |
The next day on our walk to Fidenza we passed by the famous Abbey of Chiaravalle della Colomba. This 12th century Cistercian church is still a practicing religious order and some sort of mass was just getting out while we walked by the abbey.
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| Just so we knew where we were!! |
Fidenza was a little bit of a let down to me honestly. The town was quaint and attractive but I had thought it was around the same size as Piacenza and it was definitely much smaller! We stopped at a Decathlon on the outskirts of the town to get a sleeping pad for Chad and a warm headband for me. The weather was definitely cool and wet for the remainder of our walk to Rome and I was constantly wearing slightly damp layers trying to stay warm!
After arriving in Fidenza we tried to find accommodation at one church only to find, after talking to the tiny and elderly sisters of the church, that I could spend the night but they didn't accept men! So one woman called to see if we could stay at a hostel next to the cathedral. Since it was Sunday, it was hard to get ahold of anyone but luckily the man walked over from his house and let us into the hostel. We had a gorgeous view of the Cathedral from our bedroom window and enjoyed a Skype call with my parents that night.
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| Italian hot chocolate! Sooo rich and chocolatey! |
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| View from our bedroom window! |
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| Every cafe has snacks! |
From Fidenza we started entering the foothills of the Apennine mountains! It was so nice to be back in some interesting areas since we were very bored of the rice and corn fields that we had been walking through the last few weeks. It was mostly drizzling these days but the rain didn't dim the gorgeous greenery of the landscape and the golden reds and yellows of the falling leaves.
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| Leaving Fidenza |
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| Fall colors |
We stopped a night in the small hill town of Costamezzana which had an amazing pilgrim hostel. We also ate dinner and breakfast the next morning at Lo Scoiattolo (the squirrel) where the owner came and chatted with us and made us a delicious two course meal with wine!
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| Costamezzana church |
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| The fall colors were gorgeous in Costamezzana |
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| Fruit trees |
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| Walking around town that afternoon- it was a tiny town haha |
The next day was a very difficult walk for us! The terrain was incredibly hilly as we traveled through the foothills of the Apennines The soil here was mostly clay so the dirt paths we walked along had become giant mud slicks in the wet and rain!
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| The scenery was so beautiful though! |
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| Muddy paths |
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| Snack time- I loved the Ketchup flavored chips so much and Chad thought it was the grossest thing! |
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| Italian farms |
That day we had several hard hill climbs both up and down on very slick muddy paths. It made for very tough walking. It was kind of funny, we could see deer tracks on some of the paths slipping and sliding around in the mud! I even slipped and fell on my knee on the way down one particular hill, though luckily I wasn't hurt at all.
The clay was so sticky when we walked through it that it would stick to our feet and the further we'd walk the more would cling to our feet until we were carrying an extra ten pounds of weight in mud on each of our feet! We quickly learned to shake our feet and try to fling some of the heavy clay off every ten steps or so!
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| You can see the mud clumps on the bottom of my feet! |
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| Precarious! |
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| There are no words to express how steep this hill was! You can't even tell in this picture!! |
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| Mud clumps |
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| So steep and muddy! |
Finally we made it to the top of a ridge that we followed until it led down into the town of Fornovo-di-Taro. Along the ridge were some beautiful fall colors!
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| Fresh water |
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| Following the ridge-line |
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| The Taro River |
When we arrived at Fornovo-di-Taro tired, weary and mud-stained we had such a craving for meat-- I swear, all we ate was carbs all the time!-- that we walked to the local supermarket and bought a rotisserie chicken to eat for dinner. Unfortunately it was overcooked and a bit leathery but we were still sated.
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| Welcome pilgrims... |
Fornovo-di-Taro was a small town that had been an important roadway settlement in Roman times on the Parma-Lucca road. In the Middle Ages the traffic consisted of pilgrims, merchants and brigands, all of whom joined together to climb up the mountain pass to the coastal and southern areas beyond. We stayed next to the church of Santa Maria which had a statue of a pilgrim in its facade to indicate the way of the route.
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| Pilgrim to Rome- model from the broken pilgrim on the church |
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| Santa Maria |
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| A delightful Romanesque Hell scene! |
The next day we began our true ascent to the Cisa Pass but we kept our day short and stopped in the teeny tiny town of Sivizzano.
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| It was pretty foggy the higher we climbed that day |
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| The trail isn't always beautiful vistas and picturesque towns... |
In Sivizzano, a town of eight buildings, there is a chapel and pilgrim hospital that had been founded in 1098 by monks from a French monastery. We spent the afternoon resting and reading, preparing ourselves for the strenuous days ahead of us. At the pilgrim house we met three Germans and a French woman whom we spent a lovely dinner with at the lone bar in town.
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| Let's do this |
The next day we walked with a young German woman named Marie during the morning. Marie also had walked from Canterbury and we'd see her off and on for the next two weeks before finally parting ways in San Gimignano. Marie was around 23 years old and spoke perfect English. It was really great getting to know her over the next few weeks and every time we'd walk with her we would have interesting conversations about our trips so far. She was the only pilgrim that I met this whole trip who started in Canterbury and was planning on walking the whole thing in one go!! She had been going quite a bit faster than me though as she had started in Canterbury at the beginning of September!
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| Marie had gotten her walking stick in Pontarlier |
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| A pilgrim sign and water fountain |
That day the climb was very steep and tiring! We were walking in and out of fog the whole morning but whenever the fog abated the views were phenomenal.
Once the fog dissipated the views were spectacular and the trees were so colorful!
There were some beautiful rock formations as well.
We walked on a combination of trails and roads since the weather had been so wet we couldn't trust all the trails. Here is one trail marked by the two red dots!
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| So pretty! And dangerous! |
Right before we descended into the valley town of Berceto, we walked along a mountain ridge that offered us gorgeous views through the mountain range!
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| Walking along the ridge |
The fall colors were in full force and even though the paths were slick-muddy-exhausting messes, the whole day was very enjoyable. We ended that day in Berceto, staying with Marie and the Frenchwoman in a Boys and Girls Club-type accommodation again. It was quite brisk that night and all of us had washed our clothes so none of our things were dry by the next morning! Luckily, Chad and I had refueled with a delicious two course meal at a quaint little Osteria in town.
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| Pilgrim sign entering Berceto |
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| Berceto Duomo |
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| St Peter holding the key to Rome |
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| Statue called "The pilgrim on the Via Francigena" |
The next day we walked along the road because the trails were very slippery and wet and after three hours we reached the Cisa Pass!
It was such a relief to reach the pass because, for me at least, this could arguably be the hardest section of the Via Francigena. At 1041 meters, the Cisa Pass is only half the altitude of the Grand Saint Bernard Pass but we climbed the whole section in only two days so those two days were very strenuous. It was shorter, steeper and slicker than the Grand Saint Bernard Pass-- but just as beautiful I think!
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| The Chapel of Nostra Signora della Guardia-- we decided not to climb to the top *sheepish grin* |
In Medieval times, the town council of Parma stated that anyone who lived near this chapel would be exempt from taxes. They did this to encourage the growth of the population on the pass to make the route a little safer since it was very dangerous and plagued by bandits!
We met up with Marie and the Frenchwoman at the top and enjoyed a coffee and some cake before splitting ways again on the walk down. Once we crossed the Cisa Pass we entered the region of Tuscany!
The trees were still golden red and vibrant and the weather was a bit drier, we even got some sun!
At one point in the middle of an uninhabited and wooded section of the road we came across a memorial with pictures for two British soldiers- both of whom were pilots during WWII- who were shot down in the area and died. It was such an interesting thing to see in this small cloistered section of Italy.
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| Chad tanning his legs! |
On the walk down we passed through a tiny ghost town that was equal parts creepy, endearing and quaint! Though Chad just thought it was creepy...
The route down from the Cisa Pass was definitely brutal on our knees though. The Frenchwoman ended up needing to hitchhike since it was so painful. After this walk I ended up having issues with my knee for the remainder of the trek too. Though I did have a prior injury on my knee this really was the section that aggravated it.
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| A true cathouse... There are at least nine kitties in this photo! |
We walked through several tiny villages of perhaps fifty people during this section. Each town had a memorial to their soldiers that died in the two wars. Each memorial usually had two or three names on it, and sometimes the soldiers had the same last name. One could imagine that these young men had been brothers or even cousins.
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| A burnt ruin of a church |
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| Derp! |
After a lengthy walk downhill we reached the beautiful medieval village of Pontremoli.
Pontremoli is an adorable little town perched on a Y in the Magra River. It had been a very important town in the Middle Ages for both pilgrims and travelers as it was the first (or last) inhabited town before the perilous and bandit-ridden Apennine Mountain pass at Cisa. The town is dominated by the Piagnaro Castle which is built at the top of the hill with tiny close-set stone houses, windy streets and hidden courtyards spilling out from its base to the river below.
The name 'Pontremoli' means 'trembling bridge,' the town having been named after the main medieval bridge which must have trembled at some point (history is silent on this point).
That night Chad and I stayed in a very nice abbey with single rooms for each pilgrim (an unheard of luxury thus far!) and crossed over to the modern side of the town to eat at the Osteria San Francesco e il Lupo, which had an incredible pilgrim menu and sent us home well fed!
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| Osteria San Francesco e il Lupo |
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| I accidentally forgot my camera at the restaurant and the owner (who took a photo of himself as a joke) gave it back the next day after I arrived in a flurry of panic! |
We had gone to bed right after dinner, both of us exhausted from the walk down, so we didn't get a chance to explore Pontremoli that night. I really wanted to explore the town a bit before we left the next day so Chad and I headed over to the medieval section and strolled along the winding streets up to the castle above.
It was the Saturday market and we stopped at a stall to get some rotisserie chicken and some sort of meat wrapped in bacon. We were craving meaty protein all the time!
Pontromoli had the most adorable painted benches. Each one painted with different colors, words and designs.
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| This one was my favorite |
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| Pontremoli History: A Illustrated Bench! |
The town had a similar feel to the Cinque Terre (which are only about 50 kilometers North of here) with tight meandering streets and a magical feel!
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| We climbed up to the castle to have a look around the valley |
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| A view inside on of the town's medieval towers |
On our way out of Pontremoli I really wanted to see the medieval labyrinth carved in stone in the San Pietro church. Labyrinths traditionally were symbols for the route of the pilgrim and while they used to be quite common in pilgrimage churches and sites many of them have been destroyed. Reims had had a famous labyrinth in its floor before it was destroyed in 1779 by Canons who were tired of children playing in the labyrinth during mass!!
Unfortunately when we arrived the church was closed but I stopped a passerby and asked if she knew when the church would open. Seeing that we were pilgrims she went to a nearby house and asked a caretaker to come open the church for us so we could see the labyrinth. Ten minutes later a little old lady tottered down the stairs and unlocked the doors for me. When I saw the labyrinth I was surprised how small it really was and wanted to take a picture but there was a sign forbidding photography. I asked the old lady and she handed me a newspaper article to take a picture of. Seeing my disappointment she vaguely waved to the altar and said she had to do something over there and to "do what you need" while she was gone! Pictures in hand I thanked her profusely and set off with Chad!
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| Pontremoli labyrinth |
Since we had had a late start that day we needed to rush in order to get to Aulla before sunset at 5:30. The walk was around 28 kilometers which would usually take us a whole day but we took several shortcuts on minor roads that shortened the distance to the midway point.
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| Size of boyfriend next to size of dream car... |
Once we took a break to consider our plan of attack for the last leg we decided to cut across a bridge to the other side of the river and follow a main road for the remaining distance. This shortened the route considerably! After crossing the river we met a little old man working in his garden. He saw that we were pilgrims and advised us to go back the other way because this route was "molto pericoloso" and there were "molte macchine".
It was getting close to sunset and Chad and I were pretty tired by that point (very weary from the descent the day before) and so we thanked the old man but continued on our way going the more dangerous route with lots of cars... Man were we stupid! This road was a main road between the Northern coastal towns and Aulla, Lucca and the interior of Italy (aside from the highway that is). It was also a winding road following a hillside with less than a foot of shoulder to walk on! There was nothing to do but walk as fast as we could and as tight to the railing as possible! It was a terrifying and death-defying experience! It was also about eight kilometers long... two hours of walking! Chad and I decided to never ignore someones advice like that again!
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| After leaving the death road we proceeded on this old railway for the last kilometer while our heart rates calmed down |
Eventually, against all odds, we reached the town of Aulla and walked to the Abbey of San Caprasio. This is an old religious house that has hosted pilgrims for hundreds of years.
The city of Aulla was a very modern town except for the fortress on a hilltop overlooking the town. This is because the historic center had been completely destroyed by Allied bombing in 1943 when they were trying to hit the German troops stationed in Aulla.
We arrived at the abbey to a very warm welcome! We met Marie at the hostel as well! We went out to dinner and with our harrowing experience of walking that day behind us, we slept very well that night!
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| Traditional pilgrim outfit! |
Before we set out the next morning I explored the remains of the 8th century church. This abbey church would've been around when Sigeric the Serious walked this route in 990 AD! The main body of the church had been rebuilt after it was destroyed in WWII. Apparently during excavations they found a 500 pound English bomb that fell into the church but never exploded!
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| Modern Apse |
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| 8th century baptismal font |
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| 8th century apse |
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| The Aulla fortress |
From Aulla Chad and I will walk along the coast before cutting east inland through Tuscany. Almost to Rome!
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