Day 46 - Sutri to Campagnano di Roma- Thursday July 30, 2015

Breakfast today was at 7:30am, and we hadn’t yet heard back from Beppe so we entered our request to get a ride with the baggage transfer to Campagnano di Roma on the phone and translated it into Italian. There was a lady here this morning serving breakfast, and we negotiated with her about getting a ride. She was saying the taxi would come at 3pm and Russell was agreeing. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

Breakfast was the worst so far, corn flakes and milk, box juice, coffee, and packaged croissants that looked like they had already spent way too much time in the cellophane. After breakfast we went up to our room and brought down our luggage.

I was not happy with a 3pm departure time. I figured there was enough to do in Sutri to keep us busy until 11am, then we could have a coffee and be ready to go at noon. I had told Russell to ask for a noon departure time. Instead of doing that he said we wanted to leave in the afternoon, and whatever time she liked was fine. She was actually calling a cab to take us (ie, it wasn’t someone from the hotel doing the transfer) for heaven’s sake, so Russell should have just told her what time we wanted to go. There would be nothing to do here between I2:30pm to 3pm because of siesta, and we wouldn’t even have a room where we could go to relax. When we came back down I tried to explain to her we wanted to leave at noon, and she called the taxi driver, again, and we all agreed on 1:30pm. Better.

Sutri is a town of ancient origins with places and monuments dating from the Etruscan, Roman, and medieval periods. Fortified high on tufa rocks, it controlled the commerce in this part of Etruria and its prosperity grew with the construction of the Cassia, a great artery of traffic between Rome and the northern regions. It survived several hard battles between Etruscans and Romans, finally becoming ruled as a municipality of Rome in around the 12^th century.

Its primary splendor was in the Etruscan time period, and its ancient remains are a major draw for tourism, including: a Roman amphitheater excavated in the tuff rock, an Etruscan necropolis with dozens of rock-cut tombs, a Mithraeum incorporated in the crypt of its church of the Madonna del Parto, and a Romanesque Duomo.

The amphitheater of Sutri is one of the most evocative ancient monuments of the Lazio. It’s entirely dug in the cliff of soft tufa rock, with a major axis of 49 meters and a minor axis of 40 meters. It was constructed with Etruscan techniques and workers between the end of the 1^st century BC and the beginning of the 2^nd century AD. 

The Etruscan necropolis is also carved in the rock. 64 tombs are still visible, dated from 3^rd century BC to 1^st century AD.

We had a tour of the Mithraeum, which is a small Mithraic temple, erected in classical antiquity by the worshippers of Mithras. The Mithraeum was an adapted natural cave. You could see the typical banqueting benches where worshippers would have gathered for a common meal as part of their liturgy. There were many frescoes, which have be added to over the centuries by Christians, who took over the site.

The Via Francigena as expected went all through the site, which we explored quite thoroughly. We then entered the city along the VF through the Porta Vecchia. We visited all of the open/ remaining churches in Sutri, notably the Cathedral di Santa Maria Assunta, which was built in 1207 but heavily revitalized in the 1750’s. Very beautiful church, which is obviously well used today. Our guide at the Mithraeum this morning said there were 79 churches in Sutri at the peak! They are having a Beethoven festival in the town this summer, and we wondered where the concerts were being held. The concerts are being held at the Chiesa San Francesco, which we discovered during our visit to that church. It reminded us of St. Bridget’s – cold! They had a lot of portable propane heaters about.

Sure enough we had finished our sightseeing, had a coffee, and bought our supplies by around noon, so we went back to the Hotel Sutrivm to sit and blog until the taxi arrived.

The taxi driver lived in Sutri but worked in Rome. His driving was very reasonable, except for tailgating the big truck he was stuck behind for most of the trip. It took us about 20 minutes to get to our Hotel Benigni for tonight. The walk was 27.5 km, and would have taken us a good 8 hours. The temperature is heating up again. It was 34 degrees when we got here at 1:40pm today. The forecast in Rome is 36 or 37 degrees for the 5 days we are going to be there.

The hotel room is really small, shabby, sparsely furnished, and not overly clean. This is the last night our dinner is included. One more night after this until Rome. Our hotel rooms in Rome look very nice.

We are thinking now we will walk into Rome – to heck with the traffic! It would be rather an anti-climax to take a taxi to Rome. Plus there are some magnificent views of the city as you walk in from the mountains. If the traffic is really hairy when we get into the city, we can always come up with a Plan B!

We’ll see how the walk goes tomorrow to Isola Farnese.

Day 45 - Caprarola to Sutri- Wednesday July 29, 2015

We had arranged breakfast for 7am, and the deal was to go to the house of the lady who ran the B&B. We stood around outside until after 7am, and then knocked on the door. 

We had our hiking boots on and I asked if she wanted us to take them off, but she said no. The dining room was ceramic tile and right off the vestibule, so we thought it wouldn’t be too rude to just leave them on. The whole thing was a bit awkward really, and all she offered for breakfast was basically cookies and bread, a bottle of juice, and coffee. I can’t walk on an empty stomach so I had three different cookies, very good cookies, but not really what I’d choose for breakfast. My system was still upset and I had to run off before really finishing anything. I told Russell to finish his breakfast, but he insisted on leaving with me.    We returned later with the keys, thanked her and were on the road at 7:30am.

It was a very steep climb out of Caprarola, but the walk was supposed to be basically downhill off the mountain after that. We had some magnificent views leaving the city. We discovered that the basically downhill road was liberally sprinkled with steep uphill climbs every several hundred meters. In fact, although the route notes said the uphill gap today was ‘-‘, we climbed a total of 515 meters and walked 18.3 km.

This has metaphorical significance. Even when the way is primarily smooth and easy, you need to plan for and be prepared for contingencies. The steep uphill sections were probably only partially a result of the geography. Suppose a car going down the mountain had a brake failure. Those steep uphill sections would be very important, their only chance to stop. In all situations, you need an escape route.

We passed through a rather large and historic town along the way, called Ronciglione. It would have been nice if the route notes had identified it as a place that had numerous bars/restaurants and stores. It also had a lot of historical and religious places. There was a very beautiful fountain, called Fontana degli Unicorni, a masterpiece made in 1566 by  Antonio Gentili da Faenza;

a Cathedral, 

a tower, 

statues, other churches, an ancient part of the city; and a grand gate ‘Porta Romana’ decorated with the Farnese lilies. We stopped for a coffee, and also did a lot of sightseeing there.

We then walked along the via Cassia Cimina for 1.2km, turned onto a dirt road passing industrial buildings, then through a grove of hazelnut trees and past the small Sant’Eusebio church (4^th-8^th century), made of tuff (ie, volcanic ash) stone. We were then back on the Via Cassia Cimina for another 1.2 km.

Walking on the via Cassia Cimina is dangerous and, in my opinion, carelessly stupid. It is like walking along Highway 401, except there is only two lanes and no shoulder, there is thorny vegetation along the side of the road forcing you to walk on the road, and there are a lot of hairpin turns. The cars are whizzing by at 120km/hr, with cars passing on a solid line, so that even if the oncoming cars wanted to move over to give you room, they can’t, because a car is passing them in the other lane. Either that, or a car is coming the other way. At one point I noticed a hubcap in a spot that had a ditch, and thought, if a car lost a hubcap now, we’d be dead.

 We were basically on asphalt roads most of the day, except for a few km. Not all of them were as busy or had traffic moving as fast as on the via Cassia Cimina, but the asphalt really bothers my bursitis, and with the problem I was having with my system, it was a challenge.

A few km before Sutri we passed a large waterslide park. 

What fun it would have been to go there. Where are the kids when you need them!

We got to Sutri at around 12:45pm. We were planning to go to the amphitheater here and have lunch, but it was getting close to Siesta time, and we needed some supplies, so just came into the city to our hotel. Our hotel is an Albergo, very nice but quite modest. Shortly after we arrived the fellow running the place left. We made use of the small bar/table area to have our lunch, then came up to wash two days of clothes, shower, have a rest, and blog.  

There is a lot to do here, and a ton of tourists in the town.

Dinner was not included today, and we accidentally stumbled upon a restaurant for supper with an absolutely magnificent view. We each just had a simple primo (pasta dish) and salad for supper, but it was good, and we really enjoyed the view.

The owner of the hotel talks only Italian. I looked over the route notes for tomorrow, and it is 28km, primarily on asphalt, with a stint on a ‘very busy 4 lane highway’. It’s bad enough on a 2 lane highway here. There is a major amount of sightseeing here, so I called Beppe to arrange a drive tomorrow afternoon to our next accommodation. This will leave us with one last day of walking on Friday.

We would both rather be walking these last few days to Rome. But we’d like to arrive alive! You need to have a plan B.

Day 44 - Viterbo to Caprarola- Tuesday July 28, 2015

Hotel Mini Palace did not do dinner, so they made reservations for us to have supper at Etruscan Restorant Pizzeria. I asked the girl that was on reception when we got here if we got a voucher for supper, and before we left we asked the fellow on reception if we got a voucher, and he said no, he had made a reservation.

The girl said the restaurant started to serve supper at 8pm, but we left around 6pm to do some sightseeing before supper in Viterbo.

Viterbo is an ancient city in the Latium region, surrounded by Mont Cimini and Volsini, of volcanic origins. The historic center of the city is surrounded by medieval walls, still intact, built during the 11^th and 12^th centuries. Entrance to the walled center of the city is through ancient gates. 

Viterbo’s precise origins are unknown, it is probably Etruscan (768-264 BC). The first firm report of the city dates to the 8^th century. It was fortified in 773 by the Lombardy King Desiderius, who tried to conquer Rome.

Later, Viterbo became part of the Papal States, but that status was highly contested by the Emperors in the following centuries, until in 1095 it became a free commune. In a period in which the Popes had difficulties asserting their authority over Rome, Viterbo became their favored residence, beginning with Pope Eugene III (1145-1146).

Viterbo’s historic center is one of the best preserved medieval towns of Central Italy. Many of the older buildings (particularly churches) are built on top of ancient ruins, recognizable by their large stones. The main attraction is the Papal Palace, and then the San Lorenzo Cathedral. The cathedral was erected in Romanesque style by Lombardy architects over a temple of Hercules. It was variously rebuilt from the 16^th century on, but was heavily damaged in 1944 by Allied bombs.

After walking back into the walled city through the Porta Romana gate (1765), we first located our restaurant, and then wandered about through the multitude of piazza’s in Viterbo. We were going to tour the San Lorenzo Cathedral 

and the Papal Palace, which the lady at the hotel told us were open until 8pm, but they had closed at 7pm. When we went to the restaurant for dinner at 8pm we found out it had opened at 7:30pm. Oh well.

The guy brought us the full menu (available in Italian only), which we questioned and told him we were on half board. He spoke very little English, so he brought over another waitress to translate. We asked her if we really should have the full menu since our dinner was included with the room, she said yes. We asked what we were allowed to order off it, and she said we could order whatever we wanted, but suggested a primo and a secondo, and one side. The man then made a suggestion that we order an all in one dish, where it included fettucine with mushrooms as a primo, we could pick whatever secondo we wanted, and it included mixed vegetables, spinach, and roast potatoes. We both ordered that, Russell got meatballs in gorgonzola cheese sauce and I got a veal chop. It was very good. The vegetables were a real treat.

When we left, we were going to pay for the wine and water, but he charged us for the entire meal. We told him to call the hotel, which he did. He spoke to the fellow that had told us he had made the reservation, and he told the restaurant guy that we were to pay for the meal. So I talked to the hotel guy, and told him to look at our hotel voucher, which he did, but he didn’t seem to understand what ‘dinner’ meant, so I told him to call Beppe. He let out this big groan (Beppe is obviously well known in Italy, plus he could tell he was fighting a losing battle), and told me to let him talk to the restaurant guy again. The restaurant fellow handed us the bill and said to work it out with the hotel.

I knew there was going to be a problem. No restaurant voucher, no special menu. What was the hotel guy thinking? If we had to pay for the meal, why on earth we would we go where he told us to go?

Anyway, when we got back to the hotel, the fellow looked at the bill, rolled his eyes, and seemed prepared to cover the whole thing. We told him that we usually paid for the water, wine, coffee, and dessert. He seemed a bit happier and looking at the bill he said, ‘oh, you pay for the water and the wine’.

The air conditioner in the hotel was not working well (I had expected better of a 4 star hotel), so we turned it off, opened the drapes and the door as wide as they would open and turned on the fan (extra points to the hotel for having a fan too). We had a pretty good snooze. I never even thought about ants.

We got up at 6:15am, got all ready for our walk, packed everything and decided not to come back up to the room, because that wastes about 15 minutes, and set off for breakfast at 6:50am (which we were very pleased started at 7am). We were almost out of the door when Russell said, ‘where is my hat’? I said, ‘I hope you didn’t leave it at the restaurant last night’.

Russell, being somewhat follically challenged, would get his head burned to a crisp without his hat. A great deal of excitement erupted which was about to launch into a big debate and I said, ‘let’s go have breakfast’.

We took all our stuff down to the lobby, had breakfast, and then I told Russell to go ask the fellow at the reception (who was the same one as last night, surprisingly), when the Etruscan restaurant opened. The fellow said the restaurant opened at 1pm.

We had 17.6km to walk today, which doesn’t sound too bad, except it was at least 850 meters uphill in the first 10 km to climb Mount Cimina  (as much as the route notes had said to climb the alps- and we all know the route notes tend to underestimate these things). We really needed to get an early start to do that. The forecast was 34 degrees today, and it is so humid here, it is considered to be sub-tropical.

We went back to the receptionist after breakfast, and I started off by saying ‘we are your customers from hell’. He just shook his head in agreement. I thought he would laugh. I asked him about buses to Caprarola, and he took about 15 minutes printing out the bus schedule for Caprarola to Viterbo. That was really useful! What? He thought we were going to walk to Caprarola and come back for Russell’s hat?

We asked him about getting a ride to Caprarola with the baggage transfer taxi. He said the hotel took the bags, and yes, we could do that, but they took the bags at noon. I said we should be able to get the hat by then even if the restaurant didn’t open until 1pm, because someone was bound to be there earlier getting ready. He checked with the fellow that takes the bags, and he said he would wait until Russell got his hat and give us a ride, if it was later than noon.

Time was really slipping by. I said to Russell he had two choices: we leave without his hat and walk now; or, he gets his hat from the restaurant and we get a ride with the baggage transfer. Leaving any later than it was already,was not an acceptable option to me, with such a physically demanding walk in front of us in this heat.

He said, ‘you decide’, and I said, ‘no, you decide, it’s your hat’. He said, ‘well, I need my hat’.

So we took all our luggage back up to the room, we had a shower and got all the sun screen and Vaseline off, I put on make-up and my sightseeing clothes, and at 8:30am we went back into the walled city of Viterbo to save Russell’s hat.

We found out a part of the restaurant opened at 10am (it consisted of a gelateria, a pizzeria, and a restaurant), we then went sightseeing. First, we visited the city botanical park, very nice pond with ducks and geese,

and some really nice statues; and, then we followed the via Francigena from the Porta Fiorentina Gate we had entered the city through yesterday - through the walled city. The VF took us past all the churches, which were all open and we went in to see. This included the Saint Faustino and Giovita 16^th century church, which had a lot of empty beer bottles and beer bottle caps outside on the steps leading up to the church, presumably from last night. Probably because the steps outside these churches provide a nice place to sit. Russell and I have sat on church steps to eat our lunch numerous times on the VF (but we always dispose of the garbage when we are done). The church dome had a crack running through it from one end of the church to another. It housed some very beautiful and famous paintings.

We also went into the beautiful Church of the Trinita (built around 1256 but a larger one was built in 1727), which seems to be well used and the main functioning Church of Viterbo. It was in a much better state of repair and had a lot of lovely marble.

The VF then took us way down a steep decline into the old city where we had a terrific view of the palace/Rocca of Viterbo. There was a lot of work going on down there constructing a new park, which had a really interesting and very large statue/monument of what we think was a partially buried Hercules. 

We lost the VF at that point, possibly because the way markers were missing due to the construction.

We are going to mention, when we do our inevitable survey about our trip with Macs, that the route notes for Montefiascone to Viterbo should have taken us along the VF coming through Viterbo and getting to our accommodation. As mentioned, they were very clear yesterday, but they didn’t follow the VF. If we hadn’t gone back today and followed it, we would have missed a lot of things pilgrims want to see while walking the VF.

By this time it after 10am and we made a bee-line to the restaurant, where Russell and the restaurant staff were very happy he was reunited with his hat. We noted that there were a lot of workers buzzing around all three sections of the restaurant, and he probably could have gotten his hat well before 10am.

We stopped for a coffee before leaving the walled city, then went back to our hotel to check out as required by 11am.

We sat outside at the hotel café working on the blog until the driver was ready to take our bags (and us) to Caprarola.

It was a terrific climb, even in the car, up the mountain. Viterbo was at 300 meters, and the top of the mountain was marked as 860 meters. The walk, and the car ride, went through the natural reserve of Vico Lake. It is said that Hercules, when once challenged to prove his forces, threw to the ground a big trunk, which opened a cleft, from where began to gush out the water which filled up the valley forming Lake Vico. In reality, it is a crater formed by the collapse of the Vicano volcano, which over the centuries has filled up with water from underground springs. The steep slopes were covered by an impenetrable and insidious wood called cimina. Roman consul Fabius dared to penetrate it and built a road that later became the ancient via Cassia.

In the 16^th century the Farnese (more about them later) lowered the level of the lake through an underground tunnel, already bored by the Etruscans and leading to Vicano river in order to increase pasture ground and cultivatable land. This vast expanse can be admired from the ridges and is covered with hazelnut trees, Mount Venere, the last volcano to be active over 70,000 years ago rises in its midst. The mountain is covered with 35 meter high beeches, alternating with equally majestic Turkey oaks.

I was admiring Lake Vico from up on the mountain, and asked our driver (who couldn’t understand English) if people swam there, like in Lake Bolsena. Instead of turning into Caprarola (at a sign which said 4km to get there) at the top of the mountain, he turned in the opposite direction and drove 300 meters down to Lake Vico. He seemed to think I wanted to go swimming there. We certainly weren’t going to climb virtually 300 meters straight up the mountain with our suitcases, and I told him, no, we wanted to go to our B&B in Caprarola. He couldn’t turn around until the bottom, and then drove back up. When we got to the B&B his car’s brakes really smelled.

It was obvious comparing where the B&B was and how clear it was that it was a B&B,  to our route notes today, that we would have taken a good hour and a half to find our accommodation if we had walked today. The driver called the B&B lady, carried our bags up a long staircase, one after the other, like they were feather pillows, shook our hands and left. The lady arrived after about 5 minutes and took us up to the room and gave us the key. It was very small. The bathroom sink reminded us of the sink in our last trailer, you wondered when you brushed your teeth if you would get the rinse water in the sink or on the floor. It was so small that doing laundry was out of the question. It didn’t have a bidet. What the room did have however, was a fully functioning air conditioner, and for the first time in about three weeks, we got some well appreciated relief from the heat! Hallelujah.

Driving into Caprarola, the imposing Villa Farnese dominates the surroundings. 

It is a massive Renaissance and Mannerist construction. It is built on a five-sided plan in reddish gold stone and buttresses support the upper floors. As a centerpiece of the vast Farnese holdings, Caprarola has always been an expression of Farnese power, rather than a villa in more usual sense.

In 1504, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, the future Pope Paul III (1534-1549) acquired the estate at Caprarola. He had designs made for a fortified castle, or Rocca by the architect Antonio de Sangalio the Younger. The pentagonal building started as a defensive fortress probably between 1515 and 1530. Later it was transformed into a country residence when the Farnese family retired from Rome under a hostile Pope.

After lunch, we walked up the steps to the Farnese Villa (now the property of the Italian Government) from the piazza our B&B was in, and paid 2.50 euro to tour the palace. This has to have been the most significant thing, from the point of view of our understanding of why so many people are rejecting organized religion, we have done on this pilgrimage.

The palace was built by a Cardinal. It is completely decadent. There is no indication that money was ever a consideration in its construction. The frescoes are incredible, done by Vignola, and display an expert knowledge of mythology, religion, and the cultural heritage of the Farnese family. This excess is disgusting. 

Farnese’s worth as a Cardinal was equivalent to a tenth of the Papal reserves, and his wealth was acquired in part by granting favors.  It is not too hard to understand the genesis of Martin Luther’s Reformation Proclamation in 1517. The tour ended with a walk through the castle’s secret gardens. They included a cave with a pond that was incredibly beautiful.

I thank the good Lord above that Russell forgot his hat at that restaurant yesterday. That would have been an absolutely brutal climb today. At least when we climbed the Alps it was only 3 degrees at the top! But even more importantly, if we had walked today, there is no way we would visited the Farnese Palace. That is an extremely significant lesson we would not have learned.

At 7:30pm we went to our B&B hosts house and she accompanied us to the restaurant we were to eat at. Dinner was included. It was another absolutely delicious meal. I had a tempura fish and chip secondo. It had an incredible coating, unlike anything you could imagine. This followed spaghetti with tomato and basil sauce that was so good I ate all of it and was really too full for the secondo. Russell had gnocchi with cucumber in a curry sauce as the primo, and veal with prosciutto and mozzarella cheese for a secondo. The owner’s cat Kiko was providing a lot of entertainment during the dinner. She was supposed to be outside, but when I finished eating she couldn’t resist coming to ask for the leftover fish, at which point the owner came running out shooing her outside. Never so forlorn a face have you ever seen, looking in from outside. She was a beautiful, well brushed cat with the greenest eyes you have ever seen.

Russell slept like a baby in our perfectly air conditioned room. I would have too, except I think I’m suffering from heat exhaustion, because my system is very unhappy. At least I don’t feel sick, so I’m sure it’s not the flu or something I ate.

All in all, it was a terrific day. Even though we didn't walk to Caprarola, we walked more than 10 km sightseeing.

Day 43 - Montefiascone to Viterbo - Monday July 27, 2015

We had supper last night at the Al Panino restaurant. Sounded like Al Pacino. It was an excellent dinner, lots of vegetables and another bottle of Est Est Est. The waitress was a beautiful Ukrainian girl and Russell asked if she’d like to marry our son, but she had come to Italy with her Italian boyfriend.

Last night was another example of sleeping with a poorly working air conditioner rather than opening the window and letting in the cool fresh air. The Hotel Urban V provided information on what to expect from the air conditioner, namely cooling of 6 degrees compared to the room temperature. That is exactly what all these air conditioners have been doing, and when the temperature is 40 degrees, that’s not very good.

We were down at breakfast at 7:25am and they had a lovely buffet. The blood orange juice they served was squeezed blood oranges. Delicious!

We left at 8am and I know you won’t believe it but we actually followed the route notes all day. They were clear and easy to follow and we never once got lost! It was a miracle. I kept expecting to wake up and find it was just a dream.

The main reason we started following the route notes is because the GPS was not working well getting out of town. This may have been because the route notes (and presumably the GPS) were taking the most scenic, totally inefficient, and longest route possible out of town. However, we kept having wonderful views of the cupola of Santa Margherita, the Rocca, and the town all day.

Cathedral Santa Margherita’s history is tied to the history of several Popes, including Urban V, who is considered Montefiascone’s main benefactor. He was responsible for a radical transformation of the fortress to host the pontifical court and the title of diocese. When Pope Urban V established the Diocese of Montefiascone in 1396, the church that was the most popular and most central was chosen to be the cathedral of the new diocese, after which major reconstruction began. The building of the Cathedral of Santa Margherita is dated from the 15^th and 16^th centuries. It is next to the Rocca, in the upper part of the city and has one of the largest domes in Italy, built by Vignola.

Most of the day we were on the old Via Cassia, an important Roman road. 

It was very moving to walk for several kilometers on a stretch of ancient, original Roman pavement. Think of how many pilgrims have walked that stretch of road over the centuries. Think of the expertise of the worker’s that built that road, which has lasted for thousands of years.

As we walked it reminded me of something in the route notes from the day we walked from Radicofani to Procena. At one point of the VF you were walking along a ridge and the route notes said ‘this ridge is probably the route most pilgrims would usually have taken doing the via Francigena’. Wow, what does that say!

We also passed the thermal pools of Bagnacci. The water is milky green and steaming. We were able to stop there for a break for free and purchase a cold drink. It was 5 euros to bathe. There were quite a few bathers there, so it is obviously a popular spot.

There are a lot of loose dogs along the Way now, which Beppe warned us of when we met with him in Siena, but for the most part they are well behaved. The smaller the dog the more high strung it seems to be.

Russell took a picture of the perimeter of a typical house (in this case a mansion) along the VF. You’d have to be pretty desperate to ask for water here.

Viterbo is a pretty big city, and walking through all the traffic circles along busy roads with cars racing along has convinced us that we are not walking into Rome on Saturday. That would be suicide by stress.

We ended up walking 20.4km and climbing a mere 491 meters today. We arrived at 1pm and it was 34 degrees. Overall a pleasant walk, except for the last 4km or so as we got into a lot of busy traffic in Viterbo.

The route notes led us seamlessly to our hotel. Even though it was a bit complicated they were easy to follow. Amazing, 4 days of walking left and the route notes get readable! Of course, tomorrow is another day. It sort of takes away the excitement of always having to worry and wonder if you are completely lost.

This time our hotel is out of the historic part of town, having exited through Porta Romana. It is a 4 star hotel and looks very new and modern. We got a drink and ate our picnic lunch at the outside tables of the bar before coming up to our room, because by this time it was 1:30pm and we hadn’t stopped to eat on route. The lobby and stairs were all marble but the halls carpeted, as well as the rooms. Maybe one or two other places we have stayed so far (night 45) have had carpet. It’s not good, in my opinion, because you can’t wash a carpet every day!

We got all settled and had turned our room upside down when I discovered an army of ants under my backpack, where I had put it on the floor. I wondered if they had hitched a ride up from the patio where we had lunch (memories of all the ants on the floor of the laundry mat in Gimignano), and began the painstaking process of emptying everything out of my backpack; de-anting and washing the backpack and all of its’ contents; and, killing as many ants as possible that were crawling around where the backpack had been on the floor. Russell kept saying we had gotten all of them, which is his way of trying to deny they ever existed. I kept finding them surface from the pile of the carpet. I decided that the theory of me transporting them in on my backpack could be tested by looking for them in other areas of the room. I walked about and found they were everywhere to be found, including on the carpeted baggage rack my suitcase was lying open on.

So we packed everything up, of course the room would need to be remade by this point, and went downstairs and told the two people at the reception the bad news. They didn’t understand what ‘ants’ were, and Russell hauled out his phone and turned it on to do an English/Italian translate. Before he got it all ready for the task I had gotten the point across. The lady asked if they were just in the bathroom, and I said no, they were in the carpet, I hadn’t seen any in the bathroom.

We got a new room, which isn’t nearly as big or nice as the one we had. Russell was whining about this, but we couldn’t stay there, so get over it! I haven’t found any ants here.

Day 42 - Bolsena to Montefiascone- Sunday July 26, 2015

Hotel Loriana in Bolsena was a very nice beach resort hotel. Everything was very sunny and clean looking. Most guests were here for a week at a time. There were lovely gardens; a fountain with koi and other fish (some of which looked like catfish); lovely statues all around the pool, which had a beautiful deck with tables, beach chairs, and umbrellas galore; a balcony/patio outside all the rooms and everyone had their own table, umbrella, and chairs; air conditioning that REALLY worked; and, a fridge in the room that really didn’t work.

We both have a pretty bad sunburn from 1.5 hours in the lake yesterday, but it was worth it. We had a great sleep. It was a good thing the air conditioner worked because it would not have been possible to ventilate the room. The only source of ventilation in the room was a patio door which opened on to the balcony, which anyone, guest of the hotel or not, could access.

Our route notes said the walk to Montefiascone today was 12km and that was all I had caught on to. Breakfast was at 7:30am and with such a short day we didn’t try to arrange an early breakfast.

The hotel tables were all set up with your room number on the table. After cruising around the entire dining room last night, our room number was nowhere to be found, so they squeezed us in at a table with no number. We had been asked to select (from what was like a hospital menu) what we wanted for dinner, and we had done that. They never asked us what we wanted, but brought what we had ordered, so they had our order.

It was the same at breakfast today, at least as far as your room number being on the table is concerned. It was a buffet (so why keep track of room numbers?) This time every table had a number, and none of the numbers were ours. We wanted to leave asap and were the first there. The waitress, who watched everyone like a hawk, picked a number to eliminate, and we sat there. It was a nice buffet except they had a thermos of coffee, so you couldn’t get a cappuccino. Let me rephrase that, we couldn’t get a cappuccino. I noticed as others started to arrive that someone would go to the bar and get what you wanted if you asked. Apparently the reason our number wasn’t on a table was because we weren’t staying for a week.

We left about 8:15am, but didn’t go too far until we turned around and went back to get our raincoats out of our suitcases. It looked like it might rain. It has not rained while we are walking since the first two days. Rain hasn’t even been in the forecast, so we have not carried our raincoats.

Because I thought it was going to be a short day we didn’t bring too much water, and no lunch.

We set out as per the GPS and route note directions but very quickly weren’t going anywhere remotely resembling what the route notes said. We were tracking the GPS however, and there were lots of VF signs and way markers.

After about 500 meters we started a massive ascent. The ancient part of Bolsena was up on a cliff overlooking Lake Bolensa, and we had a very steep descent to the newer part of the city and our hotel yesterday. It looked like we were going back up there (albeit on a different route) this morning. It was then I looked at the route notes and noticed that we had a massive ascent today. We were feeling pretty good and just said ‘bring it on’.

We passed a loose dog while we were going up the first hill. The dog was in a Mexican standoff with a cat. 

The cat was looking pretty aloof about the whole thing, and the dog made the perfunctory bark and then just ignored us going by.

There was a very deep gorge we were walking around, and we had to cross a river. We noticed a large group of teenagers merging into the VF slightly ahead, and decided they were either on a walking the VF excursion today, or they were out to explore the archeological park we were passing through. We could have passed them but I thought that would be a real put down for them. Anyway, it certainly wasn’t a race and it was easy to stop and look or stop and take pictures, and stay behind them.

At one point we went past a mobile milking station. We saw a herd of what we thought was sheep, looking rather shaved, then we thought maybe they were white cows, finally we thought they might be goats. 

We passed a truck parked in the field, and a large drum on a flatbed beside it, and perhaps 12 goats getting milked in the truck, and a pile of goats waiting outside. 

There were several loose dogs about, but they were just trying to keep cool under a tree.

The teenagers all were stopped for a break at a large picnic rest area in the archeological park, and we passed them there. I could tell that a couple of the girls noticed my tattoo as I walked by, and they did a double take on that. It’s so nice to feel ‘out of the box’ sometimes.

We were primarily climbing through the woods today for the first 12km. The temperature was decidedly lower, there was a beautiful breeze from the lake, and lots of shade. We met up with a bike race at one point. The bikes were coming down a major hill perpendicular to the VF and then had to do a 90 degree turn left onto the road straight ahead of us.

 I thought that was going to be a problem, until I saw that the VF turned right 90 degrees there. So we didn’t miss a step, other than watching that none of the bikes lost control on the turn. There were a ton of race officials and fans all over the place, waving the bikes in the proper direction and cheering them on.

We carried on and went past two waterfalls, very lovely,

when we met up with the bike race again. This time they were on the VF. We had no option but to stop and wait for the bikes to pass. Luckily there was a multitude of rest areas today (probably because of the archeology park). 

We sat a picnic table and shared a banana, a plum, and some iced tea, until the official gave us the sign we could carry on. The bikes were trailed by a number of motorcycles.

There was a river shortly on that the bikes seem to have decided to run through, which was not passable by foot without getting your feet wet, but thankfully we spotted a bridge for us pilgrims.

Just after the bridge we headed along the VF but Russell’s GPS said to go another way. Russell turned around and went back because the GPS was unhappy. I turned around too just as a little boy had fallen and was crying. I asked if the boy needed a band aid and the dad said no, but the little boy said ‘yes’. I stopped and looked at his scraped knee. It was swelling up and was definitely scraped, but it was not bleeding. So I acknowledged he had a boo boo on his knee, said some soothing words to the little fellow, and carried on. He seemed semi-content that he had received due consolation for his injury, but still would have liked a band aid.

The way the GPS said to go was barred by a closed gate that had a sign saying ‘properta priva’. I was not about t0 break through the gate regardless of what his GPS said. None of this was in the route notes (although we hadn’t been doing anything the routes said to do all day except turn left coming out of the hotel).

Russell wasn’t happy, but we carried on. It was nice we followed the VF, because there was rest station for the bikes a bit up the way and they gave us some orange sections and electrolyte drink. We could have gotten water but it wasn’t cold and we already had hot water we had to carry.

We got back on the GPS track only to lose it again shortly up further. This time , where we were was actually on the route notes, except it was unclear which way to go exactly. We decided to follow the GPS.

The route joined the Cassia (ss2 highway) around that point and we came to a roundabout which said 6km to Montefiascone one way and 8km to Bolsena the other way. We had already walked 12.6 km at that point, so obviously it wasn’t going to be 12km today. At least it wasn’t oppressively hot.

Once again we went past numerous mansions along the VF today.  I was getting sort of fussed because it was a Sunday (a lot of bars and stores are closed all day), 12:30pm (bars/stores that are open on Sunday closed for siesta time), I was dying for some cold water, and we had no lunch making material. Thankfully we went past an open grocery store (which was heavily air conditioned) and picked up supplies for today and tomorrow, which weighed a ton in our backpacks, but at least we were all set, and carried on.

Suddenly in the distance we saw an ancient city and (the Rocca dei Papi) fortress, and knew that had to be where we were going. In the end we walked 18.6km today, climbed 735 meters, and it was 30 degrees when we got here. This is a major improvement over 40 degrees.

In ancient times Montefiascone was known as the Mons Faliscorum area of the Falisco people (Etruscans), who came here following destruction of various towns in the ager faliscus by the Romans. It is also the ‘wine mountain’ consecrated by the fame of ‘Est! Est!! Est!!!’, whose vineyard blanket the hills sloping towards the Lake Bolsena basin. The legend says that Pope Urban V travelling north, sent a servant to find out places to stop. He was supposed to write Est on the doors of places where the wine was good. He found Montefiascone wine so special he  wrote Est Est Est three times. Russ and I had a bottle of Est Est Est for dinner last night. It was very nice, not very expensive.

As we came into the historic part town, and just before we passed through the stone gate ‘Porta di Borgo’ we saw the teenagers from earlier today. We know that by walking on the highway you can save a lot of km’s getting from A to B here. But then you are not walking the via Francigena. It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.

Our hotel is called Urban V, and is in the historic section of the town (surprise), but is very beautiful and modern. Of course it is at the top of a very steep hill and the restaurant we have our dinner at, is at the bottom of this hill. There is also no possibility to get breakfast before 7:30am tomorrow, so we won’t leave before 8am.

I got an email back from Beppe about my request to stay at Papavista instead next Saturday (about an hour after I sent it) and he is going to check. At least I found out the two hotels are across the street from each other, we had been worrying about the baggage transfer on Sunday (which consists of us wheeling our suitcases to the other hotel).

Day 41 - Procena to Bolsena- Saturday July 25, 2015

The townsfolk of Procena are very civilized. The grand garlic festival never got too out of control. The highlight was the mobile disco wagon which consisted of a cutout 45 gallon drum attached to a motorcycle as a side car. One man was driving the motorcycle and the singer was riding in the drum. The drum had large speakers mounted to it and a flashing disco ball attached. They drove up and down the street with the singer belting out traditional songs of the area. 
Mobile Disco Cycle
He actually had a great voice, but he was no Valentino, that’s for sure!

We went to bed at 10:30pm, and we both fell asleep right away (ie, the noise wasn’t bad enough to keep us awake, even with our window wide open onto the main drag). I woke up at 1am and the city was quiet, although Russell says they had packed it in by midnight. Not like the bars in Spain where the carrying on would go until 3am on a week night and all night if there was festival of any sort.

We are so used to getting up early we were both up at 6am even though we could have slept in. I got thinking that if they were going to bring breakfast to our room at 7am, we could just go to the restaurant. I checked out the winter restaurant at 6:45am but the door was closed.

I left the door to the building and the door to our room open, and Giovanni’s wife Pucci, arrived promptly at 7am with a large picnic basket from which she extracted another two sided basket, one with a thermos of coffee, another with a thermos of hot milk; a jug of blood orange juice; a basket of bread; two jars of homemade jam; yogurt; corn flakes; and a cutting board with cheese and ham wrapped in saran wrap. She got two place mats and all of the dishes and cutlery we would need out of the cupboards and set a lovely table for us in about two minutes. She is just totally gracious and hospitable. I told her we could have gone to the restaurant for breakfast and she said, ‘this is simpler’.

I was wondering if Valarian was going to come for the bags, when a heard a faint knocking. I went to the door of the building, which Pucci must have closed, and there he was. I asked if he didn’t want to just come to the door of the apartment, but he said he hadn’t gone to the restaurant first so didn’t have the key. He took out the bags to the car. We said our good-byes to Pucci and Valarian. I got the impression it was her family that has owned the castle for 250 years. She said the next time we come she’ll give us a tour of the castle. I think she was too busy getting ready for the festival yesterday. It came out in the conversation that you had to have reservations to eat at her place yesterday, and the dinner was not free. It was free for us because our dinner was included.

The first thing we did in the car is discuss where he was going to let us off. There were a number of options, which (based on the final maximum total which in the end was 32km) would have resulted in us saving 6km, 10km, or 17km. He suggested taking us to San Lorenzo Nuovo, because it would be easiest for him to drop us off there (in a piazza) and it was going to be hot today. I agreed because it was getting late to be starting on a hot day and this was our last day ‘off’ before Rome. It is 41 degrees at 6pm, so it would have been way too hot to walk 34km today.

 Instead of the van Giovanni picked us up in yesterday, today he drove us in the Audi. I was worried the Audi would go a lot faster but his driving was pretty consistent with yesterday. Being Saturday, there was a multitude of bicycles on the road, which he kept saying was so dangerous every time he passed a group of them. The bicycles tend to ride in groups, and two or even three abreast. With these Italian driver’s screaming around corners on all the hairpin bends it’s a miracle there are any bicycle riders left in this country.

Further to our conversation with the B&B owner in Rocca d’Orcia the other day, Giovanni said the churches used to be open all the time when they all had their own priest. Now that most of them don’t have their own priest, they aren’t open, even from 10am to 12. He said vandalism is a problem too, but that is related to the church not having a priest.

Just before Giovanni dropped us off in the square in San Lorenzo Nuovo, we were stopped behind a bus letting people on and off, and three pilgrims got off the bus. We recognized them from Radicofani. We passed all of them along the way today. The one couple, who looked about our age, is from France, and started in Piacenza (where we were on day 16); the other young female we only saw from a distance, she was sitting on a bench in a park, and we all waved.

It was 8am when we set out from the piazza in San Lorenzo Nuovo and within five minutes we got our first glimpse of Lake Bolsena,

a very popular lake in the largest volcanic crater in Italy, which began to collect 370 thousand years ago. Roman records indicate activity as recent as 104BC. Our hotel for today is on the lake. Our walk was primarily on secondary roads today, with a lot of shade, at times walking through an arch of trees.

I didn’t once consult the route notes today after leaving the piazza until we got to the old part of Bolsena. The GPS was tracking our route and there were lots of Via Francigena signs and way marks along the way (although we know that can be misleading). I didn’t miss trying to decipher the code. Russell has a theory about the route notes. He thinks they are written in Yoda speak, from Star Wars.

We did a lot of sightseeing in the old part of Bolsena as we went through today. We went into the first church as we entered; passed the  imposing Rocca Monaldeschi Della Cervara (12^th-15^th century) castle; 

went to the information Centre and got a stamp, a map, and found out where our hotel was; and visited the Santa Cristina Basilica.

The Santa Cristina Church is related to the holy blood miracle. Corpus Domini, also known as the ‘Miracle of Bolsena’ occurred in 1263 when a German priest named Peter of Prague stopped in Bolsena to hold mass above the tomb of Santa Cristina while on a pilgrimage to Rome. Peter however doubted the transubstantiation, but as he readied himself to give communion the bread turned blood red; the liquid then spilled onto the white altar cloth, forming a stain that resembled the profile of Jesus, as well as onto the marble floor and into the grotto of St. Cristina, where the stain can still be seen today. The Archbishop ordered the building of the Orvieto Duomo to remember the Miracle and every year the church celebrates the Corpus Domini.

It was a very ornate, beautiful church but it wasn’t doing anything for me from a spiritual perspective. There was an overpowering smell of burning candles, and a monk and a priest about who just didn’t seem very devote. We could have visited the grotto of St. Cristina and seen the stain for 4 euros each, but I just couldn’t stand the smell and we left. There were a lot of people visiting the church.

We walked to our hotel along a large, beautiful, tree lined boulevard. Bolsena is a very popular beach resort, with a lot of hotels and tourists everywhere. The lady said our room wouldn’t be ready for an hour, so we went to the bar and ate the home made lunch we had carried on the walk. After an hour we came up, but the room still wasn’t ready, so we went into the unmade room, put on our bathing suits, placed our suitcases and backpacks in the room and our valuables in the room safe, and went swimming in the lake. It reminded us of swimming in Lake Ontario at Sandbanks Provincial Park. Lots of waves, except this was a lot warmer and had slightly less seaweed in the water. The hotel also has a lovely pool, but we wanted to swim in the famous lake. I was just a bit worried about my lovely, purple, Italian bathing suit. Swimming in Lake Ontario I only wear my oldest bathing suit! But it seems to have survived all right. We really enjoyed our hour and a half of bobbing in the waves.

Then back to a pilgrim’s life of laundry and showering, then we spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on our balcony relaxing and blogging. Supper was institutional, according to Russell. Okay, feeding the masses, but nothing outstanding

Day 40 - Radicofani to Procena- Friday July 24, 2015

We had a lovely breakfast in the apartment, using a mix of what we got from the bar and peaches we bought ourselves from a fruit vendor. The fruit here is absolutely delicious – especially the peaches, nectarines, and pears. They are at the perfect ripeness when you buy them, very juicy, and sweet. All very local.

We had arranged through Beppe to be picked up at a bar at km 10.1 where the VF crosses the SP 2 (via Cassia). It was really the only place easily accessible by car today. The rendezvous was set for 9:40am.

Because we got a taxi drive to Radicofani yesterday, we didn’t know how we would have arrived, so when we set off right on time at 7am, we went the wrong way from the hotel! Of course the route notes didn’t tell us which way to go, that would have been too easy. After a while, Russell was very unhappy with the GPS, and we had to stop and really think about where to go. So, half an hour and 1.1km later, we were on track. This was causing me stress, because of the rendezvous, but it was only 10km and it was supposed to be downhill. It was primarily downhill, but we still managed to climb 150 meters today.

The land along this stretch is quite barren, and primarily wheat fields. 

We passed by a number of farms, several with sheep, some with cows. As mentioned, there is virtually no shade. It is very beautiful nonetheless, with sweeping views of fields and fortresses doting the landscape. We walked along a ridge on the hills at one point, 

which gradually descended down to the bottom of the valley to reach the bank of the river Rigo. It was at the Ponte a Rigo we met the owner of our B&B (Castello di Proceno) for tonight. He had walked to a rest point on the VF where he sat and waited for us. His name was Giovanni, and he was at Via Giovanni. When I saw the name of the road I said to Russell, ‘isn’t that interesting, we are meeting Giovanni and here is via Giovanni’. As soon as he heard me say Giovanni, he came to us and shook our hands. We got there at 9:20am. I was hoping we would get there before him so we could get a cold drink at the bar, and go to the bathroom, oh well.

If we thought driving with the fellow yesterday was an adventure, Giovanni had him beat hands down. It’s a wonder anyone is still alive in this country, the way they drive. I guess they know the roads.

Procena has its roots in the coat of arms of the village. An ancient legend narrates how the Etruscan King Porsenna was wounded by a wild boar while hunting in the woods of Procena. But their hero won the battle by killing the savage animal, and in memory of this event, built the village, whose name comes from Porsenna. Procena, first town of Lazio coming from Tuscany, marked for centuries the boundary between the Papal states and the Granducato of Tuscany. Today the village is at the heart of a network of roads that connect it with the most important cities and historical places of Central Italy. The surrounding region is full of Etruscan, Medieval, and Renaissance monuments that testify to the presence of ancient civilizations.

The castle of Proceno is a 12^th century fortress with a pentagonal base, built to protect the ancient hamlet.

You can see it towering over the countryside for miles. The castle is a rare example of a medieval fortification surviving its original era. Its pentagon base incorporates a main tower and two secondary towers interconnected by walkways and a drawbridge. The complex includes a fort that is attached to one side of the castle by the town's defensive walls. The fort now houses a B&B where we are staying.

The part where we are staying was built in the 18^th century, when one part of the owner’s family moved from Siena to live in this area. So we are actually staying in the castle. It has been in the family of the owner of the B&B for 250 years! It is a real maze back here. He has a winter restaurant and albergo along the main street of the ancient town, and our apartment is down the road, along an alley, through a garden, and in the castle fort. Valerian, a young fellow who works here (not part of the family, I asked) carried our bags to the apartment, gave us our key, led us through the fort, down a cistern, into a cellar, up some stairs and out into a garden (where we could see that where we had exited was along the base of the castle tower wall), along a winding path, past the summer restaurant, and to the pool. He took us into the building of the summer restaurant where there were washrooms, a change room and shower, and a fridge full of ice cold drinks (with a book where you were to record what you took). It is a massive property, a beautiful garden, and a lovely pool. I’m in heaven!

Going back, he took us a different way, past the winter restaurant again, where he went off to get us pool towels and we were to provide our passports and figure out with Giovanni where we would get a ride to and when tomorrow. Giovanni asked if we would like a drink, and we requested gaseous water. Before we could get a word in edgewise a girl at the bar opened a bottle, saying ‘it’s not cold’. If we’d known that, we would have revised our request! Oh well.

We were told dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow would be in the summer restaurant. We asked the assembled masses if we could get our breakfast in advance so we could eat early. We said that we had to get walking very early before it got too hot. We worked out what we like for breakfast versus what they had, and that was all arranged.

I said we wanted to start walking or leave here by 7am and didn’t care if we walked from here and got picked up later along the way or got driven to a different starting point. Giovanni has a very limited grasp of English, and was getting quite flustered about this. There is a big town garlic festival happening here tonight and tomorrow (oh joy, our room window opens onto the main drag), and he was all concerned he couldn’t drive us at 7am because it was too early for him after the festivities tonight, and he couldn’t move the luggage. Valerian said he would take us, but Giovanni was going on about a lot of other things Valerian had to do tomorrow. Valerian tried to calm Giovanni down, and told us they would work it out and get back to us.

We went off to our apartment to do our laundry, have a shower, and then go find provisions and go to the pool. Valerian called and said he would take us at 7am tomorrow, drop us off along the VF, and then take our bags to Borceno.

We stopped back in at the restaurant because I hadn’t yet given them the voucher. Giovanni’s wife was there, and she told us the big festivity tonight involved food all throughout the town, provided by the locals and in celebration of the red garlic the region was famous for. So the summer restaurant is not open, we are to eat the food provided on the street. I don’t really like garlic. Oh well – when in Proceno do as the Proceno’s do.

We had an absolutely wonderful and relaxing swim and lounge about the pool.

Thunderstorms were circling about the village, but never settled here. The festivities were lots of fun. We ate at our B&B. A very garlicy barley and spelt salad, beef bourgignon (delicious), and 4 small cream tarts. Very good. We sat with a couple from Rome, and tried to carry on a meaningful discussion. They were very nice. Their son came upon the scene when we were all disbanding and he could talk English. They just couldn’t believe we were walking from Switzerland to Rome.

Giovanni’s wife told us at dinner that they would bring our breakfast to our apartment at 7am and Giovanni would drive us at 7:30am along the way to shorten the VF. Oh joy, another car ride with Giovanni, this time downhill. Lord, please watch over us!  

I’ve also decided to send Beppe and e-mail and ask him to change our reservation in Rome to PapavistaRelais, which is where Macs told us we would be staying and where I booked the additional nights. It would be much nicer if didn’t have to change hotels in Rome after one night.

Day 39 - Rocca d’Orcia to Radicofani- Thursday July 23, 2015

We left the window open last night with the air conditioner going. It went down to 22 degrees last night, much less than the temperature of the room. We both slept very well.

We had arranged breakfast for 9:30 am which in retrospect was pretty late considering how early we’ve been getting up. I was up 7am, after just lying in bed awake from 6am on. We walked to Castiglione d’Orcia around 8:30, passing the café that was closed yesterday, but open today. We had a cappuccino and croissant to hold us until breakfast. The town is first mentioned in 714, and was in the possession of a family until 1252. During the 14^th century it became a Sienese possession later it was a matter of dispute between another family and Siena. We visited the Piazza il Vecchietta, which is dedicated to the painter, sculptor, and architect Lorenzo di Pietro (1412-1480). At the center of the square is a fine fountain in travertine dated 1618, 

which is completely sloping. We also visited the Romanesque church of Saint Mary and Magdalena. Its façade dates back to the 13^th century, while the apse is 1 century older.

We then went back for breakfast, which the male owner was preparing and serving. He told us to just sit down and he would serve us breakfast. We have learned enough by now to know better than that and asked what was coming. We weren’t too interested in what he had in mind, and in the end we got a delicious breakfast of freshly pureed pear, served as a juice, some homemade peach squares (very good but too sweet for breakfast in our opinion), fresh peach jam he had made, toast , scrambled eggs, and cappuccino. He and his wife do a lot of travelling in the off season, but he has never been to Canada. Coming to Canada between January to March or in November (when they take their holidays) might not suit them well!

All of the churches in the area, according to the male owner of the B&B, are always closed now, except for the ones open on Sunday for services. He thinks it is because people lately have been stealing treasures from the churches. He said before, all the churches were always open (24 hours a day), and that is the way it should be.

After we climbed up to the Rocca di Tentennano (Rocca literally means rock, an Italian term meaning a high fortifiable stronghold), paying 3 euro each to visit it. It was very interesting. You certainly had a great view of the mother ship (ie, Siena), and the surrounding rolling farmland. 

From up there we saw a lot of what we would have covered on foot today. Our host had said that if it was clear enough you could see the Mediterrean, but it was too hazy. The interesting thing is that the area reminds you of the Lord of the Rings scenery. There is a series of the fortresses across the land, allowing for communication with Siena in medieval times. Now if something is happening, everyone in the whole world knows virtually instantly via the internet!

The baggage taxi was supposed to come at noon, but wasn’t there at 12:20pm, so I called Beppe, who assured me he would be coming soon. He arrived about 5 minutes later, and only talked Italian. It was very narrow, steep roads in Rocca d’Orcia, and he scraped his side mirror on buildings quite a few times exiting the old city, which I would then extend again. At first I was going to retract the mirror so he would stop scraping it on the buildings, but he got the point across he wanted it extended again. At least it folded up when he hit something, or the mirror would be gone. He was decidedly an octogenarian, who drove very fast on those steep roads with a lot of hairpin turns. I had the brakes on the whole time. Russell said he was doing up to 120 km/hr. At least if anything had gone wrong, it would have been instant curtains for the lot of us.

From km 19.2 to 28 on the VF, we would have been walking on an asphalt road to Radicofani. Given the rugged surrounding landscape, there was no other possibility. The Rocca of Radicofani can be seen from very far around and from both the north and the south. The present tower, the remains of the original fortress, was built in the year 1200 then rebuilt between 15 and 1600. For a long time, Radicofani was a very important place controlling the via Francigena and the border between Tuscany, Umbria, and Latium and therefore was the center of a power contest between major towns.

We got here at 1:05 pm and when I got out of the car I noticed that the whole side of the car was scraped. Wonder how many mirrors he’s gone through?

There were several ladies standing about waiting for the fish vendor truck to come, one of whom spoke English. She became our translator with the taxi fellow, and the lady running the B&B, who we called on the cell phone to tell her we were here. I was extremely disappointed to discover that we were not staying at the agritourism B&B with the pool (which is where we were to stay according to my original package from Macs from last October), but in the historic centre of Radicofani. The same person owned both places. The lady was at the other place, and said she would be here to let us in our room in 15 to 20 minutes.

A good half an hour later, the B&B lady still wasn’t there, the taxi driver was still there, and the English lady had finally concluded her fish purchase. 

I was wondering if the taxi guy was still there because he wanted to get a paper signed by the B&B lady saying he had delivered the suitcases. The English lady determined that he was still there because he was picking someone up at the bank and taking them to where we had come from, namely Rocca d’Orcia. I wondered if that was why he was late picking us up. It would have been fine with us to leave later, if we had known, but we had to stand in the hot sun outside our B&B in Rocca d’Orcia waiting for him, which was not pleasant.

The pool place was 7km before Radicofoni (ie, back toward Rocca d’Orcia), and I would have walked back there (if necessary) if a spot was available, I was so looking forward to the pool. I had been hoping the B&B lady would show up before the English speaking lady left, and the taxi driver. The English speaking lady suggested we call the B&B lady again, which was the obvious solution, I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. So we did, but the pool place was fully booked. I was very disappointed. It was so hot, and I had my heart set on going in the pool.

The B&B lady was also still at the other place (ie, she hadn’t even left yet)! I wanted to go to a bar and get something cold to drink and lunch, but she insisted we sit on a bench in front of the B&B so we would be there when she got there. The bench was in the full sun.

Russell and I took turns manning the bench while the other went and got lunch and cold water. The lady finally showed up. She never asked for our passports, didn’t get the voucher, there was no wifi, dinner wasn’t included, and she gave me a voucher with the name of the other B&B on it. I got all excited thinking it was a voucher to go use the pool, but it was a voucher for breakfast at a bar the next morning.

This place is an apartment with a kitchen, sitting room, bedroom, and bathroom. It is very nice, but it is very hot and has no fan, no air conditioner, and no pool. Oh well, the place tomorrow is supposed to have a pool. We’ll see.

We wandered around the town, got a stamp at the hostel, visited the church, picked up our breakfast at the bar (so we could eat it at our apartment tomorrow and leave early), had a small but nice supper, and went to bed. We would have eaten supper at the apartment, we even had a fully equipped kitchen, but we couldn’t find any food to prepare into dinner at the stores in town. It was a very small village. We didn’t visit the Rocca at Radicofani, because it was closed by the time we were ready to go. We slept very well again, the apartment had lots of windows, so we got a good breeze through to cool the place off, and the lobby was air conditioned, so we left our room door open until we went to bed.

We called Beppe and arranged to shave km off tomorrow and the next day. Tomorrow is 25 km with no shade the whole day, and Saturday is 31km – impossible in this heat. Unfortunately, the forecast doesn’t show signs of the heat wave ending any time soon. After Saturday we will be fine for the rest of the journey. Most days are 18km or less, one or two are 24km, and we can manage that. I’m not sure if we will actually walk into Rome next Saturday, because a lot of the journey is on very busy highways, and the route notes don’t recommend doing it. We’ll see. I’ll call Beppe when we get closer and see what he says.