Day 20 - Fornovo to Cassio - Saturday July 4, 2015

We got down to breakfast at 7am, nice breakfast, and left at 7:30am. It was already very hot. We never did hear the temperature today but it must have been at least 37 degrees. The hotel last night was very lovely, with lovely gardens, garden sculptures, and of course, the pool.

Everyone was sort of shaking their head at us about the walk today, and showing the symbol for climbing. Our route notes indicated the uphill gap was 1,015 meters and the downhill gap was 385. Usually we have to add those two numbers together to get the total.

We set off from the hotel through the town and climbed the riverbank then walked along the Sporzana river for several kilometers. 

It was very pleasant and fairly shady walking through the woods. When we saw the houses of Respiccio, we were to cross a bridge and walk through the town. Never did see the houses from the river, but Russell had his GPS and after a short error we went back and forded the river and climbed up to Respiccio. Never did see a bridge.

From this point on the via Francigena was very well sign-posted. We then walked along SP39 for a while (my favorite) to Sivizzano. The route notes said we could take a bus from Respiccio to Sivizzano to avoid the long asphalt stretch, but we checked the schedule and there was a bus at 7 and 7:35am and another at 5pm etc. Not too useful for a pilgrim!

Sivizzano was at km 6 and the town had numerous information boards and interesting tourist attractions. We went past the Oratory of St. Anthony of Padova, a small church which has always been the reference point for important religious ceremonies. 

Mmmm
Even today the Oratory is the destination of an annual procession for the celebration of Saints and faithful in May. Next we saw some Roman ruins, and finally a traditional outdoor bread baking oven. We stopped at a store and got a nice cold iced tea and a cold bottle of water. What we didn’t know is that that was going to be our last chance to buy a cold drink all day.

We then started walking along the very dry river Sporzana again. At around km 10 we started to really climb, first to the church in Bardone, then to Terenzo, past Santo Stephano church. We had now gone from 158 meters to 540 meters (not including the ups and downs).

From 540 meters at km 13 we then climbed 234 meters in 1.6km, arriving at a picnic site where I had some bread and peanut butter and Russell had most of a banana. It was after noon. We then had a major descent going into Castello di Casola. We ran into a lady selling fruit from her truck to the locals, and asked if there was a bar or store in the town, and they all said Cassio!

From there, the trail descended very steeply, we forded a stream, reached a road, and started another steep climb to Villa di Casola at km 16.3. There was the same lady in her truck selling fruit. As before, there was a lineup of locals waiting to buy fruit. We talked to a fellow from New York who after high School went to Parma to study veterinary medicine, specializing in cows. I mentioned we would very much like to get some cold water and he pointed us off up a hill in the wrong direction to a water tap with cool mountain water. I was sort of hoping he would go into his house and give us some cold water! We bought a grapefruit from the lady and ate it, it was very refreshing. We then got into our reserve of water from Russell’s backpack. The water was sweetened water we had bought by mistake. We actually set off in the morning with lots of water with us, but it was boiling hot at this point. Anyway, we filled up a few water bottles with this sweetened water and I washed my hands after peeling the grapefruit eating it off my hands with this sugary water.

From there we climbed 233 meters in 2.5 km, unfortunately, the wasps all discovered my sugary hands, and I was being swarmed by wasps. Luckily, I still had a bottle of plain water and Russell poured it over my hands, helping to reduce my popularity with the wasps. 

We were now at km 18.8, and totally exhausted.

There arose a discrepancy between the route notes and the GPS. We followed the route notes. 

We were at a ridge with a superb view of the whole valley. We also could see strange rock formations called Salti del Diavolo dated to the cretaceous period 90 million years ago.

At this point the GPS and via Francigena signs were telling us to go down to the rock formations. We were standing on the  edge of a cliff and the formations were way down in the valley. We could see Cassio a short walk from our location along the SS 62. It was 2:30pm. We had been walking for 7 hours in the blazing heat, had climbed 1271 meters, and just didn’t feel like descending into the valley only to have to walk back up to Cassio. So we walked about 700 meters along the SS62 and reached our hostel, for a total of 20km today. 

Today was a brutally difficult day, far surpassing anything we ever did on the Camino or so far (including climbing the alps) on the via Francigena. We ran into some lady pilgrims at Bardone today, who have done virtually every possible Camino route and the entire via francigena, and they said that from Fidenza to Cassio was the hardest stretch they knew of. There were only walking the via Francigena from Fornovo to Berceto, our destination tomorrow.

Yes, we are staying in the Cassio Hostel tonight. It is actually very nice. We have our own private room, which is actually very charming, and will have a private bathroom if no one else occupies the other room up here on the second floor tonight. 

They provided real laundry powder in the bathroom, and we hope that will freshen our clothes. They are hanging outside on the clothesline

We have to go up to a bar/restaurant in town for supper (not included) and to the bar just up the street for our breakfast tomorrow (included).