Day 27 - Carrara to Camaiore - Saturday July 11, 2015

The lovely octogenarian lady Anna running our B&B ‘I Noccioli’ last night told us at 8pm that we would go to dinner at 8:15pm instead. Her son in law drove us to the restaurant, which it turns out he owns, his wife (daughter of Anna) runs, and their daughter and boyfriend work at. We were having a lot of trouble when we left the B&B establishing how we were going to get back, but in the end it

turned out he just stayed at the restaurant while we were there. It was as fan excellent dinner, but we didn’t actually eat until 9pm, which was way too late for me. They are very close to the Mediterranean and seafood was their specialty. Anna came for dinner as well.

He told us his main business was selling restaurant equipment, and his restaurant was a showcase for what he provided.

He and his wife live at the B&B, as well as Anna.

We had a very good sleep. It was very quiet and the air conditioner worked very well. We just didn’t have wifi – Anna showed us the internet cable connection in the room, but we didn’t have an adapter for that!

We asked for breakfast at 7am, and Anna was ready for us at about 7:10am. The breakfast consisted entirely of packaged foods. I guess at 81 she’s not prepared to do a real breakfast. She did though make excellent coffee, and produced a yogurt when she finally understood what we were asking for. We really loved the place, and there were lots of hugs when we left.

The place was 1.5km off the via Francigena, and our route notes were taking us back to the VF a completely different way. At first I had my doubts the route notes were starting at our B&B, but the first kilometer was working really well. After that we started to climb a mountain and weren’t finding any of the notes applied to where we were. We asked a jogger at maybe 3km and she seemed to think we would hit a certain distinguishing point soon so we carried on to the top of the mountain. Nothing remotely resembling where we should be per the route notes was jumping out, we were at a T junction, and made a guess which way to go. That soon ended in a dead end, and we tried a different way, without going back to the T junction. We continued to climb (I thought we were at the top of the mountain already, but that wasn’t the case). The ascent was along quiet roads through vineyards and we did have an absolutely magnificent view of the coast of the Mediterranean and the towns of Cararra and Massa below. 

We kept going, and Russell became convinced we were not going where we wanted to go. We were just turning around when along came Stephano with his Father! 

Thank the Lord, what a welcome sight!

His Dad had come and joined him for the weekend, and he told us we were indeed going the right way. Hallelujah. Shortly after we rejoined the via Francigena and descended into Massa.

We all walked to Massa together. It turns out he and his father had gone to Jerusalem together in 2011, going to many of the same places Emmanuel went on our pilgrimage in 2012. They also participated in a dig. He said Jerusalem had a profound impact on him, much more than he thought it would, and he wanted to do a walking pilgrimage there next.

I told him that our route notes told us that the stretch of the VF from Massa to Pietrasanta was on a dangerous and very busy road, and they suggested we take a train for that portion. I got the impression that the distance to get to the train station was equivalent to walking along the highway, so it wasn’t a matter of saving walking. He and his Dad were staying in Pietrasanta tonight, and he said they would check that information out at the information centre. We said our goodbyes, shared telephone numbers, and we gave him our blog address (another way to keep in touch). We may not see him again, because we have gone further and have a set agenda, and he is stopping to visit with his brother outside Rome for 4 days. We will keep in touch.

The amazing thing was that we when we finally figured out where we were on the route notes, we were at pretty much the exactly correct kilometer! Right after that, Russell and I misread the route notes and climbed a mountain, only to eventually figure out it was a mistake, and we had to descend down the mountain again. That was a 6km and large ascent error.

We eventually got to the train station, took the train to Pietrasanta. The place is like Portofina. Very beautiful, and expensive. There was an art exhibit in the Piassa of the marble church, very interesting. 

We only realized it was a special exhibit as we carried on to Camaione, and saw a poster saying the sculptures were there from April to August 30.

We had some tense moments getting to our final destination. The route notes failed again, but miraculously we got where we supposed to get. We ended up climbing another mountain through woodland to the hill top village of Monteggiori and then having to descend the mountain on the other side to Montebello, and then on to Camaiore, at around a total of 30km today. It was a bit brutal, but we made it!

We walked 29.7km (6km was an error), and climbed 1,112 meters (some of that was an error too) today.

Our hotel, Locanda ‘Le Monache’ is very lovely. There are 12 rooms, each with a different theme. The air conditioner is very efficient, and the room was cooled off within 30 minutes. We had an excellent supper, and then up to do the blog. We didn’t get here until almost 5pm, after leaving at 7:30am this morning. A long day. Tomorrow we go to Lucca, another 30km day.