Day 26 - Sarzana to Carrara- Friday July 10, 2015

I didn’t enter our total stats yesterday getting to Sarzana, it was 19.2 km, 925 meters ascent, and at least 733 descent.

A couple of things about Stephano. The other day I said he had accidentally cut 10km from the route from Pontremoli to Aulla. Actually, he accidentally added 10km to the route. He was telling us how psychologically difficult that was. It was 2pm, he had been walking since 6am, he was exhausted, and was looking at another 2 and half hours to get Aulla. It was actually 5:15pm when we ran into him at the museum of San Caprisio Church. He told us he tried to hitch hike, but nobody in Italy would ever pick you up, and apparently the Lion’s Club of Lunigiana advertise a number pilgrim’s on the via Francigena can call if they need help. He said he called them, but didn’t elaborate on whether they rescued him. We could understand very well how he must have felt. It was like the day we were going from Castell’Arquato to Fidenza when we went the wrong way into the river Stirone park. We had walked 10km the wrong way. If we had backed up, we would have had to walk an additional 20km, on a day that was 25km to start. Impossible! We told Stephano that we have been saved by ordinary local people twice now. If you are in distress on the via Francigena, help is available. It’s very comforting to know that.

We had a difficult night sleeping again last night. We loved the B&B, it was very nice to ‘make’ our own dinner, and then we sat out outside in the very private garden doing the blog. The B&B was right beside the train station, which had a bar, in addition to the bar a block down the street, and the party goers were very noisy. When the bars finally closed we managed to get to sleep, only to be woken what seemed to be a very short time later by a yapping dog. It was hard to decide what was worse, the dog yapping or the owner yelling at the dog to be quiet. In addition to all that, it was extremely hot, there was only one door in the B&B, no windows, so no ability to get a cross ventilation going, and no air conditioning. Finally, my foot was aching. I should have gotten up and gotten my ball, I just never got around to it.

We had a minimal breakfast, except the coffee was excellent, and set off at 8am.

The first thing we did was climb 200 meters to Castruccio Castracani Fortress (14^th -16^th century).

 It was in such excellent condition, it must never have been invaded. The Fortress opened at 10:30, and it was 8:30, but we did walk all through what we could.

There was some path walking today, but in general it was walking along minor roads, which were busy in places. What with all the pavement and my foot being sore to start with, I took a Celebrex at around km 1.5 and decided to insert my heel support at around 2.4km. I thought I was doomed. But those fixes, together with walking on something softer at every possible opportunity, got me through the day.

After so much walking through the forest, it was a nice change of scenery today to go through so many towns, along canals, past vineyards and olive groves, and encounter lots of restaurants/bars.

We ran into Stephano at the Luni archeological centre. It had ruins of a roman temple, theatre, graves, etc. The site was also very close to the harbor where pilgrims coming from Spain and southern France were landing.  Stephano had paid the 4 euros for the complete tour. He had told us yesterday that his passion was history, and he had taken some university courses in that, but his friends all told him he would never get a job studying history.

Russell and I decided an Italian tour of the site would not be very interesting for us, and we are a bit spoiled by having seen numerous really spectacular roman ruins (these were mainly foundation walls), so decided to just carry on.

The major treat of today for me was viewing the marble Apuane Mountains, from which Michelangelo carved his statue of David. As we were going from Luni to Avenza on a dirt road, we were following beside the railway. We were on the lookout for a spot to have lunch, when I spotted beyond a railway underpass and on a major highway, a store. We detoured over there, crossed the majorly busy highway, got some cold drinks, then went across the street to sit on some steps and have our lunch. When I stood up after lunch, I noticed that we had an excellent view of the marble mountains.

Back under the railway, and we noticed this wonderful marble frog water fountain,

with a via Francigena pilgrim etched into it.

We carried on and met Stephano at a bar in Avenza. He must have passed us when we veered off the Way to get have lunch. We stopped for water, said hi, and carried on. He was engrossed in a big conversation with a local Italian.

We then increasingly saw spectacular views of the marble mountains, and as we entered and passed through Cararra, passed a host of marble cutting and finishing plants. 

These have to be the most beautiful mountains I've ever seen. 

When we get back to Canada, I’m going to attempt to redo our front entrance (pretty small square footage) in Cararra marble.

The B&B today is 1.5km off the via Francigena. Once again, it is absolutely lovely. It has a pool (surprise), lovely gardens, and a nice room with an air conditioner. We went for a lovely swim, did all our laundry etc and now have to wait for them to drive us to dinner. It is included, but the 81 year old lady still running the place doesn’t do dinner anymore. First she said 8, then came over and said 8:15. Frankly, eating this late just doesn’t work for us when we want to get to bed and get up early, but we are in Italy!