Day 35 Siena to Buonconvento- Sunday July 19, 2015

We were down for breakfast at 7:20am, but told it wouldn’t open until 7:30. Nice try though. Perfect buffet breakfast with everyone’s favorites. A lady, probably in her thirties, came over to say she had heard us talking and asked if we were walking the via Francigena. We said yes. She is taking a week to bike around the area, and sometimes will be on the VF. She is going to Buonconvento today too, and it sounds like that will be her base to bike from. She asked how far it was and I told her our route was 37km, but we were only going to walk 18.2 km because of the heat. She said it wasn’t quite as bad on a bike because you generated your breeze. I bet it’s pretty much as hard either way. We all wished each other a safe and pleasant journey.

We left at 8am, and started exiting Siena. This was slow because we continually had to read the route notes and find where we were supposed to go. 

In the end that all went reasonably well. I was looking forward to seeing a statue of a she-wolf on top of a column (symbol of Siena) but when we got to it, it was encased in a cover and being rehabilitated in some manner. I was concerned when we exited through the Porta Romana city gate that it had taken us an hour to walk 2km.

We had a rendezvous at 1pm with the shuttle driver, and we were getting nowhere fast. It was a pleasant walk exiting from Siena. We walked past a lot of mansions along the way, there because of the beautiful views of the country side (not to mention Siena) no doubt. We had a number of great photo opportunities to enjoy a scenic view of Siena.

We were doing a great job of following both the route notes and the GPS until km 6.25, when our data deviated from the via Francigena signs. We consulted with a bicycler, who read the route notes and concluded that if we followed the VF we would end up in the same place. The VF trail looked very fresh, and we thought that it was probably new and attempting to save us pilgrims from highway walking. We followed the VF sign, our first mistake. We seemed to end up back on the GPS at a roundabout, where the VF signs clearly went one way, but Russell’s GPS went another. We followed the VF signs. Our second mistake. We ended up in a place that wasn’t on Beppe’s map, with VF signs all over showing the way to go. I had hoped we would converge back onto both the GPS and/or the route notes at some point. We figured out how to get back on the GPS and went up to the SR2 – a major highway. Russell estimated if we walked 750 metres along the SR2 we would be back on the GPS route. There was a VF sign at the SR2 pointing in the opposite direction. We decided we needed to be on something we were told to follow, so walked along that highway until we were back on the GPS. At that point we were also able to figure out where we were in the route notes. Hurray. This immediately took us down into a gorge that the highway was avoiding, and we had to climb back out of it. We were also walking pretty much parallel with the SR2 back in the direction from which we came. Rather annoying.

At this point we were just wandering through fields on dirt roads. We came to a Y at one point where the GPS said to go one way, the VF signs said to go another, and the route notes seemed to agree with the VF signs. We went the way of the VF signs again, probably the third mistake of the day.

To make a long story short, we wandered around the fields, up and down, ended up in a village not mentioned anywhere, and pretty much lost for hours. We had been making really good time after finally getting out of Siena, but now we were getting close to our deadline, and didn’t have a clue where we were.

Finally Russell figured out a way to get back on the GPS, which we did, and got to Grancia di Cuna, where the Viadelsole person was waiting for us. We got there at 1:05.

We figured out that at the point where we were at the SR2 with the VF sign pointing in the opposite direction, if we had followed it we probably were 3-4km from our rendezvous point. Instead we walked about 10km, up and down some major hills, with exactly the same scenery both ways. On the bright side, we managed to keep ourselves busy until 1pm.

The lady couldn’t speak English. Of course we had not passed a single store for the 20.3km, we were almost out of water that had been boiling hot for about 3 hours, and it was a good 40 degrees by this point, not taking account of the humidex. I asked her if we could stop and get some water somewhere, but she said there was nowhere. We were watching as we drove to our hotel, and we really never did drive past anywhere that looked like it might sell water. We thanked her (at least we didn’t need to worry about finding our hotel) and went to check in. While doing all that, Russell walked to a bar across the street and bought two waters, of which we both guzzled down half of in one gulp before the lady. It’s hard to be polite when you’re absolutely parched.

It was so hot here today that going sightseeing was out of the question. Thank God we got picked up half way, I’m sure we would have had heat stroke.

Tomorrow is 24km and a 750 meter ascent. The forecast is the same. It doesn’t look like there are any stores along the way. It’s not a pleasant prospect.

It’s very hard to be spiritual when you’re just trying to survive.

At the end of five weeks on the VF we have walked 610 of 778km and climbed 15.1km. We are 276km from Rome (according to Beppe’s route notes), with 14 more days to go. Hopefully the heat wave will be over in another week. They are under the influence of a weather system from Africa, which is very hot and humid. Very unusual weather. Usually they are under the influence of weather from the ocean.