We both slept
pretty good last night. The one thing the room did have was a fully functioning
air conditioner. After instantly falling asleep, I woke up at 2am to go to the
bathroom, and when I returned I started worrying about bed bugs. The place was
a bit of a dive. As time ticked by, I said to myself, ‘shine the flashlight on
the sheets, and see if there is a problem’, but I was afraid I would see some
and then what? I’d have to go spend the rest of the night in the marble
stairway with no air conditioning. I finally fell back asleep around 4am. I’m
sure there were no bedbugs.
Breakfast was
pretty pathetic again. Tang for a breakfast juice, a cappuccino, and a
croissant (at least it was fresh, and not in a cellophane package). We also got
a packaged chocolate cake, and package of toast (like melba toast but much
thicker). We took the packaged goods for lunch. He didn’t charge us for the
water and 0.5 litre of house wine we had at dinner, and we were on the road at
7:50am.
Most of the walk
today was off any sort of main/busy highway, which was much appreciated. It was
however, largely on asphalt roads, or hard packed gravel roads.
Guess what the
very first thing we did was? Climb steeply for several km. It was very hot and
the humidity was forecast to be 100% but without rain. Is that possible? Much
of today was spent either climbing steeply up or descending steeply down hills.
We walked 22.9 km today and climbed 615 meters.
We entered and
exited and walked through the Parco Naturale Regionale di Veio several times
today. On went the muskol. We were talking to Kristjan and Kristine last
Saturday, and Kristjan asked how the deer flies were now, I hadn’t mentioned
them anymore. There are still lots of deer flies! They seem to like to sleep in
until 9:30am, but today they were bad already at 8:30am. The only reason I
haven’t mentioned them is because I have given in to using Muskol. I have been
putting it in on as soon as they are a problem, and it works to keep them away.
They don’t seem to be as attracted to Russell, and he has never put on any
Muskol. He does however have several bites.
It was very
pleasant walking through the park: sometimes shady;
part of the path was cut out of tuff rock;
we forded streams;
it was very quiet; and the scenery was lovely. At one point we could have made a detour to visit the magnificent Sanctuario of Madonna del Sorba, but we didn’t because it was well before 10am and most rural churches are only open from 10am-noon (not to mention it would have involved a mighty climb up there).
part of the path was cut out of tuff rock;
we forded streams;
it was very quiet; and the scenery was lovely. At one point we could have made a detour to visit the magnificent Sanctuario of Madonna del Sorba, but we didn’t because it was well before 10am and most rural churches are only open from 10am-noon (not to mention it would have involved a mighty climb up there).
When we weren’t
in the park, we passed many mansions with gates/fences and lots of barking
dogs. We are pretty much in the suburbs of Rome here, and rich people are
looking for prime estate.
Once again we
were following the route notes today, which were very clear. The GPS was not
working again (in the sense that it was just following the highway, yuck, not
the alternate paths which the route notes were following).
There was a major
disconnect with the route notes/GPS at the only town we went through today, namely
Formello. The GPS was going to bypass the town, whereas the route notes took us
right through it. Thank God too, otherwise we would have gone 23 km today with
no stores/restaurants getting to Isola Farnese, and there is NOTHING in Isola
Farnese!
We ran into 4
pilgrims today. One husband/wife team, who had been at the same restaurant as
us with the lovely view in Sutri. They had started in Gambassi, a couple of weeks
ago. We were there on July 15. The other was a mother/daughter pair from
France. They had started in France three years ago, and had walked a part of
the via Francigena each year since, and then picked up from where they left off
the next year. The mother is 74 years old. I walked for a stretch with the
mother, and asked why she was walking the VF. She said for physical reasons
(ie, to keep healthy and in shape), for the scenery, for mental health, and for
spirituality. I told her I was doing it for the same reasons.
We only got lost
for a very short period today. I don’t know why. The way mark signs, the GPS, the
route notes, all said to turn right off a country gravel road and go through an
opening in an iron gate, on to a minor trail that was heading into the woods. We
kept going on the gravel road! Luckily a local stopped at a farm just up the
road and got out of the car and told us we missed the turn. Russell was very
annoyed with the route notes, but honestly, I think we just simply decided not
to turn there.
All the other
pilgrims we met today were going to La Storta. Our route notes said La Storta
is ‘an ugly suburb of Rome’ so they decided to stop in the small, lovely hamlet
of Isola Farnese, a few km ahead.
We were not
amused. Dinner today is not included. We need supplies for today and tomorrow.
There are no stores/bars/restaurants in this town. We have walked 14km since
the last place we could get cold water. The room has no fridge, no air
conditioner, and another totally minimal breakfast.
Russell was
really mad about this. She had said she would drive us to dinner tonight, which
would have been around 7:30 -8pm. We wanted to go to a store now instead, pick
up food for supper and other supplies for the walk tomorrow, and eat an early
supper here. There is a bus every 40 minutes from Isola Farnese to La Storta. I
thought it might be nice to be independent and take the bus. Russell wanted her
to drive us to the store, a fair exchange for not driving us to dinner.
The lady here
speaks nothing but Italian. We were trying to use the phone’s italian/english
conversion feature to communicate what we wanted to do.
Russell was
saying he wanted her to drive us to the store, and he thought he was
progressing nicely along that vein. I was getting the impression she really
didn’t understand the whole concept, and I mentioned the bus. Well she picked
up on that right away, and seemed to drop any idea of driving us. I could see
Russell was very annoyed with me. It’s true we wouldn’t know where to get off
the bus.
In the end she
drove us there and dropped us off, but not where we asked her to take us. We
like Conad, a supermercato here, because it tends to cater to a North American
diet much better than all the other grocery stores. Russell had asked her via
the phone translation feature to take us to Conad, but she dropped us off at a
Tostad. The two stores were a considerable distance apart. Lots of grumbling.
Russell was using
his phone data plan to figure out where we were and where we wanted to go. She
had kind of vaguely told us where to get the bus back, but it was a long way
from the Conad. As luck would have it, as we were walking to the Conad the bus
we were to take drove up a side street and turned onto the via Cassia right before
our eyes, so we knew exactly what stop to get on at. We walked the rest of the
way to the Conad, stopping to have a cold beer. That greatly improved
everyone’s outlook on our predicament. The bus is every 40 minutes, and we
waited at the bus stop for a good 30-35 minutes. We got back, and were having
our Conad dinner at a table in what was a restaurant at our hotel, when she
came by. She then clarified that she was relieved of the duty of driving us to
supper (I didn’t think she was catching on to that). She said ‘oh, you went to
Conad’.
The room is
unbelievably hot. With the humidex it was 47 today!
Buen Viaje, pilgrim friends!!
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