Day 48 - Isola Farnese to Rome- Saturday August 1, 2015

I slept really well last night with the combo of the window open and the fan, but Russell didn’t sleep much, finding it just too hot.

It is going to be unbearably hot today, 41 degrees with the humidex, and I wanted to get going really early. I tried to tell the lady to just leave us a breakfast and access to the hotel fridge (it was in a locked room and we had put water and lunch materials in there). She said she would do breakfast at 7am. I wanted to leave way before that, but so be it.

She and her husband were up and about and we went to breakfast at 6:50am. That worked out reasonably well, except she didn’t bring our coffee until 7:05am. We were on the road at 7:15am.

Did I mention that Isola Farnese had another Farnese Palace and a castle? This Farnese palace was built in 1516, right around the time he was building his over the top decadent castle in Caprarola. Admittedly, this castle was nowhere near as grand, being more the size of a large hotel, but it just boggles the mind how lucrative the Cardinal favors market can be.

We were walking uphill along a highway to start, about 1 km to the via Cassia. Luckily it was Saturday, so the main traffic when we met was bicycles! That didn’t last long, once we turned and starting walking on the via Cassia there was lots of traffic. We have frequently been walking along the via Cassia at least since Siena. It seems to be the road cars follow to drive the via Francigena in this part of Italy. Here is a picture we took of the via Cassia from an overpass walking to Isola Farnese yesterday.

The side with a sidewalk/best shoulder kept switching as we were walking out of La Storta, necessitating a lot of switching the side of the road we were walking on. I began to think that if we didn’t get hit walking on the side of the busy road, we would get hit crossing the busy road to change sides.

By 8am it was already too hot. It is incredibly humid in this part of the country.

The route notes said that at 3.74km, ‘pay attention to the traffic when the Braccianese joins the Cassia. Cross it and walk on the right sidewalk’. What did that mean? Cross the Braccianese and walk on the right sidewalk of the Braccianese, or cross the via Cassia and walk on the right side of that? There was no sidewalk on either right side. There was a sidewalk on the left side of the via Cassia. We were busy trying to stay on the side of the road that offered the greatest protection. Where exactly was his km 3.74? We carried on.

The route notes said that at km 3.95 we would see the ‘exit sign of La Storta and entering sign of La Guistinia. Remain on the right …’.

I was attempting to follow the route notes, except for walking on the side of the road I felt was safest. I was aware he wanted us on the right side somewhere. We seemed to be tracking the GPS. I was getting very annoyed. The traffic was awful and it was clearly a dangerous place to be walking. At about 5 km on the GPS, we finally noticed that the via Cassia had been two lanes one-way only for about the last 1 km, and now it was suddenly merging with the two lanes coming the other way (ie, it was now 4 lanes), with cars moving at 120km+/hr. The sidewalk came to an end, there was no shoulder on either side, and we were on the left side.  We could see a leaving La Storta sign in the distance. I told Russell there was no way we could cross to the right side, we probably should have walked on the right side of the Braccianese a km ago.

Poor Russell. He’s got little patience to start with and I’m afraid he lost his patience with these crytic route notes about 500 km ago. I was starting to panic because of the traffic, and said, ‘this is exactly why I didn’t want to walk into Rome’. Of course, I was the one who caved and decided it wouldn’t be right to not walk into Rome. A big fight erupted at that point. You know, ‘it was your idea’, ‘why are we doing this?’, ‘we could have gotten a ride with the baggage transfer’, ‘where are we’, and ‘what do we do now’.

I was looking at the route notes, and this was just going to get worse. Even if we went back a km and kept right, we were going to be on highways a good part of the day, with the route notes constantly saying ‘watch the traffic’. We both decided we really didn’t want to do this. We turned around on the one-way via Cassia, going in the direction of the traffic, and soon passed a bus stop. The sign said it was going to the Stazione, and we got on the bus thinking it was going to a train station in La Storta. We had just stocked up on water as we exited the town, and Russell had used up virtually all his change, so we knew we didn’t have 3 euro exact change to pay for what we expected the tickets to cost, but we were prepared to pay 5 euro with paper money. We tried to communicate this to the driver, who got the point across that the bus only accepted bus tickets. How unfriendly is that! Here we are, two pilgrims in a bit of a crisis situation, God knows where, rescued by a bus, and we had no way we could pay for the ride. I thought he was going to stop and make us get off, but he didn’t. Then, I was a bit worried an inspector would get on the bus, but that didn’t happen either. Whew.

We were expecting the bus to go down via Cassia. No such luck, right after we got on he turned left and drove for about 15 minutes in another direction before arriving at the ‘station’. It wasn’t a train station, it was a bus ‘station’. Not a bus station with a lot of buses going here and there, just a couple of other buses, and none were there at the moment. Out came the translation service on the phone. He seemed as if he really didn’t want to help us, but I was very persistent. We had no idea where we were, or how to get to Rome from there. He seemed to warm up to our plight, and even got his own cell phone out and was showing me a map of the bus routes. That might have been useful if I had some small clue where we were and where we wanted to go. He gave me a ‘this is impossible’ look, and left the station with us still on the bus. He drove a bit, stopped at an intersection that didn’t have a bus stop and told us to go down the street and take the 905. Cars behind were honking. We thanked him. Another angel on the via francigena.

We walked down to the first bus stop we came to, which had a bus 905 stop there. I saw a store a bit further down the road and I went there while Russell was trying to find the schedule for the 905 with his phone. I bought a bottle of water and asked the people in the store how we could get to Rome. We had sort of figured out that we must be somewhere in the suburbs of Rome.  Thankfully there was a girl there that was fairly good in English. She looked at my cross and asked if I wanted to go to the Vatican, and I said ‘yes’. She then got a piece of paper and wrote out detailed instructions. Take the 905 to Cornelia Metro; take Metro A from Cornelia, in the direction of Anagnina, to Ottaviano. I asked if she had bus tickets, and she said you pay to the machine on the bus, 1.5 euros. That is what we did on the bus yesterday, so I got lots of change and went back up to the bus stop.

Russell had figured out the bus was every 30 minutes. After a total of about 25 minutes since we had been dropped off the first bus, we boarded the 905. Once again there was no way to pay cash, you needed a ticket. This time we didn’t bother offering to pay cash, but we asked the bus driver to please tell us when we were at Cornelia, and he said he would. We sat at the very front of the bus beside the driver.

This bus ride went on and on. There was standing room only on the bus, it was so packed, and I was getting a bit nervous a supervisor would get on at any moment. At one point Russell said, I think our seats are for old people, and I said, ‘well, what are we?’

We missed the Cornelia metro station because the bus driver thought we wanted the Cornelia bus station, but it didn’t make too much difference. Russell figured we were only a couple of km from the hotel anyway, and I said ‘why take the metro? We were going to walk 24km to get here.’

We took the metro anyway, rather than trying to figure out where to go, because we didn’t have a half descent map and our brains were pretty much fried at this point. We got off at Ottaviana and came up out of the metro, and used the route notes map to get to the hotel. Way to go Beppe.

Beppe booked our night in Rome at the Alimande Hotel, and it is a very lovely hotel, right beside the Vatican. The air conditioner in our room works perfectly, the hotel lobby is air conditioned (major added bonus), the room is very spacious and well laid out, and the breakfast buffet is excellent – they even have bacon and scrambled eggs – Russell was in heaven. I’ve encountered a few ants in the bathroom, but nothing like the swarms of them in the carpet at Viterbo. It’s about 10 euro a night more here, and I wish I had booked our extra nights in Rome here, except I didn’t know about this place in advance. We went to find PapavistaRelais, the place we thought we were going to stay today and where I booked the extra nights, so we would know exactly where to go tomorrow morning. We walked the entire length of the street (fortunately it’s only about three blocks long), and couldn’t find it. Beppe had said it was across the street from the Alimande, and there was a restaurant right across where we asked if the waiter knew was it was, and he didn’t. It took a while but we finally found it. There was nothing but a big wooden door, with a tiny apartment buzzer for the place. Very obscure.

We arrived at 10am, checked in, got the royal tour of the hotel, asked the fellow about going to swim in the Mediterranean tomorrow, and he gave us some suggestions. We then had to wait for an hour for our room to be ready, so we went to the outdoor patio area of the 4^th floor lounge for patrons and had a snack (we had bought yogurt and two oranges to go with the hotel’s croissant for breakfast, but felt it would rude to eat them in front of her when she insisted on getting up and serving us breakfast). We started to plan what we wanted to do while in Rome. 

We need to go to Piazza PioXII to the opera Romana pellegrinaggi for our VF Vatican stamp, and our certificates. 

Fortunately, I figured out in advance that was precisely the same place we had to go to pick up our Omni Rome passes. After we had a shower and changed, we walked there and got all that business done. Interestingly, not many people at the office knew about the via Francigena. Two ladies working there overheard our requests and told the fellow we had waited in line to talk to send us to see one of them (another line to wait in- oh well). We got our credenzia’s stamped with the official Vatican stamp and we were issued our lovely, very official looking, certificates of completion of the Via Francigena. The lady seemed very nervous, or serious, about filling in the certificates, but in the end she gave us each a high five and congratulated us on our efforts.

We also got our Rome passes, and are booked for the Vatican Museum Tour, the Vatican Gardens tour, and a visit to St. Peter’s Basilica on Monday, August 3^rd. On Tuesday we will do the hop on, hop off bus thing, and on Wednesday we will visit the Coliseum/Palatine/Roman Forum and Galleria Borghese, plus the Castello Sant’Angelo and Basilica of St. John in Lateran and Cloister (if we have the time and energy).

We figured out that the nicest, cleanest, easiest Mediterranean beach to get to by public transit was at St. Marinella. We got up Sunday, had breakfast, checked out of Alimande, checked into PapavistaRelais, took the metro to Roma Termini, got our train tickets from the automatic ticket machine with the assistance of a very helpful young lady we thought was an employee of Trenitialia (St. Marinella didn’t register as a destination from Roma Termini without some skill and effort, and she knew how to do it). A lady buying her tickets at the next machine gave me a nod and said ‘be careful’, so I knew then she wasn’t an employee. I told Russell to check the tickets very carefully, and all went well. Of course the helpful person ended us asking us for money for the help, to which Russell refused (he still thought she was an employee), but I told him to give her some money (Russell has all the money), and he gave her a euro. She saved us having to wait through 100 customers in the queue for tickets from the ticket office, and she was pregnant.

We got to the beach at around 11am. We got off the train, walked a block down the street out of the station, turned right and walked a long block down that street, and we were there. We rented an umbrella and two chairs on the beach for 30 euros. This included the use of a shower (which only had freezing cold water), but it was very handy to get all the salt and sand off. They didn’t have any lockers, but the fellow that sold us the umbrella spot put our bags in their private room where they stored drinks for the snack bar (ours were the only bags in there).

We had a wonderful time. The bottom was a beautiful, sandy beach, the water was very clean, and we were very cool in the water. Russell estimates there were 1500 umbrella’s on the beach. 

There were hotels all along the beach, with restaurants/bars, and vendors selling bathing suits, shifts, hats, and all kinds of beach paraphernalia. I forgot my flip flops and the sand was boiling hot, too bad no one was selling flip flops for a euro or two – missed marketing opportunity. This is quite different from Canadian beaches, but as I pointed out to Russell, most beaches in Canada (certainly at Provincial Parks), charge you to use them.

It was almost too hot to go to beach today, but we were both very pleased we managed to fit in a swim in the Mediterranean. The first train back to Rome left at 16:51, and we took it. We got back to the hotel around 18:45. It was a miracle we found two seats together on the train, and another miracle we managed to get on the first metro car that went by at Roma Termini to get to Ottaviana. There was a horde of people at the metro station waiting for that car!

When you walk the Camino, there is a whole ritual to perform when you finally arrive at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostella to complete your pilgrimage. There isn’t any documentation I have found on a ritual to perform in Rome. Today, in St.Peter’s Basilica, I touched the foot of the bronze statue of Saint Peter

and now I feel our pilgrimage to Rome along the via Francigena is complete.

Honestly, we can’t believe that 48 days of walking have elapsed! The time has just sped by. We walked 787 km of the total 1,054 km, and climbed 18.2 km (Note that we have figured out that the GPS has an error on the meters ascent resulting from bobbing up and down while walking. This is the first time we have reported the ascent corrected for the estimated error. The unadjusted ascent was 19.7 km.

It will take weeks, months, perhaps years to fully appreciate the personal and spiritual significance of walking this ancient pilgrimage route. On the positive side: the scenery was magnificent; we visited/experienced/ walked past endless sites with major religious, historical, cultural, and archeological significance; we experienced some thin places; there were highly spiritual moments; we felt a special bond with the other pilgrims we met along the way; we were blessed by the grace of angels along the way, saving us when things were really grim; we stayed in some very nice places; met some very nice people; we very much appreciated having Beppe to rely on; we enjoyed the food and wine of Italy; and, after raining on and off a little bit on the first two days, it never rained when we were walking.

Reflecting on the blog, I hope I haven’t over accentuated the negative. However, the walk was made extremely difficult for a number of reasons: it was far too hot to have been doing this now (we have no control over the weather); the amount of climbing was far more extensive than I ever envisioned; the vast distance we had to travel between access to cold water along the way was a major challenge, especially in this heat and with all the climbing; we were prepared for a lot of road walking, but not for the considerable amount of walking along roads where the conditions were really dangerous; and, the lack of way marking in some locations, and the conflicting way marking in other locations combined with the poor translation of the route notes from Italian to English (maybe the Italian version was hard to follow as well?) ended up in a lot of wasted time and effort, both trying to figure out where to go and getting back on track when we got lost.

It will take time to come to fully appreciate all the lessons we have learned from this experience, and to recognize as spiritual the many moments we didn’t appreciate at the time because of the weight of the physical challenges we faced at the time.

We did enjoy it and are glad we did it. For anyone considering going on a pilgrimage, the camino is much more pilgrim friendly and physically easier. The via francigena is very challenging, but very rewarding.

This is our last post on the blog.

Day 47 - Campagnano di Roma to Isola Farnese- Friday July 31, 2015

As I said yesterday, the hotel room last night is really small, shabby, sparsely furnished, and not overly clean. But the dinner was superb. We each had penne with spicy arrabbiata sauce as a primo; Russell had a pork chop for his secondo; and, I had stir fried beef with arugula for a secondo, which was so absolutely delicious I’m going to have to learn how to make it myself (did I ever mention before that beef with arugula is supposed to be an aphrodisiac for tired pilgrims?) Russell wanted to get some grappa after supper, but the waiter never came back to us. Russell was annoyed by this, but rather than seeking him out, we just left.

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).  

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!

The route notes to Rome look pretty scary, traffic wise. But it’s our last day walking, and we have decided to just ‘do it’. It’s 24km, we hope to leave at 7am, and get to Rome by 2pm.

Day 46 - Sutri to Campagnano di Roma- Thursday July 30, 2015

Breakfast today was at 7:30am, and we hadn’t yet heard back from Beppe so we entered our request to get a ride with the baggage transfer to Campagnano di Roma on the phone and translated it into Italian. There was a lady here this morning serving breakfast, and we negotiated with her about getting a ride. She was saying the taxi would come at 3pm and Russell was agreeing. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

Breakfast was the worst so far, corn flakes and milk, box juice, coffee, and packaged croissants that looked like they had already spent way too much time in the cellophane. After breakfast we went up to our room and brought down our luggage.

I was not happy with a 3pm departure time. I figured there was enough to do in Sutri to keep us busy until 11am, then we could have a coffee and be ready to go at noon. I had told Russell to ask for a noon departure time. Instead of doing that he said we wanted to leave in the afternoon, and whatever time she liked was fine. She was actually calling a cab to take us (ie, it wasn’t someone from the hotel doing the transfer) for heaven’s sake, so Russell should have just told her what time we wanted to go. There would be nothing to do here between I2:30pm to 3pm because of siesta, and we wouldn’t even have a room where we could go to relax. When we came back down I tried to explain to her we wanted to leave at noon, and she called the taxi driver, again, and we all agreed on 1:30pm. Better.

Sutri is a town of ancient origins with places and monuments dating from the Etruscan, Roman, and medieval periods. Fortified high on tufa rocks, it controlled the commerce in this part of Etruria and its prosperity grew with the construction of the Cassia, a great artery of traffic between Rome and the northern regions. It survived several hard battles between Etruscans and Romans, finally becoming ruled as a municipality of Rome in around the 12^th century.

Its primary splendor was in the Etruscan time period, and its ancient remains are a major draw for tourism, including: a Roman amphitheater excavated in the tuff rock, an Etruscan necropolis with dozens of rock-cut tombs, a Mithraeum incorporated in the crypt of its church of the Madonna del Parto, and a Romanesque Duomo.

The amphitheater of Sutri is one of the most evocative ancient monuments of the Lazio. It’s entirely dug in the cliff of soft tufa rock, with a major axis of 49 meters and a minor axis of 40 meters. It was constructed with Etruscan techniques and workers between the end of the 1^st century BC and the beginning of the 2^nd century AD. 

The Etruscan necropolis is also carved in the rock. 64 tombs are still visible, dated from 3^rd century BC to 1^st century AD.

We had a tour of the Mithraeum, which is a small Mithraic temple, erected in classical antiquity by the worshippers of Mithras. The Mithraeum was an adapted natural cave. You could see the typical banqueting benches where worshippers would have gathered for a common meal as part of their liturgy. There were many frescoes, which have be added to over the centuries by Christians, who took over the site.

The Via Francigena as expected went all through the site, which we explored quite thoroughly. We then entered the city along the VF through the Porta Vecchia. We visited all of the open/ remaining churches in Sutri, notably the Cathedral di Santa Maria Assunta, which was built in 1207 but heavily revitalized in the 1750’s. Very beautiful church, which is obviously well used today. Our guide at the Mithraeum this morning said there were 79 churches in Sutri at the peak! They are having a Beethoven festival in the town this summer, and we wondered where the concerts were being held. The concerts are being held at the Chiesa San Francesco, which we discovered during our visit to that church. It reminded us of St. Bridget’s – cold! They had a lot of portable propane heaters about.

Sure enough we had finished our sightseeing, had a coffee, and bought our supplies by around noon, so we went back to the Hotel Sutrivm to sit and blog until the taxi arrived.

The taxi driver lived in Sutri but worked in Rome. His driving was very reasonable, except for tailgating the big truck he was stuck behind for most of the trip. It took us about 20 minutes to get to our Hotel Benigni for tonight. The walk was 27.5 km, and would have taken us a good 8 hours. The temperature is heating up again. It was 34 degrees when we got here at 1:40pm today. The forecast in Rome is 36 or 37 degrees for the 5 days we are going to be there.

The hotel room is really small, shabby, sparsely furnished, and not overly clean. This is the last night our dinner is included. One more night after this until Rome. Our hotel rooms in Rome look very nice.

We are thinking now we will walk into Rome – to heck with the traffic! It would be rather an anti-climax to take a taxi to Rome. Plus there are some magnificent views of the city as you walk in from the mountains. If the traffic is really hairy when we get into the city, we can always come up with a Plan B!

We’ll see how the walk goes tomorrow to Isola Farnese.

Day 45 - Caprarola to Sutri- Wednesday July 29, 2015

We had arranged breakfast for 7am, and the deal was to go to the house of the lady who ran the B&B. We stood around outside until after 7am, and then knocked on the door. 

We had our hiking boots on and I asked if she wanted us to take them off, but she said no. The dining room was ceramic tile and right off the vestibule, so we thought it wouldn’t be too rude to just leave them on. The whole thing was a bit awkward really, and all she offered for breakfast was basically cookies and bread, a bottle of juice, and coffee. I can’t walk on an empty stomach so I had three different cookies, very good cookies, but not really what I’d choose for breakfast. My system was still upset and I had to run off before really finishing anything. I told Russell to finish his breakfast, but he insisted on leaving with me.    We returned later with the keys, thanked her and were on the road at 7:30am.

It was a very steep climb out of Caprarola, but the walk was supposed to be basically downhill off the mountain after that. We had some magnificent views leaving the city. We discovered that the basically downhill road was liberally sprinkled with steep uphill climbs every several hundred meters. In fact, although the route notes said the uphill gap today was ‘-‘, we climbed a total of 515 meters and walked 18.3 km.

This has metaphorical significance. Even when the way is primarily smooth and easy, you need to plan for and be prepared for contingencies. The steep uphill sections were probably only partially a result of the geography. Suppose a car going down the mountain had a brake failure. Those steep uphill sections would be very important, their only chance to stop. In all situations, you need an escape route.

We passed through a rather large and historic town along the way, called Ronciglione. It would have been nice if the route notes had identified it as a place that had numerous bars/restaurants and stores. It also had a lot of historical and religious places. There was a very beautiful fountain, called Fontana degli Unicorni, a masterpiece made in 1566 by  Antonio Gentili da Faenza;

a Cathedral, 

a tower, 

statues, other churches, an ancient part of the city; and a grand gate ‘Porta Romana’ decorated with the Farnese lilies. We stopped for a coffee, and also did a lot of sightseeing there.

We then walked along the via Cassia Cimina for 1.2km, turned onto a dirt road passing industrial buildings, then through a grove of hazelnut trees and past the small Sant’Eusebio church (4^th-8^th century), made of tuff (ie, volcanic ash) stone. We were then back on the Via Cassia Cimina for another 1.2 km.

Walking on the via Cassia Cimina is dangerous and, in my opinion, carelessly stupid. It is like walking along Highway 401, except there is only two lanes and no shoulder, there is thorny vegetation along the side of the road forcing you to walk on the road, and there are a lot of hairpin turns. The cars are whizzing by at 120km/hr, with cars passing on a solid line, so that even if the oncoming cars wanted to move over to give you room, they can’t, because a car is passing them in the other lane. Either that, or a car is coming the other way. At one point I noticed a hubcap in a spot that had a ditch, and thought, if a car lost a hubcap now, we’d be dead.

 We were basically on asphalt roads most of the day, except for a few km. Not all of them were as busy or had traffic moving as fast as on the via Cassia Cimina, but the asphalt really bothers my bursitis, and with the problem I was having with my system, it was a challenge.

A few km before Sutri we passed a large waterslide park. 

What fun it would have been to go there. Where are the kids when you need them!

We got to Sutri at around 12:45pm. We were planning to go to the amphitheater here and have lunch, but it was getting close to Siesta time, and we needed some supplies, so just came into the city to our hotel. Our hotel is an Albergo, very nice but quite modest. Shortly after we arrived the fellow running the place left. We made use of the small bar/table area to have our lunch, then came up to wash two days of clothes, shower, have a rest, and blog.  

There is a lot to do here, and a ton of tourists in the town.

Dinner was not included today, and we accidentally stumbled upon a restaurant for supper with an absolutely magnificent view. We each just had a simple primo (pasta dish) and salad for supper, but it was good, and we really enjoyed the view.

The owner of the hotel talks only Italian. I looked over the route notes for tomorrow, and it is 28km, primarily on asphalt, with a stint on a ‘very busy 4 lane highway’. It’s bad enough on a 2 lane highway here. There is a major amount of sightseeing here, so I called Beppe to arrange a drive tomorrow afternoon to our next accommodation. This will leave us with one last day of walking on Friday.

We would both rather be walking these last few days to Rome. But we’d like to arrive alive! You need to have a plan B.

Day 44 - Viterbo to Caprarola- Tuesday July 28, 2015

Hotel Mini Palace did not do dinner, so they made reservations for us to have supper at Etruscan Restorant Pizzeria. I asked the girl that was on reception when we got here if we got a voucher for supper, and before we left we asked the fellow on reception if we got a voucher, and he said no, he had made a reservation.

The girl said the restaurant started to serve supper at 8pm, but we left around 6pm to do some sightseeing before supper in Viterbo.

Viterbo is an ancient city in the Latium region, surrounded by Mont Cimini and Volsini, of volcanic origins. The historic center of the city is surrounded by medieval walls, still intact, built during the 11^th and 12^th centuries. Entrance to the walled center of the city is through ancient gates. 

Viterbo’s precise origins are unknown, it is probably Etruscan (768-264 BC). The first firm report of the city dates to the 8^th century. It was fortified in 773 by the Lombardy King Desiderius, who tried to conquer Rome.

Later, Viterbo became part of the Papal States, but that status was highly contested by the Emperors in the following centuries, until in 1095 it became a free commune. In a period in which the Popes had difficulties asserting their authority over Rome, Viterbo became their favored residence, beginning with Pope Eugene III (1145-1146).

Viterbo’s historic center is one of the best preserved medieval towns of Central Italy. Many of the older buildings (particularly churches) are built on top of ancient ruins, recognizable by their large stones. The main attraction is the Papal Palace, and then the San Lorenzo Cathedral. The cathedral was erected in Romanesque style by Lombardy architects over a temple of Hercules. It was variously rebuilt from the 16^th century on, but was heavily damaged in 1944 by Allied bombs.

After walking back into the walled city through the Porta Romana gate (1765), we first located our restaurant, and then wandered about through the multitude of piazza’s in Viterbo. We were going to tour the San Lorenzo Cathedral 

and the Papal Palace, which the lady at the hotel told us were open until 8pm, but they had closed at 7pm. When we went to the restaurant for dinner at 8pm we found out it had opened at 7:30pm. Oh well.

The guy brought us the full menu (available in Italian only), which we questioned and told him we were on half board. He spoke very little English, so he brought over another waitress to translate. We asked her if we really should have the full menu since our dinner was included with the room, she said yes. We asked what we were allowed to order off it, and she said we could order whatever we wanted, but suggested a primo and a secondo, and one side. The man then made a suggestion that we order an all in one dish, where it included fettucine with mushrooms as a primo, we could pick whatever secondo we wanted, and it included mixed vegetables, spinach, and roast potatoes. We both ordered that, Russell got meatballs in gorgonzola cheese sauce and I got a veal chop. It was very good. The vegetables were a real treat.

When we left, we were going to pay for the wine and water, but he charged us for the entire meal. We told him to call the hotel, which he did. He spoke to the fellow that had told us he had made the reservation, and he told the restaurant guy that we were to pay for the meal. So I talked to the hotel guy, and told him to look at our hotel voucher, which he did, but he didn’t seem to understand what ‘dinner’ meant, so I told him to call Beppe. He let out this big groan (Beppe is obviously well known in Italy, plus he could tell he was fighting a losing battle), and told me to let him talk to the restaurant guy again. The restaurant fellow handed us the bill and said to work it out with the hotel.

I knew there was going to be a problem. No restaurant voucher, no special menu. What was the hotel guy thinking? If we had to pay for the meal, why on earth we would we go where he told us to go?

Anyway, when we got back to the hotel, the fellow looked at the bill, rolled his eyes, and seemed prepared to cover the whole thing. We told him that we usually paid for the water, wine, coffee, and dessert. He seemed a bit happier and looking at the bill he said, ‘oh, you pay for the water and the wine’.

The air conditioner in the hotel was not working well (I had expected better of a 4 star hotel), so we turned it off, opened the drapes and the door as wide as they would open and turned on the fan (extra points to the hotel for having a fan too). We had a pretty good snooze. I never even thought about ants.

We got up at 6:15am, got all ready for our walk, packed everything and decided not to come back up to the room, because that wastes about 15 minutes, and set off for breakfast at 6:50am (which we were very pleased started at 7am). We were almost out of the door when Russell said, ‘where is my hat’? I said, ‘I hope you didn’t leave it at the restaurant last night’.

Russell, being somewhat follically challenged, would get his head burned to a crisp without his hat. A great deal of excitement erupted which was about to launch into a big debate and I said, ‘let’s go have breakfast’.

We took all our stuff down to the lobby, had breakfast, and then I told Russell to go ask the fellow at the reception (who was the same one as last night, surprisingly), when the Etruscan restaurant opened. The fellow said the restaurant opened at 1pm.

We had 17.6km to walk today, which doesn’t sound too bad, except it was at least 850 meters uphill in the first 10 km to climb Mount Cimina  (as much as the route notes had said to climb the alps- and we all know the route notes tend to underestimate these things). We really needed to get an early start to do that. The forecast was 34 degrees today, and it is so humid here, it is considered to be sub-tropical.

We went back to the receptionist after breakfast, and I started off by saying ‘we are your customers from hell’. He just shook his head in agreement. I thought he would laugh. I asked him about buses to Caprarola, and he took about 15 minutes printing out the bus schedule for Caprarola to Viterbo. That was really useful! What? He thought we were going to walk to Caprarola and come back for Russell’s hat?

We asked him about getting a ride to Caprarola with the baggage transfer taxi. He said the hotel took the bags, and yes, we could do that, but they took the bags at noon. I said we should be able to get the hat by then even if the restaurant didn’t open until 1pm, because someone was bound to be there earlier getting ready. He checked with the fellow that takes the bags, and he said he would wait until Russell got his hat and give us a ride, if it was later than noon.

Time was really slipping by. I said to Russell he had two choices: we leave without his hat and walk now; or, he gets his hat from the restaurant and we get a ride with the baggage transfer. Leaving any later than it was already,was not an acceptable option to me, with such a physically demanding walk in front of us in this heat.

He said, ‘you decide’, and I said, ‘no, you decide, it’s your hat’. He said, ‘well, I need my hat’.

So we took all our luggage back up to the room, we had a shower and got all the sun screen and Vaseline off, I put on make-up and my sightseeing clothes, and at 8:30am we went back into the walled city of Viterbo to save Russell’s hat.

We found out a part of the restaurant opened at 10am (it consisted of a gelateria, a pizzeria, and a restaurant), we then went sightseeing. First, we visited the city botanical park, very nice pond with ducks and geese,

and some really nice statues; and, then we followed the via Francigena from the Porta Fiorentina Gate we had entered the city through yesterday - through the walled city. The VF took us past all the churches, which were all open and we went in to see. This included the Saint Faustino and Giovita 16^th century church, which had a lot of empty beer bottles and beer bottle caps outside on the steps leading up to the church, presumably from last night. Probably because the steps outside these churches provide a nice place to sit. Russell and I have sat on church steps to eat our lunch numerous times on the VF (but we always dispose of the garbage when we are done). The church dome had a crack running through it from one end of the church to another. It housed some very beautiful and famous paintings.

We also went into the beautiful Church of the Trinita (built around 1256 but a larger one was built in 1727), which seems to be well used and the main functioning Church of Viterbo. It was in a much better state of repair and had a lot of lovely marble.

The VF then took us way down a steep decline into the old city where we had a terrific view of the palace/Rocca of Viterbo. There was a lot of work going on down there constructing a new park, which had a really interesting and very large statue/monument of what we think was a partially buried Hercules. 

We lost the VF at that point, possibly because the way markers were missing due to the construction.

We are going to mention, when we do our inevitable survey about our trip with Macs, that the route notes for Montefiascone to Viterbo should have taken us along the VF coming through Viterbo and getting to our accommodation. As mentioned, they were very clear yesterday, but they didn’t follow the VF. If we hadn’t gone back today and followed it, we would have missed a lot of things pilgrims want to see while walking the VF.

By this time it after 10am and we made a bee-line to the restaurant, where Russell and the restaurant staff were very happy he was reunited with his hat. We noted that there were a lot of workers buzzing around all three sections of the restaurant, and he probably could have gotten his hat well before 10am.

We stopped for a coffee before leaving the walled city, then went back to our hotel to check out as required by 11am.

We sat outside at the hotel café working on the blog until the driver was ready to take our bags (and us) to Caprarola.

It was a terrific climb, even in the car, up the mountain. Viterbo was at 300 meters, and the top of the mountain was marked as 860 meters. The walk, and the car ride, went through the natural reserve of Vico Lake. It is said that Hercules, when once challenged to prove his forces, threw to the ground a big trunk, which opened a cleft, from where began to gush out the water which filled up the valley forming Lake Vico. In reality, it is a crater formed by the collapse of the Vicano volcano, which over the centuries has filled up with water from underground springs. The steep slopes were covered by an impenetrable and insidious wood called cimina. Roman consul Fabius dared to penetrate it and built a road that later became the ancient via Cassia.

In the 16^th century the Farnese (more about them later) lowered the level of the lake through an underground tunnel, already bored by the Etruscans and leading to Vicano river in order to increase pasture ground and cultivatable land. This vast expanse can be admired from the ridges and is covered with hazelnut trees, Mount Venere, the last volcano to be active over 70,000 years ago rises in its midst. The mountain is covered with 35 meter high beeches, alternating with equally majestic Turkey oaks.

I was admiring Lake Vico from up on the mountain, and asked our driver (who couldn’t understand English) if people swam there, like in Lake Bolsena. Instead of turning into Caprarola (at a sign which said 4km to get there) at the top of the mountain, he turned in the opposite direction and drove 300 meters down to Lake Vico. He seemed to think I wanted to go swimming there. We certainly weren’t going to climb virtually 300 meters straight up the mountain with our suitcases, and I told him, no, we wanted to go to our B&B in Caprarola. He couldn’t turn around until the bottom, and then drove back up. When we got to the B&B his car’s brakes really smelled.

It was obvious comparing where the B&B was and how clear it was that it was a B&B,  to our route notes today, that we would have taken a good hour and a half to find our accommodation if we had walked today. The driver called the B&B lady, carried our bags up a long staircase, one after the other, like they were feather pillows, shook our hands and left. The lady arrived after about 5 minutes and took us up to the room and gave us the key. It was very small. The bathroom sink reminded us of the sink in our last trailer, you wondered when you brushed your teeth if you would get the rinse water in the sink or on the floor. It was so small that doing laundry was out of the question. It didn’t have a bidet. What the room did have however, was a fully functioning air conditioner, and for the first time in about three weeks, we got some well appreciated relief from the heat! Hallelujah.

Driving into Caprarola, the imposing Villa Farnese dominates the surroundings. 

It is a massive Renaissance and Mannerist construction. It is built on a five-sided plan in reddish gold stone and buttresses support the upper floors. As a centerpiece of the vast Farnese holdings, Caprarola has always been an expression of Farnese power, rather than a villa in more usual sense.

In 1504, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, the future Pope Paul III (1534-1549) acquired the estate at Caprarola. He had designs made for a fortified castle, or Rocca by the architect Antonio de Sangalio the Younger. The pentagonal building started as a defensive fortress probably between 1515 and 1530. Later it was transformed into a country residence when the Farnese family retired from Rome under a hostile Pope.

After lunch, we walked up the steps to the Farnese Villa (now the property of the Italian Government) from the piazza our B&B was in, and paid 2.50 euro to tour the palace. This has to have been the most significant thing, from the point of view of our understanding of why so many people are rejecting organized religion, we have done on this pilgrimage.

The palace was built by a Cardinal. It is completely decadent. There is no indication that money was ever a consideration in its construction. The frescoes are incredible, done by Vignola, and display an expert knowledge of mythology, religion, and the cultural heritage of the Farnese family. This excess is disgusting. 

Farnese’s worth as a Cardinal was equivalent to a tenth of the Papal reserves, and his wealth was acquired in part by granting favors.  It is not too hard to understand the genesis of Martin Luther’s Reformation Proclamation in 1517. The tour ended with a walk through the castle’s secret gardens. They included a cave with a pond that was incredibly beautiful.

I thank the good Lord above that Russell forgot his hat at that restaurant yesterday. That would have been an absolutely brutal climb today. At least when we climbed the Alps it was only 3 degrees at the top! But even more importantly, if we had walked today, there is no way we would visited the Farnese Palace. That is an extremely significant lesson we would not have learned.

At 7:30pm we went to our B&B hosts house and she accompanied us to the restaurant we were to eat at. Dinner was included. It was another absolutely delicious meal. I had a tempura fish and chip secondo. It had an incredible coating, unlike anything you could imagine. This followed spaghetti with tomato and basil sauce that was so good I ate all of it and was really too full for the secondo. Russell had gnocchi with cucumber in a curry sauce as the primo, and veal with prosciutto and mozzarella cheese for a secondo. The owner’s cat Kiko was providing a lot of entertainment during the dinner. She was supposed to be outside, but when I finished eating she couldn’t resist coming to ask for the leftover fish, at which point the owner came running out shooing her outside. Never so forlorn a face have you ever seen, looking in from outside. She was a beautiful, well brushed cat with the greenest eyes you have ever seen.

Russell slept like a baby in our perfectly air conditioned room. I would have too, except I think I’m suffering from heat exhaustion, because my system is very unhappy. At least I don’t feel sick, so I’m sure it’s not the flu or something I ate.

All in all, it was a terrific day. Even though we didn't walk to Caprarola, we walked more than 10 km sightseeing.

Day 43 - Montefiascone to Viterbo - Monday July 27, 2015

We had supper last night at the Al Panino restaurant. Sounded like Al Pacino. It was an excellent dinner, lots of vegetables and another bottle of Est Est Est. The waitress was a beautiful Ukrainian girl and Russell asked if she’d like to marry our son, but she had come to Italy with her Italian boyfriend.

Last night was another example of sleeping with a poorly working air conditioner rather than opening the window and letting in the cool fresh air. The Hotel Urban V provided information on what to expect from the air conditioner, namely cooling of 6 degrees compared to the room temperature. That is exactly what all these air conditioners have been doing, and when the temperature is 40 degrees, that’s not very good.

We were down at breakfast at 7:25am and they had a lovely buffet. The blood orange juice they served was squeezed blood oranges. Delicious!

We left at 8am and I know you won’t believe it but we actually followed the route notes all day. They were clear and easy to follow and we never once got lost! It was a miracle. I kept expecting to wake up and find it was just a dream.

The main reason we started following the route notes is because the GPS was not working well getting out of town. This may have been because the route notes (and presumably the GPS) were taking the most scenic, totally inefficient, and longest route possible out of town. However, we kept having wonderful views of the cupola of Santa Margherita, the Rocca, and the town all day.

Cathedral Santa Margherita’s history is tied to the history of several Popes, including Urban V, who is considered Montefiascone’s main benefactor. He was responsible for a radical transformation of the fortress to host the pontifical court and the title of diocese. When Pope Urban V established the Diocese of Montefiascone in 1396, the church that was the most popular and most central was chosen to be the cathedral of the new diocese, after which major reconstruction began. The building of the Cathedral of Santa Margherita is dated from the 15^th and 16^th centuries. It is next to the Rocca, in the upper part of the city and has one of the largest domes in Italy, built by Vignola.

Most of the day we were on the old Via Cassia, an important Roman road. 

It was very moving to walk for several kilometers on a stretch of ancient, original Roman pavement. Think of how many pilgrims have walked that stretch of road over the centuries. Think of the expertise of the worker’s that built that road, which has lasted for thousands of years.

As we walked it reminded me of something in the route notes from the day we walked from Radicofani to Procena. At one point of the VF you were walking along a ridge and the route notes said ‘this ridge is probably the route most pilgrims would usually have taken doing the via Francigena’. Wow, what does that say!

We also passed the thermal pools of Bagnacci. The water is milky green and steaming. We were able to stop there for a break for free and purchase a cold drink. It was 5 euros to bathe. There were quite a few bathers there, so it is obviously a popular spot.

There are a lot of loose dogs along the Way now, which Beppe warned us of when we met with him in Siena, but for the most part they are well behaved. The smaller the dog the more high strung it seems to be.

Russell took a picture of the perimeter of a typical house (in this case a mansion) along the VF. You’d have to be pretty desperate to ask for water here.

Viterbo is a pretty big city, and walking through all the traffic circles along busy roads with cars racing along has convinced us that we are not walking into Rome on Saturday. That would be suicide by stress.

We ended up walking 20.4km and climbing a mere 491 meters today. We arrived at 1pm and it was 34 degrees. Overall a pleasant walk, except for the last 4km or so as we got into a lot of busy traffic in Viterbo.

The route notes led us seamlessly to our hotel. Even though it was a bit complicated they were easy to follow. Amazing, 4 days of walking left and the route notes get readable! Of course, tomorrow is another day. It sort of takes away the excitement of always having to worry and wonder if you are completely lost.

This time our hotel is out of the historic part of town, having exited through Porta Romana. It is a 4 star hotel and looks very new and modern. We got a drink and ate our picnic lunch at the outside tables of the bar before coming up to our room, because by this time it was 1:30pm and we hadn’t stopped to eat on route. The lobby and stairs were all marble but the halls carpeted, as well as the rooms. Maybe one or two other places we have stayed so far (night 45) have had carpet. It’s not good, in my opinion, because you can’t wash a carpet every day!

We got all settled and had turned our room upside down when I discovered an army of ants under my backpack, where I had put it on the floor. I wondered if they had hitched a ride up from the patio where we had lunch (memories of all the ants on the floor of the laundry mat in Gimignano), and began the painstaking process of emptying everything out of my backpack; de-anting and washing the backpack and all of its’ contents; and, killing as many ants as possible that were crawling around where the backpack had been on the floor. Russell kept saying we had gotten all of them, which is his way of trying to deny they ever existed. I kept finding them surface from the pile of the carpet. I decided that the theory of me transporting them in on my backpack could be tested by looking for them in other areas of the room. I walked about and found they were everywhere to be found, including on the carpeted baggage rack my suitcase was lying open on.

So we packed everything up, of course the room would need to be remade by this point, and went downstairs and told the two people at the reception the bad news. They didn’t understand what ‘ants’ were, and Russell hauled out his phone and turned it on to do an English/Italian translate. Before he got it all ready for the task I had gotten the point across. The lady asked if they were just in the bathroom, and I said no, they were in the carpet, I hadn’t seen any in the bathroom.

We got a new room, which isn’t nearly as big or nice as the one we had. Russell was whining about this, but we couldn’t stay there, so get over it! I haven’t found any ants here.