Monday 12 May 2025 – Right, then. This is it, the start of the Long Walk To Rome. As ever with these organised walks, day 1 seems always to be a bastard, and on paper, this one added further credibility to that assertion – 29km in all, a distance which we’d walked as we practised, but this time we would be toting backpacks and there would be hills. The last couple of kilometres, particularly, featured a climb of 150m, in itself not a huge amount, but coming after all those km made it seem a daunting prospect.

We would start the walk not in Lucca, but in Altopascio, some 20km away. To get there we would take the train and the earliest sensible candidate train was at 0831 if we were to breakfast at our hotel. That’s what we did – again, not at all an inspiring breakfast, but at least it provided calories for fuel for the day. The Hotel Rex is brilliantly located for station – it’s about 80 metres away.

so (having bought our tickets in advance) we were promptly on Platform 3

and the train arrived fairly promptly after its scheduled time. Altopascio was the first stop, about 10 minutes later

and we used the very helpful app provided by the local agency who organised our itinerary, S-Cape, to find our way to our official start point through the town, which has some attractive corners.

A ripple of excitement passed through us as we spotted out first official Via Francigena signpost

so we used that and the town square for the only type of selfie I will tolerate – the start or end of a long walk.

And then we were off! At first along the road

past the local cemetery

and then on to woodland tracks.

where we encountered other pellegrinos – a pair of French ladies and a Dutch lady walking solo. Since our pace and theirs were very similar, it was a little awkward at times as we would go past, but then pause to take a photo and be overtaken. All very good natured, of course, but I would have preferred for us to have been alone whilst we got into the rhythm of walking decent distances again. No matter, we soon separated and were able to carry on at our own paces.

The signposting for this section was very good, if at times a tad ramshackle

The scenery was pleasant and rural

and the track eventually led on to a section of cobbled road originally several hundred years old

which, as well as being uphill, was occasionally tricky underfoot. But we made it OK to the town of Galleno, about 9km in to the walk, where we had planned our first coffee stop. Very welcome it was, too.

Galleno features some nice properties. We were quite taken by this pair of houses,

the left-hand one of which had a rather nice trompe l’oeuil picture on it.

There was some mystery artwork on offer, too.

We pressed on through woodland, and every so often there would be a roar of aircraft engines as an aeroplane flew over.

It turned out to be a C130 Hercules. We weren’t sure why, but it flew over us several times as we walked along; perhaps the pilot was practising circuits and bumps, but I couldn’t work out where that might be based.

Our (OK, Jane’s) original plan had been to have two stops during the day, one at Galleno for coffee and one at Fucechhio, as these were about 10 and 20km into the overall walk. However, as we approached Ponte al Cappiano, about half way between the two (and halfway along the day’s route), it was 1pm and we thought it would be a good idea to stop for lunch. The first restaurant we came to, called Cerris, served us salads, chips and beer, which was exactly what we needed. As we were lunching, the three ladies we’d passed earlier came in to eat, and we also had a brief chat with a proactively friendly American lady called Kim, who was walking bits of the route with a British friend. As we finished our lunch a group of British lady bicigrinos (doing the route on bicycles) came by and so we were able to offer them our table.

During the morning, although we’d only seen the three ladies I mentioned earlier, we were overtaken by plenty of bicigrinos, all men. Up to the point where we met Kim’s chap, I had been the only male walker we’d seen on the route; nominative determinism hard at work again!

Ponte al Cappiano is an attractive place

and, unsurprisingly, features a bridge

which crosses the Canale Usciana. Our route took us beside the canal on a sort of levee

whose nicely trimmed grassy path soon  degraded into a narrrow track which often had us wading through waist-high grass. The scenery was nice enough,

but the going was (a) somewhat tiresome and (b) getting very hot. I suppose the temperature can’t have been much higher than 20C, but in unshaded sunshone it felt a lot hotter. After a while, we got a good glimpse of Fucecchio

where we fondly hoped we could find refreshment, because we were getting fed up with the incessant wading through grass.  One has to go up through the town

and, having climbed up to its centre, it seemed that everything was shut, which was a disappointment. However, once we got down to the other side of town, we found, to our delight, a bar which was open so that we could have a rest and a cold drink, both of which were sorely needed by this stage.

The way out of the town passed an interesting property

but then once again found its way on the levee

where we got a decent view of our eventual destination, San Miniato, and an idea of how much we’d have to climb to get there. As before, there were passages through swathes of waist-high grass

and we got a closer view of San Miniato.

San Miniato has a lower town and an upper town. Guess which one our hotel is in, go on, why don’t you.

We passed a bodega which clearly was interested in getting some pilgrim business

and, at 28km into the walk, started the climb to upper San Miniato.

There were some great views to be had as we walked.

and we eventually hit the outskirts of the town, which has a wide variety of twinning operations in place.

It’s clearly a place with a lot of history, and a lot of impressive chunks of masonry;

our hotel, the eponymous Hotel San Miniato, has a very impressive frontage, as well.

We arrived a few minutes after 6pm, having covered just over 30km and feeling very tired indeed. It was all we could do to grab a cup of tea in the bar (we provided tea bags and mugs to ensure it was up to snuff) before basically collapsing for the rest of the evening and night. So I fear that I’ll not be able to regale you with further shots of San Miniato, as the plan is to head out promptly tomorrow. The reason for that is that Day 2, while not being an utter bastard like today, is still 24km and with a substantial climb at the end. Worse, there are no places to stop for coffee, so we will have to get ourselves some kind of packed lunch in the town and feed ourselves as we go. This is the first time on any of our long walking holidays travels that we’ve had to deal with this tragic turn of events, so wish us luck and come back to find out how we got on, won’t you?