Monday 2 June 2025 – We had something of a planning conundrum to work through today. Our accommodation, La Casa Di Sofia, in Monterosi, decribed itself as a collection of holiday apartments rather than a B&B or hotel. That wasn’t important; the significant datum was that check-in time was 4pm. Yet we had only some 12km to go (this is sort of a half-leg en route to Campagnano, you remember, yes you do). If we timed our departure to arrive there at 4pm, we’d be walking through the hottest part of the day; yet we still had to have our bags ready to collect at 8am. Bloody tricky, this pilgrim lark, innit?

In the end, we put our bags out for collection, supplemented some of the goodies available in the kitchenette with our own fruit (and, of course, a mug of Twining’s finest Earl Grey) and, having set out, immediately stopped in the central square for a coffee and croissant. Jane, ever the planner, had established that there was a small lake en route to our destination with, on its shores, a restaurant which would be open for lunch until 3pm, leaving a 30-minute walk to Sofia’s gaff. She (Jane, not Sofia) booked us a 2pm table there with the hope in our hearts that we could have a glass of something cold (but probs not g&t, boo!) should we arrive early. In the meantime, the lake might provide somewhere to rest and relax if we were really early.

The plan worked perfectly.

It was aided somewhat by the weather; forecast temperature was a positively parky 27°C, and for most of the walk we headed into a lovely cooling breeze, so the walk never descended into the tedious trudging that we’d suffered on some of the previous days.

As we walked down through Sutri, we passed a nice little scene

which had been ruined the day before because a car was parked there, so it was nice to capture that as a farewell image.

Our S-cape app suggested two routes for the day. One was shorter, but included a “dangerous” section; the other avoided that but was some 3km longer. As is well-established by this blog, we laugh in the face of danger, provided it’s safe to do so, and also we are lazy tykes prefer to take the efficient option where we can.  So, at the parting of the ways between the two routes,

we ignored them both, actually, and went neither left nor right, but straight on because there were some Etruscan tombs noted on the map. And so there were.

Having seen these, we rejoined the “dangerous” route, which simply led along a tarmac road. Part of our gamble was that today was “Republic Day” in Italy, commemorating the date when the country decided to bin its constitutional monarchy and become a republic. Some businesses and schools would be closed, and so the traffic, we hoped, would be lighter than a normal Monday rush hour, should such a thing exist in rural Italy. Granted, the road was narrow and what traffic there was wasn’t hanging about, but by being on the correct side of the road for each bend we ensured that we survived unscathed, as did the (we think American) pellegrina we encountered who was also going our way.

The pellegrino count for the day was the highest yet. The track was positively rammed!

We were overtaken by four French pilgrims and we also saw, but never caught up with, a fifth person

which gave us the grand total of six pilgrims! All in one day!

Except for the fact that it grazed the modern Via Cassia,

the route was unremarkable – sometimes grassy, sometimes strada bianca, sometimes strada bruna, but almost always through the inevitable orchards of hazel nut trees. We wondered if there was a parallel with the ubiquitous sunflower crops seen on the Meseta in Spain; initial research seems to support the assertion that sunflowers are also a monoculture, but have less of an impact because the crop can be rotated with cereals and routinely uses less in the way of chemicals. There’s less criticism of it as a result.

A ripple of excitement was caused by this sign at about the half-way stage:

I think that one might infer from this that one could get a cup of coffee at this establishment, don’t you? Turns out you can’t unless you stay there. Bastards.

This marked a change in landscape, actually; the environmentally dubious hazel nut trees gave way to the, erm, environmentally dubious golf courses.

There were a couple of courses and golf academies along the way, and I for one hadn’t expected this at all.

After about 10km, we came to the parting of the ways. We were within sight of Monterosi,

and the Via Francigena led straight on, but we took a side track (more wading through waist-high grass)

down to Lake Monterosi, a small but quiet lake.

To our joy, it had

a picnic table in the shade. It was about 11.30am by this stage, and we knew (or rather chose to believe Google) that the restaurant we’d booked on the opposite shore wouldn’t open until 12.30. So we simply settled down at the table and had a lovely quiet hour, enjoying the breeze and the nice temperature. There was a fountain there, called the Papa Leone fountain,

which had rather thoughtfully been supplemented with a bowl so that passing dog walkers could allow their pets to have a drink. It was only on looking this up on the internet that I realised that “Papa Leone” was one of the 14 various Pope Leos, though I can’t establish which one, or why this fountain has his monicker attached to it. (We got a possible clue later on – stick with this page, here). As well as dogs (we had one or two walkers come through), it provided refreshment for a couple of horses that were being ridden along the path.

After an hour or so, we thought we’d take ourselves off to the restaurant, Ristorante “La Terrazza sul Lago”, to see if we could have a glass of something whilst we waited for our lunch table.

On the way there we passed a war memorial, to those who had given their lives in battle.

As it turned out, we got to the restaurant at about 1pm, they welcomed us in and gave us a table on the terrace and served us a splendid lunch over the course of two and a half hours, so the timing was excellent. There was, of course, no gin, but at least they could provide Campari spritzes, which is almost as good; and the food was excellent.

It being Republic Day, it seemed that there was a general move afoot for hosting the less able members of families for a meal, which is rather lovely. There were a number of tables with elderly and seemingly infirm people as part of the party – you can see the wheelchair that was at the table behnd ours.

There was also a vignette unfolding at a table a couple away in front of me,

and I completely invented a story about it. On the left is grandson and son; on the right, grandad and daughter (or daughter-in-law). Although wearing dark glasses, I reckon the son was a gimlet-eyed organiser of things;

he took grandad to the loo a couple of times, and fixed something or other for the restaurant, for which they thanked him. From the way he walked, I suspected the grandad of being afflicted with Parkinsons Disease, and, from her body language, the daughter(-in-law) of not really wanting to be part of proceedings. I’m probably way wide of the mark, but it was fun to speculate, even though it was none of my business.

Lunch over, and knowing that we were in an apartment, it was imperative that we got some milk so that we could enjoy some of Twining’s finest Earl Grey later on. Google maps asserted that there was a Conad supermarket nearby, so we headed off in that direction, which took us past some horses

and basically along a short stretch of motorway

before a turn off to a small supermarket.

It was vast. It was so big that we went in the wrong entrance, and ended up in the “everything except food” bit.  We eventually found our way next door, where we could get some fruit and some milk. As well as a huge variety of food, that part of the operation also sold

bicycles. I have no idea why.

Completing the walk to our accommodation we passed a couple more things whose purpose I have no idea about.

Monterosi has no particular historical significance, so was not a place for sightseeing as such, but as we headed for Sofia’s gaff, I noted that some of the modern buildings had an architectural nod to the medieval external staircases we had seen in Viterbo.

It’s a cheerful-looking place, particularly in the sunshine.

We got to our accommodation, whose gate was, of course,

locked, but Jane whistled up someone to let us in and explain how it all worked, and we found ourselves nicely set up with a whole apartment with many of the mod cons, but particularly a kettle, to ourselves. The lady in charge explained that they didn’t offer a timbro but we could go back to “an art house” or a bar we’d passed earlier, the

Gorgeous Bar, where we could get one, so off we went.  We found the bar, of course. We had a glass of something cold there, and I watched the standard thing these days of two young chaps hanging out together and having a good old time in the local bar.

Having got our timbro there, we headed back, and Jane noticed a pilgrimmy-looking place,

called the Casa Dell’Artista – the “art house” that we’d heard about. It was closed, but due to open very shortly, so we waited a couple of minutes and sure enough a chap turned up on a bicycle, opened up the place and gave us not one but two timbri. He also explained that the house had special significance because a pope had stayed there at one stage. Was that, I subsequently wondered, the Pope Leo after whom the fountain was named? We may never know, but it’s my working hypothesis for now.

And so to tomorrow, when we complete the shin part of the current leg by getting to Campagnano.  It’s another shortish day, maybe around 15km, and has the very real prospect of a coffee stop half way along it, which is something to look forward to. Let’s hope it’s open, then.