Tag Archives: Italy

Day 22 – La Giustiniana to Rome. Well, all roads lead there, don’t they?

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Friday 5 June 2025 – Our last day of walking, then. 16km, eh? On roads through Rome’s suburbs? In 30°C heat? Have you taken leave of your senses?

For some reason, the 30° heat here has been, at least for me, more enervating than the 35-40° heat we encountered when we walked the Camino Francés. I was only two years younger then – can those two years have made such a dramatic difference to my tolerance for higher temperatures? Except that I haven’t done any cycling for those two years, I’d say my fitness now is about the same as it was then. But I’ve found the conditions for the last 100km, since Montefiascone, to be really quite oppressive. People we’ve talked to seemed to think it was unseasonably hot, too.

Anyway, the practical upshot of considering the lunacy of walking the final 16km was that Jane Made A Plan.  This is how the day unfolded.

Yes, it says “Walking” at the top, but I cannot tell a lie: we took the train. It was a short walk from the hotel to the local station, and a €1 (each) fare to get us to a station called Appiano, which offers a viewpoint of the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, whence we walked into Vatican City to get our Testimonia.

The train ride provided one of those coincidences that leaven the weary flatness of life. We knew that the French couple we’d chatted to at Monte Gelato the day before yesterday (and then some more that evening in Campagnano, as it happened) were planning to take the train towards Rome because they, too, were finding the heat oppressive. Astonishingly, when we stepped onto the train – there they were! Same train, same carriage, same seating area – a very unlikely combination.  They got off a couple of stops before us so that they could walk through a nature reserve as part of their final day, whereas we wimped out and detrained a little nearer the final destination.

At Appiano, one can take a short walk along paths which include the cursed strada bianca

to a belvedere, offering this view:

The dome of St. Peter’s is clearly visible and you can make out the walls of Vatican City, too. From there, a path leads to a coffee bar

which, had we known it, was almost back at Appiano station. We refreshed ourselves with a coffee and then walked down the winding path that takes one towards St. Peter’s. By and large, the route was pretty much standard crowded-city-on-a-hot-sweaty-day, but there was some slightly classy graffiti to be seen.

Getting round the outside of the Vatican City walls

made us sharply aware of the contrast between the almost total solitariness of the countryside we’d traversed and the realities of life in a capital city, which is not only a pilgrimage destination but a popular tourist site. There was lots of traffic and noise, and tour groups everywhere;

tourist tat shops ubiqutious;

and, as for getting into St. Peter’s Square, where the entry is through the right-hand arch?

It looked daunting, but Jane did the sort of thing that wouldn’t have occurred to me and Asked The Way. Anyone who can show a credenziale can skip the line!

So we followed the gent in the dog collar and actually whizzed through. There was a security check, and I’m glad I’d decided to leave my penknife in my suitcase, but within a few minutes we were through and into St. Peter’s “Square”. There is a special entrance for pilgrims

which leads to its own security lane, past a selfie point

and towards the place where volunteers were awaiting us to give us our certificates. It was a bit of a zoo,

as lots of other things are on offer in that corridor, but we had a very warm welcome from the two volunteers who were providing testimonia and timbri. Having got these, it then transpired that we were free to enter the Basilica itself, with no further queuing!

Well, almost.

Just as we were about to mount the steps, another volunteer held us back and closed off access. He explained that it would only be for a few moments, but there were some special processional groups who were preparing to enter the Basilica, and they took priority, which is fair enough.

Actually, three processions went through, one of which sang as they went, which I thought was a nice touch. Meanwhile

we waited until the nice man let us through, when we charged into the Basilica!

Well, not really.

Here’s what it was like to get into the church.

I suppose it’s inevitable when you are at the centre of a global religion with 1.2 billion adherents that there will be crowds. Some of them might even be Catholics. Inside the Basilica, magnificence is in plentiful supply,

as are people.

There’s a slow and steady shuffle of punters, all waving cameras in the air and taking selfies. The place is extraordinary, but too big and too crowded to do it any kind of photographic justice. So we shuffled in and round and marvelled at the place and then shuffled out in search of refreshment. We caught a change in the Swiss Guard

passed a statue, the “Angels Unawares” boat by Canadian artist Timothy P. Schmalz, dedicated to the world’s migrants and refugees,

and tried to capture a photo of the arena outside

but it’s too big (is it always full of chairs, or is this for something special?) and I think that if I’d launched the drone there might have been comment. So we took a last view as we left St.Peter’s Basilica.

There’s a cafe nearby, but it seemed they didn’t want us to invade their privacy, and the streets nearby are loaded with eateries and drinkeries

which we thought would be crowded and probably expensive, so we decided that it might be better to head off to our hotel and see if we could check in.

Our accommodation was the Dharma Style, which is near the central station, so it was straightforward to get to on the Metro. Our room was, indeed, available, but our bags hadn’t yet arrived (probably stuck in some ghastly traffic jam somewhere). So we headed out into the street where there was immediately a restaurant that was thronged with people. We decided to lunch there, even though it showed pictures of the food, and enjoyed a good lunch (including gin!) before retiring to the hotel to rest and recuperate for the rigours of the journey home.

For tomorrow we go from Rome to home, or that’s our plan; we’ve yet to see what BA’s plan for us is, but we’re sanguine that we will have a joyful homecoming having walked 394.47km of the Via Francigena and nearly 100km of related sightseeing.

As an experience, it’s been significantly different from walking the Camino in Spain, which after a moment’s thought would be bleedin’ obvious: hundreds of thousands of pilgrims a year enables and sustains an infrastructure that hundreds of pilgrims a year can’t. The walking here in Italy has been tougher than almost all of the Camino paths, and some of the scenery more spectacular as a result. The heat towards the end made the experience somewhat more trying than I would have liked; and I am looking forward to getting back to a country which serves hot coffee in large cups; but we’ve enjoyed this big adventure and all the small adventures that have gone to make it the experience it has been.  We have plans for some other long walks, and you can rest assured that I will use these pages to rabbit on about them; I hope you will stay in touch to read the result.

 

 

 

Day 21 – Campagnano to La Giustiniana – hot! and, in places, unrewarding

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Wednesday 4 June 2025 – We knew that today was forecast to be a hot day (30°C) and, because we had to cover a decent distance – over 25km – we decided to start early, so I set the alarm for (shudder) 0500. In theory, then, we should have been snuggled up in bed by 9pm yesterday in order to benefit from eight hours of good, solid sleep.

Ha!

Our hotel room looked out on a busy roundabout, with a couple of bars and restaurants on it or nearby.

At 9pm, there were just a couple of people sitting outside the bars. By 1030, there were crowds of folk all evidently and noisily having a whale of a time, which they continued to do for quite some while. So neither of us got a decent night’s sleep, but we still got up at 0500 and got on with it, so that we were having coffee and croissant(s in my case) at one of these bars

shortly after 0600, and off on the day’s walk before 0630 in nice cool conditions.

The low point (0500 alarm) was, annoyingly, quite shortly followed by a high point – the highest point of the day’s walk, in fact – as we had to climb 200m within the first couple of kilometres, which was harder work than was welcome at that hour (or, for me, any hour, really). At least it was nice and cool, and the road we were walking on was quiet. The reward was, of course, a reasonably decent view,

with the very real possibility that what we could see in the distance was our target for the day, or at least the start of the urban sprawl of Rome. It was pleasant walking in the morning cool.

We passed several of these sorts of things during the first part of the day,

and wondered what they were. I reckon that the wooden structure is for parking a horse and the stone block is a mounting block for when you want to use it again. We certainly saw some references, whilst walking narrow roads, that said that hikers and riders were obliged to proceed in single file, giving credence to the possibility that it was a standard horse riding route.  In theory the Via Francigena itself can be completed on horseback, but I think that could be quite challenging, not least for the horse.

We also saw several crosses, like this one,

but sequentially numbered; at the same time we saw signposts to the “Santuario del Sorbo”. The only Sorbo I had known previous to the Via was the actor Kevin Sorbo who played Hercules in the ridiculous but entertaining TV series about his adventures made by the company who also brought us “Xena – Warrior Princess”. Anyway, it turns out that this Sorbo is a river and the santuario is named for the Madonna del Sorbo. The numbers on the crosses increased, until, outside the santuario is

no. 14, so the assumption is that the series represents the Stations of the Cross. The santuario is a handsome building

with lovely frescoes behind the altar.

We began to see regular milestones (kilometrestones? – Ed) for the Via, telling us how far we had to go.

As well as a Madonna, the Sorbo has a parco, where we saw swallows resting on a telephone line

cows,

some of which surrounded today’s Mystery Object

and all of which were free to roam (there were a pair of cattle grids limiting them, but that’s all) – and at least one exploited this freedom quite liberally.

The parco animal life included horses, which we saw crossing the road

and, indeed, crossing it back again,

possibly having decided they didn’t want to mix it with the mob that side of the street.

The route took us towards the town of Formello, although we had to stay on the road rather than follow the official track.

We don’t know how seriously The Powers That Be didn’t want us going down that track, but they didn’t want people going up it from the other end, either,

and in the meantime, the view from the road was quite decent.

Formello is substantial enough to have several coffee bars, so we stopped at one for a second breakfast. The Via then took us past a building with a rather interesting mural on it,

made from all sorts of different materials – bits of stone, mirror glass, flowers and more.

It then dived into the old town,

which was really rather lovely.

and included some very pretty corners.

We left Formello at about 0930, having really enjoyed the walk thus far. Things rather went downhill (and uphill – Ed) from then on; this whole region is in an area called the Parco de Veio, and the trail entered an area of woodland

which encompassed its next ten kilometres;

and while we passed some nice scenes, it became, frankly, hot and tedious – a fenced path

that led relentlessly and unrewardingly on and on.  And down. And up. If there is a parco superintendento, my message to him is – put in some bloody parco benchos, will you? 10 kilometres is too far to walk in conditions such as today’s with nowhere to rest.

We left the woodland area within sight of the urban edge of Rome and these pleasingly ordered straw bales.

The route led towards Isola Farnese, which we rather hoped might offer the possibility of a coffee stop (or, more accurately, a beer stop). First, it passed something completely unexpected.

This is the Cascata della Mola Veio, and it has an impressive drop over the edge.

Isola Farnese disappointed in the bar stakes, and merged into La Storta, which we knew would offer some refreshment possibilities – but we had to toil on for about another 3km until about 23km into the walk, when we reached a bar where we could each have a glass of something cold. OK, two glasses of something cold. As we refreshed ourselves, we hatched a lunch plan that involved pizza, and walked along the main drag of La Storta , where it was clear we were very much into the edge of the Rome urban sprawl.

There were a couple of pizza joints on offer and one of them offered gin as well, which meant they got our business. They were a bit naughty, telling us that a pizza wasn’t big enough for two people, thus persuading us to order two pizzas. They were huge. One would easily have fed us both and we only finished half of each pizza; but they were tasty, and the lunch overall was  very good value.  They offered us the opportunity to take the remnants with us, but the idea of toting them along with us for the hot half hour’s walk to our accommodation didn’t much appeal.

Our target was in La Giustiniana, giust a little along the road from La Storta (which is the “official” end of this leg of the Via) – the  Resort La Rocchetta. In a departure from normal practice, they close the reception at 4pm, but Jane had been in contact to find out what would be needed if we were later than that. She had also asked if it might be possible to have a kettle in the room, and they conceded that, although this was not a facility available in the standard room we had booked, they might be able to find one for us. We optimistically diverted from the main drag to find a Conad supermarket to buy some milk, just in case, and finally sweated and toiled our way to the resort

for about 3.15pm – very, very hot and very, very tired.  We had covered over 28km in over 30 degree heat (which made it the toughest day of the Via so far for us) and we were very glad when the nice lady on reception told us that we had been upgraded to a superior room – so we had our kettle! Twining’s finest Earl Grey all round! Our stay at this hotel was very pleasant – we were able to relax in preparation for the morrow.

Tomorrow is the final day of walking, when we shall arrive in Rome, hie ourselves to St. Peter’s gaff in the Vatican and get our testimonium to prove our worth as pilgrims.  To avoid too much testy moaning on what will be an even hotter day, we might not walk all the way. Jane has a Cunning Plan but you’ll have to read the next entry to find out what that was.

 

Day 20 – Monterosi to Campagnano – Hotting up towards Rome

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Tuesday 3 June 2025 – We had some 16km to cover today, and the weather forecast asserted that it would be a degree hotter than yesterday, at around 29°C. Jane had established that our destination hotel had a restaurant that would be open for lunch and had requested a late booking, 3pm. This meant we had a relaxed schedule for the walk, but we were still keen to get out reasonably early. We had been given a couple of tokens for breakfast at a bar just round the corner,

so we started off fuelled by just coffee and croissants. We were a couple of hundred metres away from the official Via Francigena route, and to get there, we passed the humble church of San Giuseppe that was closed when we passed it yesterday,

but which was open today,

so we lit a candle for Martin before starting out on the Via.  Just outside the town there’s another reference to the Via Cassia with a distance marker on it

similar in principle but very different in execution from the one we’d seen outside Sutri.  We had actually walked upon the original Via Cassia for a kilometre or so outside Montefiascone (the well-preserved actual Roman road; you remember, don’t you? ‘Course you do!) and it seems that the Vias Francigena and Cassia are very often close to each other and occasionally coincide.  The “modern” Cassia is the SS2 road; the original one started from Rome’s Ponte Milvio, a historic bridge and reference point for Roman roads (now evidently only 39.93km away) and headed towards Florence and beyond.

Much of today’s walk was, frankly, unremarkable, along tarmac, strada bianca or rough track. There was occasional shade and/or a breeze, which offered relief from the heat, and at least there no steep gradients to tackle. Well, almost none (keep reading). Some distractions along the way:

Horses in the fields

Evidence that some people had too much time on their hands

A chap sawing logs whilst still being very much awake

Someone’s going to be nice and warm this winter

Mystery object of the today. Probably was a barn, once, but Mother Nature is gradually taking over

Sheep. Well, you take your distractions where you can, don’t you?

At the start of the day, we walked among the ubiquitous hazel nut tree orchards. But after a while, the landscape changed into an open and more generally arable aspect.

Just after halfway, we came to distraction of greater pith and moment – the  waterfalls of Ice Cream Mountain! No, really.

This took the form of an engaging little trail beside the cascades

including a floating bridge

which was really weird to walk over. The stream once fed a water mill, the Mola di Monte Gelato.

It was a pleasant oasis of shade as well as a sight of some interest.

The cascades were, I suppose, quite substantial by local standards, but nothing that an Icelander would have made a foss about, of course. The site is a cool and shady oasis, markedly different from the rest of the landscape, and was probably named “Icy Hill”, using the word “gelato” before ice cream was invented and took over the word.

Importantly, this site also featured that rarest of phenomena, a coffee stop!

It was delightful to have a break, and this gave us a chance to chat to a couple of French pellegrinos, originally from Versailles, who had been walking the Via, two weeks at a time, all the way from Wissant (or possibly Wisques), in northern France, so they were on the verge of completing a multi-year project when they headed into Rome on the same day as us.

For a stretch, the arable land around the continuing trail changed to plantations.  On the one side we had what we (well, PlantNet) thought were sour cherry trees

and, on the other, butternut trees (whatever they are).

Someone with slightly too much time on their hands had decorated some roadside trees.

Then we got to just outside Campagnano, which, you’ll recall, is at the end of the Sutri – Campagnano official “leg” which we were covering in two days.

It was a steep climb in very hot conditions. But we made it, and then walked right through the old town, admiring some handsome corners as we went towards our hotel, the Albergo Bernigni.

It turned out that we had arrived some 20 minutes before check-in time. So, what was a pair of hot and thirsty pellegrini to do that could possibly pass that time agreeably, particularly bearing in mind that the hotel bar had gin?

Jane’s original online booking for a 3pm lunch had obviously stumbled at the interface between internet and reality, and the lass behind the bar suggested that 2pm would be a better option, so we had time to hose ourselves down and dress in non-sweaty clothes before quite a nice lunch.  I had meatballs as a starter and chicken thigh with stir-fried vegetables for a main course – an agreeable difference from the traditional pasta-followed-by-a-hunk-of-meat pattern of Italian restaurant meals of which, I have to say, I’m beginning to tire. And that was it for the action of the day; Campagnano didn’t appear to feature anything worth straying from the hotel to see.

Tomorrow, we have a long walk – around 25km – and the forecast is for it to be even hotter than today – perhaps 30°C. Plan A is, therefore, to start out really early and thus, we hope, avoid the worst of the heat of the day. It will be the last really long walk of our journey, which started from Lucca just over three weeks ago, so wish us luck, eh?