Tag Archives: Travel

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?

Day 19 – Sutri to Monterosi – Short walk and very relaxed day

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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.

 

 

Day 18 – Capranica to Sutri – Short but engaging walk and destination

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Sunday 1 June 2025 – I’m not a fan of counting steps as a way of monitoring one’s health, but since I use a Garmin activity monitor and since Garmin Connect, its app, displays a step count if I want one, I take a look now and then. The thing about Garmin Connect is that if one exceeds the step count goal it sets for you one day, it doesn’t pat you on the back, or anything; it simply increases the goal for the morrow. So, this morning, I saw that my goal was

(a) as high as it’s ever been and (b) unlikely to be met, since we only had maybe 8km to go.

The earliest that Francesco could be persuaded to provide breakfast was 8am, but since we only had a short walk in front of us to get to Sutri, our destination for the day, we thought (correctly, as it turned out) that it wouldn’t be an issue.  Francesco served us a good breakfast, with hot bread rolls and excellent hot croissants, to fortify us for our journey.  Before we left, he showed us an interesting feature of the excellent property he runs – Etruscan caves underneath it.

By toiling up yesterday to the B&B, we had done practically all of the climbing that today would entail (until later on – keep reading), so I wasn’t too fussed when we started out on a strada bianca, particularly since it was fairly shady.

In any case, we soon turned off on to another much shadier path

that led to the most engaging part of the day’s walk – a trail largely following a stream through Etruscan woods. For the most part it was lovely, although there were a couple of places where a bit of care was needed.

A shady path
Some steps to help
A bit of a barrier
A waterfall and disused water wheel
Rickety rackety bridge no. 1
Rickety rackety bridge no. 2
Evidence that a lot of work had been necessary to clear fallen trees
A tight squeeze between boulders
Ricket rackety bridge no. 3
And…emerge blinking into the sunshine

Amazingly, in the mud along the trail we saw evidence that lunatic mountain bikers had followed the same path… Anyhoo, it was then a short walk until we saw Sutri,

which, you will note, is somewhat higher than we were.  Yes, we had to climb up into the town.

Quite a long way up, actually,

but it led us to a small old town which, like them all, is a bit scruffy, but has many charming corners.

An ancient communal Lavatoio, now repurposed as a fountain

We were quite early – it was only 10.30am – so we found our way to our B&B, the enticingly but inexplicably named Notti d’Oriente (what did we do before Google Maps, eh?) where, as we had hoped, someone was hosing the place down from the previous day’s occupants; she was kind enough to furnish us with keys, a place to put our backpacks and a timbro, and we got out of her way by going for a walk. Obviously. Sutri has an attractive central square which, it being Sunday morning, had an agreeable buzz about it,

and there are some handsome corners as you walk around.

Jane had a plan (natch) which took us to the Duomo,

whose imposing interior has some great ceiling work.

We also looked in on a much humbler church, that dedicated to St. Croce.

This church gave us the opportunity to light a candle to Martin, and also to see a statue

and a likeness

of possibly Jane’s favourite saint, St. Jude Thaddeus, an Apostle and the patron saint of lost causes.

Outside the Old Town and somewhat to the south of it is the Ancient Town. The Old Town is mainly medieval, but the Ancient Town goes back to Etruscan and Roman times. The walk down takes you past a viewpoint of some Etruscan tombs

which you can get closer to as you walk through the park,

and muse on the ancient Etruscan storage cabinet therein.

In this park are several ancient objects of interest: the remains of a Roman amphitheatre, carved out of the ubiquitous volcanic tuff;

the renaissance Villa Savorelli, 15th century, with associated church of Madonna del Monte (quirk of the eyebrows, here);

and a church of the Madonna del Parto. This latter is very interesting historically. It is believed to have originally been Etruscan tombs, which the Romans then used as a Mithraeum, before it was converted to a Christian church in the 13th Century. We had quickly to dash off to get a ticket (€5 each) in order to be allowed in, for a maximum of seven minutes, with a small group. The interior is fascinating,

something not immediately obvious from the picture above; but on the walls and in one place on the ceiling are some original frescoes.

whose fragility is what sets the seven-minute limit for any group visit.

Well, after that, there was nothing for it but to find some lunch; unfortunately the recommended Il Localetto was not open for Sunday lunch but we ended up on a terrace outside the restaurant Il Anfiteatro, which has a fine view of the Etruscan tombs but not of the amphitheatre; it also has no gin, or even Campari for a spritz, but the food was decent, and fortified us sufficiently for a walk back up to the town square for a gelato or two.

We had A Moment when we arrived back at our B&B: there was Jane’s suitcase; but mine was not beside it. This had all the hallmarks of a catastrophe, as our supply of Twining’s finest Earl Grey is being transported around Italy in my baggage.  However, S-cape’s team were paying attention to their WhatsApp feed when Jane got on their, erm, case, and my bag and the all-important teabags arrived within 20 minutes; relief and tea all round.

So, that was our Sweep round Sutri

and, for such a small place, it was very interesting.

We’ve taken a couple of days to complete the “official” leg of the Via which gets one from Vetralla to Sutri; and the next couple of days will be dedicated to covering one more.  The leg is from Sutri to Campagnano and is around 25km; but we will cover just a dozen or so of them tomorrow and rest up in Monterosi before pressing on to Campagnano. As far as we can tell, the breakfast here is entirely self-service out of the kitchenette, so we have the option of starting out really early to avoid the heat of the day. Join us in due course to see whether this is what we actually did.