Tag Archives: Walking

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 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.

Day 17 – Vetralla to Capranica – a hot walk, but a good one

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Saturday 31 May 2025 – Because the day was forecast to be a hot one, we were keen to get off early, despite the shortish 17km official distance of today’s walk, so an 0700 breakfast time was welcome. The breakfast was a good one, with prepared fruit to go with yoghurt and some nicely fresh bread; we were able to eat it sitting outside. Well fortified, we set off at 7.45am into a day which was already quite warm.

We skirted the edge of the old town of Vetralla as we went, and, although I was sniffy in my post yesterday about the “enchanted city” schtick, in the morning light I was better able to admire the relief work that accompanied the slogan.

We passed a building that either is or was a cinema

and exited Vetralla via a subway under the main road.

We passed a Benedictine monastery

but were unable to look in, as there was a service going on at the time.

The Via Francigena and pilgrim references and artworks are beginning to proliferate by this stage of the route, unsurprisingly, I suppose.  We passed a mural depicting rather unrealistically joyful scenes along the route,

with, beside it, a related artwork listing all the stopping places between Canterbury and Rome.

Opposite this artwork was a bench with an inscription I didn’t understand.

I amused myself by deciding that it was Italian for “Give me your fat arse”, which goes to demonstrate my state of mind at the time. Other curiosities on the route included this rather ritzily decorated house

and a lavatoio, the Italian version of what in Galician Spain would be called a lavadoiro – a public place to wash one’s clothes.  This wasn’t the first one we’d passed in Italy, but it was the first to show evidence of recent use.

By this stage we’d covered some 4km and we passed that most rare and precious thing on the Via Francigena – a bar. It bills itself, rather optimistically as “the best bar in the world”.  However, just as photographers say that the best camera is the one you have with you, the best bar is one that you’re passing, so we had a swift coffee there. And then the trail took us off the road and into woodland – lovely, shady woodland.

The sign says “The wood doesn’t need man – man needs the wood”

In the depths of the woods, the birdsong was positively deafening

and absolutely uplifting. It being a Saturday morning, there were others around, mainly chaps walking their dogs. We passed a mystery object

which I would have dismissed as a disused construction, given the extent to which Mother Nature has reasserted herself on it; but there was the sound of machinery and a TV aerial in evidence, and we have no idea what the building was for. We also came across another Sassogrosso bench,

by an info board bidding us a farewell from Vetralla.

I later looked up the Sassogrosso reference. The inscription translates as “Donated by the Big Rock”. Sasso Grosso is the name given to a particular volcanic rock formation and it has also lent its name to a local association, who, we assume, had provided the very handy resting place.  Sasso Grosso is near a place called Tre Croci, which we would have passed yesterday, had we not opted for the alternative Via. It’s surprisingly difficult to find pictures of the rock formation. This is the most credible one I could locate, via the Facebook Group Vetralla: Museo Diffuso.

Photo via Andrea Natali on Facebook – Vetralla: Museo Diffuso

Near the seat was a rather nicely executed cross on a tree – made from bicycle chain.

At this point, we were passed by a pellegrino who had passed us earlier, but who had clearly been distracted by something, as his natural pace was faster than ours. He turned out to be French, and had started his journey in Calais, so had covered over 1,000km, although he had had to take six weeks off for a foot injury. He then walked on into the distance.

We did the “pass and then get passed” a couple of times over the rest of the day.

After emerging from the (lovely, shady) woodland, we entered a section which was dominated by hazel nut orchards.

After seeing a previous orchard, Jane wondered if what was being grown was filberts. We never clearly established whether this was the case, but in her research Jane read that the hazel nut monoculture in this part of Italy (centred around Viterbo, principally) is raising some serious environmental concerns, to do with biodiversity, soil depletion, economic dependence on the monoculture and more.  And one thing struck us, as we walked through and past orchard after orchard:

the silence. There was no birdsong at all.  Later we came across a stretch of path with woodland on the left and hazel nut trees on the right.

and the birds were yelling their fool heads off on the left and there was nothing from the right – a stark contrast. Companies like Ferrero are at the root of the expansion trend (“Ambassador, you spoil the environment”?) and at least some of these extensive orchards belonged to one company.

“Chim Cimina, chim Cimina chim chim cheroo. We’re harming the woods if we buy stuff from you”?

Amidst all this hazel nuttery we came across a tower,

which is actually (at least) two towers.

The towers are thought to be Roman tombs and a medieval bell tower; they’re referred to these days on maps as “The Towers of Orlando”.  The name “Orlando” is believed to be connected to the character from the Song of Roland, suggesting a connection to the legend of Orlando resting in these lands.  

Anyhoo….we trucked on along stade bianche past some lavish properties with wonderful trees

which provided some much-needed shade along the way; but we also noted places where trees (probably walnut trees) had been brutally cut down alongside some of the hazel nut orchards.

Bastards. We would have really appreciated the shade from these trees.

After about 16km, we came to the outskirts of Capranica

but it was not until a full kilometre later that we came across the first bar and an opportunity to rest, including an encounter with yet another unfamiliar brand of tonic.

Refreshed, we walked on, entering the old town of Capranica,

which is a very handsome area.

We looked in to the Duomo

which has a beautifully-decorated ceiling

but no candles, and also the Church of St. Mary,

which was really rather kitsch inside

but which did enable us to light a candle for Martin. We then carried on through the town, which involves going down

and down, to the point where any ambitions I might have had to try a drone shot were abandoned, as I wasn’t prepared to walk all the way back up to the best vantage point.

Given our reluctance to walk back up into the town and our need for some lunch, we decided to take a chance on a restaurant, Le Fontanelle, that was on our route to our accommodation and which Google said was open. It was open, and a strange little place it was, too. It had pictures of food as its menu, but beggars, choosers, that stuff, and it did appear to offer gin – in fact, they had the last knockings of a bottle of Xoriguer, one of our house gins at home. They had a strange, albeit tasty, idea of what a pizza was and Jane had a very clearly microwaved tortellini dish; but it kept the wolf from the door and meant we didn’t have to toil all the way back into the town.

What we did have to toil up, though, was the continuation of the Via,

which led sharply uphill and took us near our accommodation, Monticelli B&B. As usual, its gates were

locked, but Jane rang the bell and the very affable Francesco opened up to let us in (and his dog, Leon, out, at least for a short while). It’s a well-organised place

and we were soon ensconced with our very own kettle so that we could relax for the rest of the day accompanied by occasional doses of Twining’s finest Earl Grey.

The day was a pleasant one, and got us really quite close to Sutri, whither we must turn our faces tomorrow – it’s a walk of only 8km or so, so we’re not quite sure how the day will turn out. We could be arriving at our accommodation even before check-out time. My, what exciting, challenging times we do live in! Sutri appears to be quite an interesting place, so it might be worth your while to check back in to get our impressions of the place.