Into the Mountains

Like an eagle’s nest
Hangs on the crest
Of purple Apennine

Macaulay, ‘How Horatio Saved the Bridge’

We followed Sam’s advice and chose the restaurant over the pizzeria for our supper last night, partly because we think we’re going to be eating quite a lot of bread and pizza for the next couple of days, and partly because Stephen totted up all our expenditure and we realised we were under budget and could afford a really delicious meal.

We went for a starter and a main course, and had the Octopus (Stephen) and baby squid (me). They were both exquisite dishes, a feast for the eyes as well as for the mouth.

For our main course, we both chpse the maiale nero, black pig, which turned out to be a delicious pan-fried fillet of a Sienese breed of pig raised just 5 km away. It came beautifully presented with the freshest of seasonal vegetables and some fabulous roast potatoes.

We were then persuaded to try their tiramisu which they make with ricotta instead of mascarpone cheese,

and washed that all down with a bottle of sparkling water and two glasses of a local white wine made with Chardonnay and Riesling grapes. None of this was traditional pilgrim fare, but it was absolutely glorious.

After a night spent digesting all that, it was almost 7 o’clock when we woke up this morning. It took us half an hour to get up and out, and then we had to get breakfast from the bar-pasticceria (another of Sam‘s suggestions), so we didn’t get away very quickly, all in all. The place was absolutely crammed, with the other bars staying largely empty, or not even even having bothered to open to try and compete.

The first 5 km was a huge surprise to both of us. We had anticipated a pedestrian bike path, but we were treated to a 5km stretch of the Taro river nature reserve.

Underfoot instead of the builders’ rubbish we had become accustomed to away from asphalt, were smooth river cobbles and pebbles, and packed hard clay which was so much nicer to walk on.

I wish I could’ve spent quite a bit of time looking at the high number of flowering plants there were.

But we just meandered through, grateful that on a day where there was going to be so much climb, we could warm our muscles up first with a flat section.

We were walking parallel to the river Taro, which occasionally made an appearance to our left, but mostly was a half-hidden occasional glittering presence.

We had to cross the Taro at the site of a significant second world war battle for the river crossing. The modern bridge is book-ended with small bronze statues of pilgrims with keys at their belts to symbolise Saint Peters in Rome, and burdened by a basket which they carry on their backs filled with all their pilgrim gear.

The bridge is 1.4 kilometres long, and walking over it gave us ample opportunity to enjoy the several strands of river which have separated out in the dry season.

Given the fact that the church was a key position occupied by the allies during the battle in 1945, it was a huge surprise that this ninth century parish church was still standing, and another surprise that it was wreathed in crocheted bunting like the rest of the town.

The façade was decorated with fragments of the original sculptural panels from the original pulpit. There had originally been a portico for pilgrims to shelter in outside the church, and one of the panels showed an (unfortunately headless) pilgrim which had been used as the model for the bridge statuettes. My favourite was a panel of souls being tormented in hell.

The church was open so we could see the bass relief altarpiece of the martyrdom of St Margaret, and the antique panels that had been reused at the lectern.

The church was a lovely way to mark the end of the flat land for today, for now began the climb.

The road had been really thoughtfully zigzagged, and was for the most part in shade so that we never felt particularly breathless.

The views back showed the modern towns standing on either side of the river; I think it was the only river with any water in it that we would see today.

Ahead of us be inspiring site of the valley that lay between us and the hills ahead.

We drank in the views, appreciating the line of roadside trees which both pointed the way and provided shade.

Tile roof of the farmhouse in the mid distance was hard to distinguish from the ploughed field in front of it, so perfect was the colour match.

The road down into the valley was ferociously steep and we had to create our own zigzags to spare our knees.

But to take our minds off the knees, there were two terrific statues carved out of great trunks of wood — a bear and a Templar.

To our great displeasure, it then transpired that the next couple of hours was to be spent hacking along the road uphill — we had been anticipating a forest path for most of today.

There were various forgettable villages, and absolutely nowhere to sit down. It’s a good thing that the views out over the valley were good.

We came across a rather sad little thing: a Hermann’s tortoise which had been run over and was lying in pieces by the side of the road. It is native to Europe but its population is near threatened — due to declining population. There was no way of knowing whether this had been an escaped pet or an animal in the wild straying onto the road, but whichever it was it was an unusual and somewhat pitiful sight, especially the perfect, flattened clawed feet.

As we neared the bridge over the valley’s dry riverbed, three Americas swooshed by on their bikes going on the other direction. ‘This wouldn’t be much fun to walk up,’ called the middle one to the first. ‘It isn’t! It isn’t!’ we called back.

The first village that had anywhere at all to park ourselves and sit down was after 15 km, slightly over halfway. Perhaps it was no surprise that we found Skateboard dude and his Polish companion who had flown down for the weekend to walk with him, and Annette and Harry from the Netherlands who are back on the road again this year walking to Lucca. It was nice to chat with some pilgrims, as we felt we hadn’t done so for quite a while.

I cracked open the pomegranate and shared it around. It wasn’t the ripest, but it wasn’t terrible. I needed a toothpick (not on the pilgrim’s packing list).

We set off again, appreciating the tiny terracotta Francigena signs on mini mile-posts — many were missing, we presumed stolen, for mementos.

When the chance presented itself, we took a dry-weather off-road route for a scant kilometre, which gave us a kilometre of respite from the tarmac and wove us back and forth across the completely dry riverbed, which didn’t look as though it had had much of any water in it for years, If the small saplings were anything to go by. Was this lack of precipitation in the mountains?

The path took us through some fields, lovely to us because we’d been on the road for so long,

and a shady copse or two.

We wished there could have been more of this path — especially me who was enamoured of the wildflowers — the little wild pink peas and the field scabious — and butterflies.

But even that little bit of a break made the next section of tarmac bearable, which was a good thing because it was very much steeper.

Every now and then we stopped to marvel at the colour gradations on the hillside opposite. What on earth causes them?

This new side road was untroubled by traffic, and took us up to Bardone, where we decided to stop for lunch because there was a partially shaded bench on the Piazza, beautifully paved thanks to a grant from the EU. Sigh.

We had a decent stop there and let our lunch settle, remembering that yesterday we found it difficult to walk straight up the hill after we had gobbled down our lunch in the playground.

We have found a brand of tuna which makes salad tins of tuna and grains which feels like excellent walking lunch food.

Wouldn’t you know it, 50m after the last of the houses was a pilgrim rest area in the shade, with a table, chairs and even someone’s old garden furniture to sit on and gaze out at the view.

There was also a magnificent cabriolet Ferrari – a Spider version of the 360 (Stephen looked it up and a second-hand one in average condition would set you back around £93,000), parked outside a house from where the sounds of a lunch party were coming. We drooled a bit as we contemplated its sleek lines.

The next couple of kilometres took us up a very steep slope between fields, very exposed.

There were terrific views back, though, out over the plain — which seemed suspiciously still close, after a day and a half of walking. We don’t seen to be making much ground.

We made our sweaty way up to Terenzo, a sweet little place with a real community feel: a village bread oven,

and a Pride flag exhorting us to work for a peaceful world,

I stopped to admire the play of light and shadows on this green garage door against the warm yellow plaster, when I noticed the guttering solution they had come up with, using pieces of old roofing tiles.

The road gained a little height via some useful sweeping zigzags and then the Francigena path dinked finally off the tarmac.

We now climbed steeply, steeply upwards on a path made with chunks of limestone (the telltale ropes of wild clematis were hanging everywhere).

We had climbed about 400 m since the last time I looked, and some mountain flowers were beginning to reappear: bell flower, various euphorbias, eryngium, Michaelmas daisies and in a few damp places, violet leaves and primroses for next year.

There were some bolete mushrooms growing through the rocks — but very poisonous. I think this was a Lurid bolete, Suillellus luridus, which bruises blue very easily on handling.

The trees were mostly low growing oaks, but at this altitude pines were starting too become more common, and at one point we had a thick carpet of pine needles and pinecones underfoot.

Every now and then the closed path opened out to the right or left to reveal mountain meadows still with a good variety of blooming wildflowers, which made me think fondly back to the Jura and the Alps. The path felt harder here, but it is also true that I feel fitter.

After what seemed like an age, we popped out at a road where there was a pilgrim resting point. There we met David, with his exquisite, immaculate Ducati motorbike, contemplating the view in his magnificent Ducati leathers. He has had the bike for a couple of years, and it was in such perfect condition that he must spend all his time polishing it. He was out on his adventure and was mighty impressed when he heard how far we were walking in ours.

We followed the crest of the road at about 800 meters where snowpoles make sure that in winter drivers can find the road. There were classic views of the village of Casola Castello, perched on a jutting spur of rock, a supremely defensible position for a village at a time when local warlords were apt to raid rivals.

We lost a lot of height then, quite rapidly on a very difficult path which required all our brain power focused on each foot, and found that the path grazed the edge of the village. We walked up a little way into the centre, thinking that we would find the castle, but it transpired it would’ve been a detour of an extra 20 minutes, and at that time of day we weren’t up for that! But we did appreciate the defensibly narrow and winding streets which would be difficult for a raiding party to negotiate freely, and the few small windows in the houses which would enable those inside to resist breeches. Even the church had an uncomfortably narrow door that could only be accessed by a single person at a time.

On the other hand there were also signs of the necessary strength of the community, with a communal cistern where we soaked our headgear to help us cool down, and various bread ovens on the street.

Retracing our steps out of the village, our path went down, and we were now looking forward to a focused but clear descent into Cassio at our day’s end.

We met a couple of men preparing for the winter. ‘Ah! You’ve come to help us chop wood! Great!’ they said. I asked them whether they got snow in the winter, but the guy said that they didn’t get very much now at all. Maybe a week or two when it gets 50 cm deep, but nothing like the winters he had as a child.

While we were talking, I noticed a Roman snail shell on the path. I remember finding them near the chalk hills of the North Downs in Kent, more than half a century ago, and being amazed how huge they were.

I let the shell drop, which was a smart move as we had a short but dangerously steep and slippery section of the path to negotiate, with rotted steps and masses of loose material, but we managed it with much circumspection and without accidents.

The route now assumed a more pleasant descent, past a redolently-fermenting pile of red pears,

and a meeting of paths where an exciting-sounding ‘Truffle Run’ was signposted.

But when we arrived at the lower part of the village (where there was an interpretation board recounting how there were ancient documents showing that the village was under church protection in the early Middle Ages, but that the church kept the village folk under very strict and harsh regulation, with many punishments such as floggings and mutilations for infractions — today it was a wealthy enough and autonomous place) there came an extremely unpleasant surprise. What we had thought was to be a gentle descent into the town was in fact an endless climb.

At this end of the day after 25km this was not what we wanted — we have often said that its as much the head game that is needed for walking and this was certainly the case here; my body was really quite ok: tired but with plenty of muscle power still to call on, and in fact by the end of the day we had averaged 4.1km an hour, which over 1100m of climb was really not bad at all. It was just that I didn’t want to climb another slope.

And one followed another — 150 meters more in total, to 940m on the map.

I felt like a horse that was refusing a jump.

But eventually we reached the road, having decided not to a) attempt the optional dangerous descent to view the Devil’s Leap from down below, and b) suffer the resultant climb back to the village. We could see the Leap far below us: the lowest in an extraordinary bank of cemented pebbles and sands which had been lifted up by orogenic pressures millions of years ago and were now laid vertically, running like a dragon’s spine all the way up to the top of the mountain.

The views — were they worth the climb? At the time I didn’t think so, but looking at the photos now, I find them all uplifting.

Cassio is a village ranged along a hill spine. The hostel provided an excellent hot shower and because the walk had taken us so long it was then supper time.

The bar tavola calda was holding a small birthday party for a little boy — perhaps about six — who was overcome with embarrassment when the cake came out and everyone started singing to him. We slipped in and ordered a couple of beers and some crisps, and were given some appetisers of focaccia bread topped with salami and tomato — just what we needed to begin our recovery.

Once the restaurant opened we had a lovely meal with Carole from France, and Skateboard dude Evaldas and his girlfriend Daniela later joined us with their beers. We ordered Chef Mimmo’s venison goulash and polenta.

It was fantastic, and when we told him so he told us he’d shot the deer himself not even a kilometer away in the woods. He showed us a photo of himself with a deer he’d shot as a boy in 1970, and his grandson now, with his own deer and the same rifle.

I couldn’t manage all mine, but Stephen hoovered it all up, and Chef Mimmo brought him a digestive to help settle it. A good evening.

Stats for the Day
Distance: 28.26 km
Climb: 1109 m
Average speed: 4.1 km/h