Watershed

Silent, upon a peak in Darien

John Keats, “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”

Today was the first day we had to put on our long sleeved tops when we got going— after a night when we hadn’t been given any blankets and I was woken up by the cold and had to put all my layers on.

Whereas last night the sun had been going down the mountains facing us, throwing all their contours and detail into shadow, this morning the sun rose behind us, casting the massive panorama into sharp relief.

We shunned the little off-road, up-and-down paths that the Francigena offered us, for an easy walk along the Sunday road, the better to enjoy the enormous views.

We disturbed a deer on the other side of the road, and Stephen heard its hooves clattering away on the baked clay of the slope. We heard stags roaring too; another sign that autumn is upon us.

The path came off the road, which had been steadily descending for a couple of kilometres, and we now had to climb again to reach the hamlet of Castellonchio at 910 m. Stephen was really enjoying being out on this ancient track, while I was just a cross, sweaty mess.

I had my eyes down on the path, having read that some of the rock layers were fossiliferous, and sure enough when we made the top we passed through a geological layer which did seem to have some traces of aeons-old creatures, although they were hard to make out and I might’ve been imagining it.

Eventually, nearing the top there were signs of forgotten habitations, now just roosts for buzzards,

and we descended into the sleepy hamlet.

Despite the early hour a husband and wife team were hard at work renovating a 16th century house. As we stood outside, every so often a shovelful of dirt flew out of the window. They’ve been working on the house themselves for over a year now, and seem to have got quite a bit done, but there is a long way yet to go.

The oldest house in the village according to its over-the-road neighbour was on her way out. He said that to make her good would just cost too much now.

By the side of the road, we met a sports photographer who positions himself in the shade on this curve and photographs all the bikers riding by, to sell them photographs of themselves in action.

Having seen a sign on the back of one of the trucks to the effect that there was a team out managing the wild boar population, we asked him whether they were dangerous at this time of year. He was of the opinion that they were,

but a little further down the woodland track we met a hunter listening to the rest of his party over his walkie-talkie, and he told us (in a whisper) that boar were hardly around anymore because they were all suffering from a disease. In four days he said they’d seen one. He and his team were practising the ‘girata’ method we’d seen the signs mentioning, where a group of hunters encircle the animal.

In a muddy section of the path we looked for tracks or signs of a wallow but didn’t see any;

however a little further on we did see tufts of bristly hair on the ground — perhaps a sign of a boar having a jolly good scratch.

We saw several hunters over the next hour, and one of their trucks every time our path intersected with a road. In the back of one was a dog cage with a snuffly hound inside, quietly hoping we had come to let him out.

The Francigena followed an undulating route for the rest of the morning, taking us over a succession of peaks well over 900m: Monte Marino at 989 m, and Monte San Genesio at 953 m. But because we’d already hauled ourselves up to Castellonchio to start with, these felt like nice little undulations which rewarded us with views every now and then.

Sometimes we were on grassy paths,

and sometimes woodland ones,

and once on a thread of a path through ancient hazels, coppiced so long ago that some of the trunks were as thick as my legs.

On our way down into Berceto, we met fellow Francigena hiker Therese from Australia, Queen of laundry whites, and also a fellow ex teacher. We were walking a little faster than her, so said we would meet up in the town below.

We were absolutely stunned beyond words when we got into Berceto’s main square to discover that we had timed our visit perfectly to find ourselves in the literal middle of the annual luxury car rally. And by luxury, I mean tens of millions of pounds worth of Lamborghinis, Maseratis, Ferraris, Porsches, McLarens, Lotuses…

They filled the streets.

And they just sat there, gleaming and sleek and unbelievably beautiful, being admired by all and sundry.

I clasped my walking poles to me, and didn’t turn around for fear of having a dreadful ‘to me, to you’ moment of apocalyptic and not-comic-at-all destruction, and somehow scratching the paintwork on one of these beautiful vehicles with my poles or rucksack.

There were several little children weaving in and out of the vehicles, some on bikes or scooters — a terrifying prospect. And others who were being photographed by smitten fathers (smitten with the cars, that is).

We decided that we would park ourselves in the little restaurant on the Piazza, and have a proper plate of pasta and a proper break. It wasn’t long before Therese joined us, and we spent a happy hour chatting, over a plate of home-made tortelli stuffed with ricotta and herbs served with melted butter and Parmesan cheese.

We watched — and listened — to the cars starting up and processing off. The throaty, growly roar of all those engines was thrilling — and I mean, deeply thrilling on the level of my nerves. Quite unlike anything I have ever heard before.

And so it was time for us to leave too, after an extremely happy hour and a half of a totally unexpected nature. What an extraordinary thing this walk is.

At this point we were facing an ascent up to the highest point of the Francigena’s Apennine exploit. After yesterday’s exhausting and dispiriting hauls up and stressful descents I was feeling fairly trepidacious about the prospect.

But it turned out to be a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon. There were indeed plenty of climbs,

but they were never punctuated by enraging losses of heights that one had to make up again — instead, after every stiff climb there was a considerate flat section, giving time to meet the horned cows foraging in a wood,

and identifying today’s bolete that we thought probably was not poisonous.

The landscape was shady and pleasant, almost in its entirety,

And there were frequent signposts informing you how far you still had to go and how long it would take. Which never felt far at all (in contrast to yesterday feeling as though we were stretched out on the vertical event horizon of a black hole).

We got to a signpost where we had to make a decision: turn right for a swift descent to the Cisa Hostel, or left for a final swift climb up to Monte Valoria, at 1238 metres the second highest point on the Francigena after the Great St Bernard Pass.

We decided unanimously that we wanted to climb, as our legs and muscles were feeling good and we were in great spirits. Besides, it was only another 1.2km.

We kept expecting the path to get steeper and more precarious, but it remained a steady and comfortable ascent,

until the trees finished and there was only a grassy bank to climb, which hid the glory of the view until, with a wild surmise, we topped it and felt all at once the full impact of the 360° breathtaking panorama.

We had the whole of the Apennines to ourselves — a great, glorious cirque, forested thickly on all sides and the slopes and ridges picked out for us by sun and shadow. Here was the watershed, where after the long weeks in the Po basin where all the streams led east to the Adriatic, to the south all the streams now joined their waters to rivers flowing south and west into the Ligurian Mediterranean.

We truly were, for a very long moment, silent upon a peak in Darien.

It was very hard to tear our eyes away from the mountainous feast, but we did. And the delight stayed with us all the way to the Ostello della Cisa, open for three more days only until it closes for the winter. We were so lucky with our dates. Our delight didn’t even get knocked by the WhatsApp message to say that their boiler had broken and there was no hot water for showers.

We had a warm welcome from lovely Silvia and Elise, the hostel managers,

and the Latvian daughter Marta and mother Inez whom we had seen briefly last night and met at the hostel/mountaintop decision point (they decided on the hostel) came downstairs, beautiful clean and invigorated by their cold showers, and inspired us to hurl ourselves under the cold tap.

The sun coming through the open windows of helped warm our tingling skin, and we settled down in our room for some R&R until communal supper time at 7 o’clock.

Silvia made us some memorable panini for supper with the best local ingredients available, and we enjoyed a couple of hours of lovely conversation — I am ashamed to say both Benedict and Georg, cyclist musicians from Germany, and Marta and Inez all spoke excellent English and did all the linguistic heavy lifting.

Stats for the Day

Distance: 21.23 km

Highest elevation: 1238 meters

Speed: 4.2 kmh

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