Long Way Round

The walking body has no history, it is just an eddy in the stream of immemorial life.

Frédéric Gros

I woke from a good night’s sleep at my by-now-customary 5 o’clock, put the blog to bed and made what I think must be the earliest getaway of the journey: 6:50am.

I had a choice to make about which I was still dithering: a shorter route of 24km which involved a busy stretch on the early-morning Via Cassia, or a 27km route which would take me much further out into the countryside but which would avoid the unpleasant dangerous road. Everyone else I knew was going to take the shorter way. Did I want to walk with others or walk on my own?

Yesterday I had found the descent difficult on my knees, and I had been wondering whether this was because I had been talking so much (a lovely thing!) that I hadn’t paid enough attention to the muscles I was walking with. Also, with the route coming to an end, I rather feel that I want to absorb it in a more intentional way. I don’t want to cut short any of this journey. Rather, I want to prolong it, cram more of it inside me.

So it was the Road Less Traveled for me.

Before 7 o’clock, only the very early morning workers were out in Sutri. Two Richard Scarry-sized street cleaning vehicles were parked in the little piazza outside the apartment, just the right size to negotiate the mediaeval streets. A street sweeper whistled while cleaning the streets before almost anybody was up to appreciate his work.

The municipal fountains were just for me,

And before sun-up at 7:30, looking into the little side-streets felt like stealing a glance into someone’s intimate domestic space.

I didn’t slip out by the Franceti gate; it was slightly out of my way and involved a nasty stretch on the road. Instead, I walked down the main thoroughfare out of town, noting the long queue of traffic leaving the city by the road I wasn’t going to walk down,

and stopping only to take some leisurely and uninterrupted photographs of the ‘Etruscoman’ amphitheatre through its locked gate, where yesterday I had been stymied by the entrance fee. I was interested to make out the T-shaped Etruscan doorways.

At first the sky was simply a promising clear dark blue shading to pale near the horizon, with thin pink clouds reflecting the sun from beneath, and set off by the silhouettes of trees.

Up in the hills behind the town and out into the countryside there was a quiet road. I bathed in cold air as I walked, invigorated.

Out amongst the empty fields I was simultaneously a tiny speck in the vast, stirring landscape,

and a giant,

the only audience member in the unfolding early-morning drama of the sky.

The sun at last came up behind a hill, and its almost horizontal rays began to illuminate the tops of the hazel bushes, giving shape to the dark leafy tunnels from outside; the inverse of the town’s lit interiors.

I wondered whether I would see any wild boar. This might be my last chance. In the corner of the field where a sleeping horse stood, a boar had worked its way under the wire fence to excavate tubers from the earth underneath a tree, leaving its dung to mix with that of the horse. There were a few other signs of boar presence in the road, but otherwise I wasn’t early enough, or quiet enough.

After a couple of hours out in the landscape without meeting anyone, I left what had felt like a place suspended in time, although its magic had been created precisely by the measure of the rising sun. My path rejoined the main route again.

I had done a third of the distance, and it was barely 9 o’clock.

I couldn’t see any other walkers as yet, but two men were standing close up to a white vehicle with another parked behind it, and I greeted them as I passed. ‘Buongiorno,’ one said, and I now saw that he had a long piece of wire with which he was trying to open the locked car door. The other, hoody up, turned around, but I couldn’t see his face. I suddenly felt extremely unsure of myself. Had one locked his keys by accident in his car? Or was this a more sinister attempted vehicle theft?

I wasn’t sure what to do. Contact local police? How would I do that? 50 yards down the road were some closed villa gates with a long drive behind. Coming up the drive was a man talking on his phone. I stood expectantly by the gate and he finished his call and came up to the gates. I told him what I’d seen. He said the white car had been there since last night — perhaps it belonged to the shepherds who kept the sheep in the field close by. He wasn’t sure what was going on either, but he said he’d go and have a look-see.

I felt that I’d discharged my responsibility, and I walked on, suddenly feeling very much alone and uncertain.

The road was very straight and there was no one about but me. I reached the end of the road and turned right, feeling slightly better that I was now on a more main road and not an isolated straight farm track. I turned around when car came up behind me, and it was the blue car with Hoody Man at the wheel. He waved at me quite cheerily and seemed to have a nice, open face. Not blaming me for foiling attempted car-jacking, then. I noted down his numberplate, just in case.

And then at last I turned off the main road, leaving that unsettling episode behind me, to walk down a narrow track with olive groves on either side,

which gave way to the links of the National Golf School, with a handy stone bench on the path to balance my foot on as I took my boots off to tip yet another small pile of stones out.

The first bar in the town of Monterosi had several retired pilgrims sitting on tables outside. They had all left after me, so despite their later start their shortcut meant they had caught up.

I didn’t feel like stopping, but went on to buy a mini pizza from a bread shop. The thin, cracker-like base and the perfect ratio of tomato sauce to oil was so delicious that I nearly went back for a second one.

I admired the outside of the church with its dome set over a Greek cross plan. I did look in, disappointed to find it was overfilled with to-my-mind insipid art,

so hurried on, on a shortcut of my own devising.

More haste less speed, idiot! There was no way I could cross what had not looked like such a main road on the map.

I backtracked, and when I got over the road on the proper Francigena route, I could see that it was an eight-lane highway, the SS2!

I caught up with Sylvie and Bruno, and showed her the photograph of her intrepidly climbing through a fallen tree on yesterday’s blog. I promised send it to her later.

There was a noisy and uninspiring section of walking along a path right by the side of the highway, which thankfully didn’t last for ever.

The back road away from the highway was quiet, and unspooled over several kilometres. More a farm track than a road, with distressing fly tipping amongst trees which were otherwise brimming with full-throated robins.

There was little of interest except for one terrifically expensive-looking villa with a sign outside advertising a hunting company.

Further on, a paved path cut down a snicket beside another house, when the road had ceased being asphalt and again become a farm track.

I wondered whether it was Roman. It looked very like that beautiful stretch of Roman road out of Montefiascone, but to my very untrained eye it’s impossible to tell how old the slabs are. It’s the same with blocks of tufa: are they Etruscan? Roman? Late 20th century? Or are they old ones reused? There is no way of knowing.

This was countryside in the middle of nowhere, empty land on the not-very-detailed map. There were incomprehensible fields lying fallow, or yet to be ploughed, but I did understand the work being done on the edges of the woods which punctuated the field systems.

In front of the isolated Sansoni Agriturismo were beautiful planted beds out front — bees knocking themselves out on autumn nectar from summer ornamental sages —

was the sign that no pilgrim wants to see: a warning about unaccompanied sheepdogs.

I didn’t come across any at all, to my great relief, although I did hear some sheep in the distance to my left, and also the bleating of tiny lambs, to my surprise. The path carried me on past, a thin track heading straight through the agricultural landscape,

towards a set of high hills I was never to reach.

After yesterday’s educational encounter with oak galls, I was interested to see yet another type, oak marble galls. The whole bush full of them — a good year for the cumbersomely-named oak marble gall wasp.

As I stopped briefly to charge my phone and eat a banana, I was overtaken by Sylvie and Bruno who kindly gave me a little biscuit, a burst of sugar at a much-needed time on this long, straight track.

I followed them on a bit more slowly, through a delightful bouldery wood, dotted with cyclamen, as soon as the shade started. It was such a nice contrast to the field track, which although pleasant had begun to get a bit monotonous.

There was more interest: a couple of frisky horses, very interested in passers-by and looking as though they positively enjoying being startled.

I was looking forward to the next part of the walk, the waterfalls of the excitingly-named Monte Gelato, or ‘ice cream mountain’. In the spirit of seeing everything today, I took the detour and walked down the river alongside its rushing progress.

Despite the recent heat and the dryness the waterfalls did not disappoint.

On the other side of the largest waterfall pool a young woman was sitting with her rucksack: I don’t think I have met her before. She looked so peaceful taking a moment for herself in the shade by the water that I crept away without disturbing her.

On the other side of the river, Sylvie and Bruno were having their lunch.

Sylvie and I finally exchanged numbers, so we won’t lose each other. I showed them the photos, as they had not yet seen the waterfalls.

I said how excited I was that this was ice cream mountain, but disappointed that there wasn’t one for me to enjoy. Sylvie pointed behind me at a pizzeria bar restaurant advertising ice creams.

It was closed.

The restaurant cat was sitting outside. It didn’t want to know either.

There wasn’t a lot of climbing in today’s walk, but it seemed to be concentrated now, perhaps to get up and over the shoulders of Monte Gelato. There were slightly dilapidated ranch-style houses in a little hamlet, and other small holdings, all quite small scale.

The path took itself down and through winding valleys until it reached the regional park of Veio. Once over a treacherous section where the path was all broken tiles and fly-tipped rubbish, it became a pleasant enough walk,

through uninhabited countryside left pretty much to its own devices with meadows and woods, streams and scrubland, and a good track that marched me through it all.

In one luminous section were hundreds of black walnut trees, foliage turning a fragrant golden. A sudden gift.

Their green citrus-scented fruits were falling, and being careful not to stain my hands I crushed one open to see what was inside. Unripe for sure. There were others that had turned black, but they were too hard to crush.

These trees don’t seem to be affected by the problems that the walnuts were having back up north in Acquapendente.

Unsurprisingly, after such a long day the last few kilometres were a slog, up a long valley that at times seemed endless. Luckily flat.

Flat, that is, until I came to Campagnano di Roma itself: high up on a defensible hill.

‘You didn’t have to defend yourself against me,’ I thought as I hauled myself up the almost vertical slope.

At the top was waiting a pretty little house with a courtyard garden, and enough sun to dry my clothes after I had washed them in the outside sink.

The inside was colourful and bright.

Sylvie and Bruno turned up, and then Livia, to share the space with me. There was no hot water at first so the bravest of us had cold showers (me!) until we got the owner to come and finesse the immersion heater.

We all ended up going separately into town. I walked up the spine of the main street — a medieval town of cats where you could see ten in the space of a few hundred meters.

Not far from the house a man was unloading crates of olives he had picked, he said ‘by hand’, which I took to mean using one of those non-mechanical rakes.

‘So many!’ I said. ‘How many kilos?’ ‘Quindici quintali’, was the answer — 1500, in other words. A good harvest. He was tipping out the crates onto a tarpaulin on the floor of a small cantina behind one of the fantastic old doors which lined the street. ‘They need to get some air and dry a bit, otherwise they’ll spoil,’ he said. ‘Then on Wednesday I’ll make the oil — If you come back then I’ll make you a bruschetta!’

I will be back in England, then!

I peered at a crumpled poster which said the road had been closed for a day’s filming — sadly there was no one to ask for what.

I got myself the icecream — deserving it now after a real end-of-day climb, rather than at the earlier not-very-Monte Monte Gelato.

There were some mildly interesting historical buildings with interpretation boards in Italian and English,

but I was too tired to take much of it in. I contented myself with a few photos for the sake of it.

One building I did pay more attention to — a loggia at the corner of the town hall had been given over to a memorial to a courageous young man who’d led the local section of the partisans during the war.

He was captured and tortured and eventually executed with hundreds of others. The townsfolk renamed the square after Cesare Leonelli, once they had been liberated.

There was food provided back at the house: packets and tins of things to make up a meal. I cooked up rehydrated pasta and sauce from a packet — not something that Stephen would have even contemplated eating except in a dire emergency or half way up a mountain, but I was glad it was there, and grateful it was so simple to put together. Sylvie and Bruno came back with a bottle of wine. Bruno hoovered up my leftover pasta and Sylvie prepared a meal for them with sardines as a starter, then pasta and pesto, and some little packet jam tarts for dessert. More adventurous than mine!

It was a really convivial evening. One of the many cats came in, and made herself very much at home.

Another was more wary.

Two more days!

Stats for the Day
Distance: 29.69km (plus another two to get round town)
Time: 6hrs 17
Speed: 4.7 — no wonder I was tired.

Ode to a Campion
I haven’t posted about this flower before, but it has been ubiquitous. Today it was so miraculously beautiful that it stopped me in my tracks.