Thorned diversions: Mount Valoria to Altopascio

Cloud had descended on Mount Valoria but I was determined to rest on the mountain. I tucked myself into my bivvy bag and tried to sleep. I had been too hot for days but that night I needed all four seasons of my sleeping bag certification.

Light rain fell on my cheeks in the night. I pulled the waterproofing over my face and persisted in trying to sleep. I heard some faint bells from what I assumed to be nearby cows. There is some bravery in the persistence of drowsiness.

Dawn arrived and I woke with it. The fog remained thick but began to slowly trickle off the mountain. The cows were actually horses and seemed a little surprised by my presence amongst them. It was cold and I wore the most clothes since the first day back in Kent.

I rolled my things up without hurry and began to walk down the mountain to the Cisa Pass. The early morning sun shone through long grass and wild flowers. I hadn’t slept much but was freshened by the morning.

The Pass itself has a bar and a couple of other buildings but they were deserted when I arrived at 6am. It marks the passage into Tuscany and I walked under an archway welcoming me to the region.

I passed through forest for a while and my guidebook told me I would have to make another big climb before descending into the city of Pontremoli. The path then descended along a quiet road and offered a view across a bunch of the Apennines. There were some signs pointing an alternative route via Sigeric’s historic stop of Montelungo. I decided to follow the new signs to the old place.

The path led me downhill and passed through Montelungo where I had a coffee and watched a man and his dog doing the same. I asked if the church was open and they told me it would be for an event in four days time. I replied that I wasn’t sure I’d be around for it.

I walked on and passed through more woodland. The fallen, golden autumn leaves still carpeted the floor. I saw a sign saying that the area to the right of the path was a mushroom picking area.

Andrea, a very kind man in I had met in Fiorenzuola, was a Porcini forager and told me that the hills around the Cisa were a good place to look. I propped my backpack up by the path and went to look for some.

I wandered for a while, eyes studied on the floor. Then my eyes fell on a mushroom. I plucked it and took a sniff. It definitely smelled like Porcino. I took a picture and sent it to Andrea for confirmation.

I continued my hunt for about an hour and a half. It was quite exciting, like hunting for this unburied treasure. I found a couple but kept insisting on just one more.

By the time I did finish, I’d found four mushrooms. I was planning some kind of pasta. Then Andrea replied: not Porcini, do not eat.  They had smelled so convincing. I left them to decompose into the forest.

I walked on and the alternative route meandered. It curled around valley sides but didn’t seem involve more climbing. Perhaps Sigeric’s route had some sense to it. I will never know the alternative. Pilgrims do, though, tend to follow the path of least resistance.

In Pontremoli, there is an ostello that lives in the medieval castle there. It had been built because the city was an important strategic location, guarding the Cisa. It was an amazingly impressive building and a man at the museum handed me a key to the lock on the front gate. ‘When you leave in the morning, don’t forget to lock the Castle.’

I left quite late the next morning. There had been an event in the courtyard the night before that consisted of costumes, flag throwing and some pretty energetic bugling and trumpeting. Just as I thought it was coming to an end, the drums would strike up again with more vigour. The pillow, too, was seductively soft.

That day I was to walk to Aulla. The line on the map curled around a bit adding considerable extra distance that I wasn’t that keen to make on an already late start. I started off along the road, walking at a good pace.

Tuscany is full of beautiful, old brick towns and villages. After passing through one, the road diverted into woodland. My map showed me a loop in the route was coming up. I thought it might be possible to walk off-piste for a short while and cut out the unnecessary bend. Sort of like how an ox-bow lake is formed. I am the impatient river in this analogy.

Just as the path was to turn right, I turned left into the undergrowth. For a while I tentatively descended down a slope overgrown with brambles and low trees. Snagging myself on thorns, I followed my GPS, heading to an unknown road, a short distance away on the map.

Soon though, the gradient became more dramatic and I realised that the road lay across a steep valley. The slope on the opposite side was more of a sheer cliff. I turned back up the hill and resigned myself to the route. I’m no explorer.

I plodded through Tuscan farmland. There were some attractive vineyards and the Apennines remained constantly on my left. The route is pushed towards the sea by those mountains.

Time passed and with it I made my way up some small hills and through more villages. The sun was hot and I kept sipping my water.

I paused outside an astonishingly old church; I think it was eighth century. When I tried the door I realised there was a wedding underway that I probably wasn’t invited to and certainly was underdressed for. I continued towards Rome.

I kept walking, denying myself lunch until I’d made enough distance. I turned right down a dusty track, having misread a sign and had to trudge back up it a few minutes later. I was beginning to feel tired but I still had a long way to go. Sometimes days feel easy and sometimes they feel hard. Often numbers have very little to do with it.

At the next turning I tried to repeat my mistake but a car honked its horn and pointed me in the way of the Francigena. I thanked them, smiling. I ate in the last village before a long stretch through a forest before Aulla.

In that forest I heard rustling in the undergrowth next to me. I’ve become quite good at knowing the size of an animal based on the amount of volume their displacement makes. Usually its lizards. Even the tiny creatures make more noise than you’d expect.

This time though the rustling was very loud. I was a little concerned because the beings seemed to have me surrounded. A baby boar with a striped hide burst across the path in front of me and soon all the rustling was occurring in the distance.

I walked on for another hour and saw another boar. This time it was partially covered by leaves and it was standing, staring at me with an unnerving confidence. It had a very wide head and was jet black. I stopped and gazed at it. It looked a little threatening but before I had pulled my camera out it had disappeared into the greenery.

On leaving the forest, I heard some kids playing in the trees. One had left a quadbike by the side of the road. It looked fast and I eyed it with envy.

Eventually I began to approach Aulla and was walking on the road. I passed a police car that seemed to be doing spot checks on motorists. They had just stopped a cream Fiat 500 as I walked by.

I passed through the newer end of town which is populated by unattractive low-rise building before reaching its church. I was sweaty, hot, and tired. When I arrived, the volunteers pulled some water and coca-cola out of a fridge and I gladly gulped some down.

Aulla has a church with eighth century foundations. A woman explained that it had been badly bombed in the second world war. That they had found an unexploded British bomb near the altar when they were repairing the church. They had a small museum with a mannequin wearing ‘traditional’ pilgrim wear.

After visiting the church and museum, I was showed to their hostel which was a few doors down. There were a few other guests, including an American who was trying to get to Rome as fast as he could. Thirty days from the Great St Bernard Pass was his aim. In the morning, he wrapped a tea towel round his knee and set off half an hour before me.

The next day wasn’t too far to Sarzana. I wasn’t exactly sure where I would be staying but set out undeterred. The path quickly left the town and started to climb a hill steeply. I pushed at the ground and progressed across a wide gravel path that soon narrowed. There was a spot where trees had been cleared that let you looked back at Aulla. Even being so slow you can leave places quite quickly.

After the first rise, the path led past a small village with a castle balanced on the top of its hill. I diverted from the route and climbed up a series of slopes and steps. The castle itself, overrun by dirt and grass, could be entered from a dilapidated set of wooden stairs. I tentatively made my way up them, checking for rot, to admire the view from the top.

The earliness of my departure was making me inclined to make diversions but I led myself back to the road. Soon, I was climbing another hill and then passing round a steep valley edge. I was peaceful and enjoying the passage through trees.

As I summited the final hill and began to descend on the other side I glimpsed the Mediterranean Sea on the horizon. It was a milestone, a point of arrival. On the other side of the hill the plants seemed to be more desert-like. They were drier and the rocks were a yellowy-orange which increased my thirst.

The descent was steep and lasted for a while before passing through a village and then eventually following a canal into Sarzana. The water in the canal was clear as glass but there were dense weeds that were pulled along by the flow of the water.

Just as I was arriving in the town, rain started to fall gently. It increased in speed and I looked at the side of the road for cover. There was nothing to protect me so I put my raincover on my backpack and increased my pace. Its silly to try to outrun the rain but I tried anyway.

Thankfully, the micro-storm was short lived. Soon, the clouds began to clear and I arrived in Sarzana. Once again, I had arrived during the siesta and nearly everything was shut. It looked beautiful but I had decided to pass through, to a church a few kilometres down the road that offered room for pilgrims. I had been Whatsapping the priest.

I left the city via one of its gates and continued alongside the road for another hour or so. On arriving, I was greeted by a kind man whose dog-collar was hanging open at his neck. He showed me upstairs to a second floor that was full of beds. Twenty, maybe. He asked where I had stayed last night and if he thought he should expect anyone else. I told him I wasn’t sure but I thought that they weren’t coming this way. He seemed a little disappointed.

I had arrived early so rested and read and wrote. I drank a couple of beers on the terrace of the building and my clothes dried quickly. Although I have to wash more frequently in the heat, there’s never a problem getting the clothes dry.

The next day I decided I would leave the Francigena and go to the beach. I would follow the coast South until I could divert East to meet it again. For an hour in the morning I walked alongside busy roads. I stopped by a strangely located fruit stall to answer some questions about my travels.

I told a woman I had walked from England. She asked if I’d like a peach. I said that would be lovely. Then the stall-holder started filling a bag full with apricots and I thought I was out of luck. But then, she handed the bag to me, heavy with fifteen of the fruit. Then, almost as an afterthought, she passed me a giant fig.

I strapped the fruit to my back and kept walking along the road, trying to tune out the traffic. After an hour or so I arrived at the sea. I have never liked sand in my shoes so I took off my boots and walked along the sand. It was still fairly early in the morning and the beach was mostly empty.

For a few kilometres I walked on the hard sand at the water’s edge. I left footprints that were quickly washed away. Often, the water lapped at my feet, washing them clean.

The last time I had been on the beach had been at Wissant, my second day of walking. Severe pain had shot through my knee then. I had had no idea if I’d last more than a week.

I walked for a few kilometres and then stopped. I dumped my bag in the sand and sat next to it.

I swam in the sea. It was completely transparent. Then, I returned to my bag and ate five of the apricots and the fig which had exploded. I wasn’t sure where I’d be sleeping so I tried to phone some monks. I explained myself down the phone and the reply was a shower of noes.

There was, I found out, a hostel about 10km down the coast. I shouldered my bag and began to walk down the beach again.

Other beach goers eyed me with curiosity and often mistrust. They were all in swim suits and my apricots and walking boots were swinging on the back of my back. I didn’t think I was spoiling their holiday but maybe I was.

The beach was punctuated by groynes made out of large rocks to trap the sand. I crossed them, barefoot, anxious not to trip. I watched trinket sellers, migrants who trekked up and down the beach looking for sales, to find the easiest points of crossing.

The dry sand was becoming too hot to walk on and a channel flowing into the sea forced me back up to the road. I walked the last hour on tarmac.

When I arrived at the hostel I met a woman who told me she was a missionary. I think she spoke to me in French but her Italian accent was so thick I wasn’t at all sure at times. She told me that the manager was at the bar. He, in turn, told me I couldn’t check in till 3.

I dumped my bags and went to look round the area. It was jammed full of bars and restaurants at the beach fronts and campsites behind them. There was nothing really in the way of shops which disappointed me because I was hungry. I returned to the hostel and ate five more apricots.

When checked-in, I found that the hostel was an enormous ex-villa. A seaside mansion, really. It was quite charming, except for the fact that the hot water wasn’t on until 6pm.

I napped and in the evening met the missionary again. She told me she was waiting at the hostel for a month for her passport to arrive so that she could go to India to begin her work. Over the residency she seemed to have developed an antipathy for one of the managers; when she spoke of him she drew circles round her head. I ate the last five apricots.

The hostel seemed to attract residency. There was another woman there who was staying for ten days. She was Russian. “I am working on the boats for a while.” She told me most of her luggage was back in the South of France.

A German pilgrim arrived and a strange little congress in the courtyard ensued. The Italian missionary insisted on speaking in English but had about as much ability as I do in Italian. A simple statement was made and then ten minutes taken translating it through four languages. At the end there was much nodding and little comprehension. Babel stood unbuilt.

I went to bed and then woke fairly early but took my time in actually leaving. I walked along the road for a short while and then returned to the beach.

Once more, I trod barefoot along the water line. I expect I received some much needed exfoliation. My dog likes walking on the beach.

I remembered the beaches of North East England and my fear of washed up jellyfish. They had a sting I had never experienced but knew to be worthy of jumpiness.

The beach ran forever. Each bar had a capacious raft of sunloungers that mostly stood empty.

Sinking into the sand at every step, my pace was slow but I continued walking on the beach for two hours or so. I stopped to talk to a lifeguard who asked if I needed any water.

Pietrasanta was the next town which I was going to stop. When I arrived at the beach directly to its West I stopped again. I lay my bag close to the water and stared out at the sea. The horizon lay flat and infinite.

A man emerged from the sea and smiled at me. He asked my name and thought for a moment that I was another pilgrim he had heard of. He sat down next to me and we chatted for a while. He worked nearby and was headed back there in an hour or so. His name was Alex and he told me it was his first swim of the season.

His parents rented one of the sunlounger sets for the season. It was just a few metres behind us. He said I could leave my bag there whilst I swam if I wanted. I gratefully did so.

I took my last swim in the sea. I waded up to my waist and then broke into a front crawl, not turning my head to breath. When I could no longer touch the ground with my feet I dove under the water, goggles shielding my eyes. I glimpsed a jellyfish and inaudibly shrieked in half-mocked terror. I wasn’t, at that moment, afraid but I swam back nonetheless.

Alex was still at his parents’ sunloungers. He told me he had to go to work but that I could stay as long as I wanted. I thanked him and said goodbye. I stayed for a while and had a brief attempt at evening out my traveller’s tan.
After an hour lounging I packed up my things, redressed and began the walk along road to Pietrasanta. The sun was hot and I walked on the shaded side of the road.

I stopped at a supermarket just outside of town. I bought lunch which I ate next to a man selling fake handbags. He eyed me uneasily despite my half-manic smiles.

At this point, Pontremoli didn’t strike me as a particularly beautiful place but soon I passed through an ancient stone gate and was in its medieval centre. I made my way up to its Diocesan Centre where I rang a buzzer. A priest welcomed me warmly and made some jokes I half-understood. He showed me to a room where four pilgrims were lying in beds, half-sleeping. I washed and left to look around the town.

Pontremoli, to spite its first appearances, was very beautiful. It has a gorgeous Duomo with an illuminated altar piece called the Madonna of the Sun. In fact, it was a city full of art. Contemporary sculpture, historic painting and some Botero frescoes. I had a couple of slices of pizza and an ice cream because the hostel had no kitchen.

Sleep met more snoring. The volume was a close second to Fernando. In the middle of the night an ear plug fell out and I couldn’t find it. To my shame,  I made a bit of a show of finding a new pair. I think my display was noticed because in the morning one of the group apologised for her friend’s noise. She told me they weren’t able to sleep either. I replied that I had experienced worse, which, to be fair, was true.

I left the hostel and made my way through the main square. Standing by the church was a German pilgrim who had been a late arrival to the dormitory. On seeing me, he waited.

We walked together, leaving the town. He was in his fifties and taught flute at a Conservatory in Switzerland. His name was Jörg. He walked like his legs were made from firmly set jelly on account of some bad blisters: “Each day, a new one.”

He had walked from Switzerland but had taken the train over the plain and the rice fields.

We walked along tarmac road for a while and then turned off onto a footpath that was badly overgrown with brambles. I was wearing trousers because my attempt at tanning the previous day had resulted in a bad case of sunburn. It turned out to be an accidental stroke out luck; my legs were saved from cuts.

We felt very far from the sea as the path snaked up steeps hills to make its way to Lucca.

At around 10km in, we stopped in a small village. There was a wine shop that advertised a free glass and some focaccia for pilgrims. It was before 10 o’clock but free wine is free wine is free wine.

We sipped and munched and then set off again. Energy was slightly depleted on account of the alcohol.

Jörg told me he had become addicted to walking in Spain. “It is,” he said, “the natural human velocity.” It’s something I agree with Jörg on. But the appeal isn’t just walking itself. It’s walking and then walking and then walking.My friend Emily, from the last instalment, had originally studied anthropology. She told me humans had evolved as creatures habituated to long-distance migration. Bipedalism hugely favours this durational motion. As a species, we are much more suited to walking than running. Natural is a word almost too diffuse to have meaning. But, there is something bizarrely natural about walking 2000 km.

“In Spain, I stayed in a tower. All around the land was flat. But at the top of the tower there was a message written in the middle of the table. It was from St Augustine and it described pilgrimage to me: ‘Empty yourself of the things you are full with and fill yourself with the things you are empty from.’ Pilgrims so often say they have so much time to think on the way. Not me. So often, I am never thinking, my mind is empty and I am present in the moment of the world.”

I knew what he meant although I conceive of it a little differently. For me, I am almost always thinking when I am walking but I usually think without direction or urgency. Its a kind of percolation and gentle cogitation that has produced many small realisations. It is thinking without expectation of solution that provides the greatest progress.

We climbed another hill, both losing our breath slightly but pushing ever onwards. We arrived at the top and passed one bar, agreeing to continue. Then, a restaurant, peculiarly named.

After another few kilometres we stopped again. Jörg ordered lunch of a sandwich and beer. I joined him in the beer.

He opened a newspaper and began to read about the World Cup. There was still a long way to go so I bid him farewell and continued onto Lucca. The path flowed down one hill and then through some woodland for a while.

There was another stiff climb, on an old cobbled road just to the right of some tarmac. A combination of the sun and the alcohol was sapping my energy and I was beginning to weary.

There was still plenty of ground to cover. The path descended once more and came to a valley floor which I followed for a while. Along the road was an interesting combination of cross and cairn; rocks balanced on wooden arms.

The smaller river met a larger one and I sat down by a church before a bridge. I gathered my strength for the final six kilometres.

After crossing the water, the path turned back on itself to avoid the busy road to Lucca and stay by the riverside. It was a diversion I was hesitant to sanction but I decided not to consider an alternative.

The path was gravelly, dry, and sandy. After a little more than an hour I made a sharp right turn and began to enter the outskirts of the city. I was buoyed by the proximity and made my way through the ancient and impressive walls to the hostel run by the Misericordia. It was a smallish room in the centre of town. Some other rucksacks, without present owners, were already present.

I washed and, not wanting to miss the city, made my way out. My feet were tired and I drifted without purpose. My lunch hadn’t been very satisfying so I bought a chunk of focaccia and then a second. My limbs increasingly complained tired so I made my last few trips to churches before returning to the hostel.

I cooked pasta, ate, and went to sleep. I was sharing the room with two pilgrims from South Africa, Pauline and Morell, and a young pilgrim from Milan, Luca.

In the morning I left last but was still in good time. There was less than 20km to do and I was in no great hurry. I made my way to Lucca’s cathedral which I had missed the previous day. It remained locked.

I climbed up onto the city walls and traversed them to the city’s east gate. I was joined by dozens of joggers getting their morning exercise.

On leaving the city, I walked pass lines and lines of stationary traffic. The queues were so long that engines had been turned off, resulting in an eerily quiet commute. I overtook the workers and found the source of the jam: a level crossing that remained firmly closed.

I stood with the cars and a few cyclists for about ten minutes, waiting for a train to pass by. Eventually one did and then barriers crept up. The accumulated traffic trickled through.

I then followed a quiet road for five or so kilometres. I passed a house where and old woman outside it started talking to me. She asked where I was from and told me about her youth. She bid me goodbye by saying: “Life is short and we all must die.”

Slightly shocked by the starkness of this prophecy, I moved on. I found an enormous group of lavender bushes and tried to photograph a shy butterfly.

I passed a small town called Capannori. At its centre was a church that had been built for pilgrims in the middle of the Middle Ages. I visited it briefly and sat next to two woman saying the rosary together.

The map then showed a bit of a diversionary long route to Altopascio. I decided to turn to google maps and reduce my distance. I walked along roads that got increasingly busy. I walked at the edge of the road as traffic rushed by. I had, however, made my route-bed and I would lie in it.

I turned off, only to find myself walking down the hard shoulder of an even busier road. Up ahead was a bridge over a railway track. The shoulder disappeared and HGVs were passing perilously close to the barrier at the road’s edge. I blinked and saw myself die.

I diverted off the road and jumped across the rail track through some damaged fences. Shortly after, the traffic dies down considerably.

I tried another shortcut to a church that looked worth visiting. I crossed through some dry brambles and caught myself several times. My leg started to bleed and despite making it through, crossing another railway, I decided to trust the route more often.

The church that I had bled for had been turned into a winery that remained locked to me.

Soon, I was in Altopascio. A moment of weakness the previous evening had led me to book the second hotel of the trip. It was actually very cheap and I was grateful for the air conditioning. The land had started to cook.

Altopascio was mercifully small and required little sight-seeing. I spent the day catching up on internet and on sleep.

There had been a cessation of heat in the Apennines but it had returned with a vengeance. I had fallen out of the habit of early starts and had lost my hat somewhere. Semi-delirious heat-exhaustion had returned in regularity. Tuscany was being very beautiful and Rome was creeping ever nearer but the road remained long and dusty.