Unto this Last: Ponte d’Arbia to Viterbo

I was sharing a room with Jörg. We had agreed on an early start to try and see the sunrise and make it to San Quirico d’Orcia before it got too hot. We left the hostel quickly and quietly, not wanting to disturb the other pilgrims who had declined our invitation of rising at 5am.

The air was perfectly cool as we left. Sunrise was due for 5:40 and I had spied a spot on the map that looked like it might be a good vantage point. We walked on, trying to make it round the corners and up the hill in time for the show.

We stood on the ridge amongst a set of hills. To either side of us were wheat fields. There was thick cloud that allowed about an inch of clean air between it and the horizon. All around us, farmland rolled peacefully. Small puddles of mist dusted the land.

The sun crept up and we stopped to watch it for a while. Soon, it had a few moments of naked glory before it disappeared behind the clouds, casting dramatic colours in the sky.

We climbed down from the hill and arrived in the town of Buonconvento. It was small but very pretty. It was still early and not much was open. We stopped for a coffee and some breakfast before heading out of town on the road.

The Via Cassia was an important and busy Roman road that linked Rome and several cities including Florence. It has since been upgraded and now serves as a route for cars. It was on this road that we left Buonconvento. And, indeed, I re-encounter it until my ultimate arrival.

Soon, though, we passed off the Via Cassia and off into the Tuscan hillsides. There were pin-shaped evergreens on both sides of the road.

On the horizon was the town of Montalcino. It resides a few kilometres off the established path and would require about a three-hour detour. Its a famous place for wine production and we thought about going for a few moments before dismissing the idea. “I’ll come back sometime,” said Jörg, “in the car.”

All across the hills were vineyards. Strips and strips of green hedges. We walked past a winery offering a special offer for walkers, but the place wasn’t open. It was still before ten.

We kept up a good pace, walking mainly along a consistent ridge which provided a constant panorama without much climbing. “I feel as if I am Leonardo di Caprio in Titanic.” Did that mean I was Kate Winslet?

Before too long we reached the town of Torrenieri. It was still reasonably early but we’d walked about twenty kilometres. The constant vineyards had developed in us a bit of a hankering for some wine so we had decided to have a reasonable break and taste some of the local produce.

We passed a supermarket. “Or,” said Jörg “We could buy a bottle and make a picnic for ourselves.” And so we did. We walked a little further on and sat down under the shade of a tree and sliced into some pecorino and uncorked a bottle of red.

I felt a little like Hillaire Belloc, whose book The Path to Rome reads just as much as a drinking diary as it does a travelogue. We took our time at the picnic even though the sun continued to rise behind us.

There was a man at the end of the bench that we were sitting on. I felt a little like we’d disturbed his peace and expected him to move on but he remained resolute. Towards the end of our picnic, Jörg began talking to him. He was from Bosnia but had moved to Italy during the war time.

“He is a poor man, I think. He is waiting to see if he can claim a pension. I think he has had a hard life. His Italian wasn’t that good.”

My pilgrimage has never strayed too far from migration and refugees. I will never know what brought that man to that small Italian town. Is ‘home’ a place or the idea of a place?

We corked the bottle with about a quarter of it left. Both full of a woozy confidence we exited the town and began climbing to San Quirico. There was an alternate road that eschewed the road but added a couple of kilometres and, in a case of perhaps Dutch courage, we both agreed to add to our distance.

The path passed through more vineyards, along the farm tracks that serviced them. We passed another winery and were told we were going the wrong way but assured the man that there was another path that we were following.

Our pace was slower and our conversation more sparse. It took a little more energy to put one foot in front of the other. The sun had risen and was starting to dominate thought again.

We pitched a left when I think we should have taken a right but we ended up coming down a concrete slope onto the original path. I was a little relieved we’d found our way and would probably arrive a little earlier.

The final few kilometres took a while as we slowly inched towards San Quirico which was on a slight hill. The city centre was pretty with an ancient church at its centre. A renaissance master from Siena has painted the Descent from Cross as an altar piece in one of the transepts.

We were hot and the hostel didn’t open for a couple of hours. Heading to the closest bar we ordered a couple of beers and drank them in the shade. Afterwards, with still some time before opening hour, we retreated to a park to try and take a nap.

In the afternoon I surprised myself by going to watch England play in the World Cup at the same bar. There were a couple of boys from Sussex who looked like they must have been on their gap year. They said they were heading down to Rome. “Oh, are you walking?” I asked. “God no,” one of them replied with a bit of a grimace.

In the evening we ate some more pasta and drank some more wine. There were most of the pilgrims from the the night before’s hostel in Ponte d’Arbia. Lucien, who was the young French pilgrim who was going to Assisi and then onto Rome, had bought a chocolate tart. “It is my last day on the Francigena. Tomorrow I go east.”

Lucien was an interesting guy. He seemed incredibly devout and I even think I had overheard him saying he walked in a different mood depending on what saint he had prayed to. He had walked to Santiago once and Rome once and was shooting the moon this time. He had worked for two years to afford it.

Jörg told me he thought that Lucien was lost: “He’s become addicted to the walking. He had been a musician and had taught people but then he just worked whatever job he could for two years so he could come back to walking. One of the most important things about pilgrimage is that you have to go home at the end of it.”

The next morning we were up early again. It was a thirty-three kilometre day to Radicofoni and all the guidebooks had ranked it as ‘extremely strenuous’. We snuck out of the hostel and were walking by five twenty again, hoping to chase the sunrise.

We passed through an ancient city gate and once again the mist hung as a delicate cloth across the hills. We had picked up Jolieke, a Dutch pilgrim, and we were all steaming down the tarmac.

Cloud and angles conspired against us and the sunrise was mostly hidden. Undettered, we continued making our way along the path. We walked for another hour or so, down tracks and across a bridge before reaching Vignoni Alto which was a small village guarded by a medieval castle.

At the base of the hill we found Vignoni Bangno, which had a natural thermal spring that had been used since the Etruscan period. There was a Roman systems of channels that we put our feet into. A larger thermal pool steamed in the morning air. We were too early for coffee but shared some biscuit’s from Jörg’s bag.

I’m never too keen on stopping before at least ten kilometres. Or preferably, before I’ve crossed the half way point. I find it alters the total distance in my mind. I was keen to get underway.

We headed on, adopting a fast pace. The path crossed a field and we passed a couple of tourists photographing Vignoni from a distance. It is still something of a tourist destination. Hot water from the ground is a bit magic, I suppose.

Soon, we passed a small place offering drinks and sandwiches. It had been about an hour since our last stop. “We don’t stop?” asked Jörg. Denying my desires, I shook my head and we kept walking.

In the distance there was a tower on the horizon. It was a long way away and looked very high up. “Imagine if that’s the place we have to climb to,” said Jörg. I really hoped that it wasn’t and tried not to think about it.

Time pushed on and we walked across a dry landscape for hours. Jörg walks a little quicker than me and kept ahead by about twenty metres. The climbing and descending was fairly constant. The sun had assumed its position of primacy.

The scenery, too, had lost something of its beauty. The land stretched with slightly less variety and slightly more ominous menace. We passed a holiday home with a piercing blue swimming pool, half-perceptible behind a fence. My mouth was dry but my body was wet from sweat. I walked on.

As we curled round a corner along a road, Jörg creeping further ahead, we passed through an area that swarmed with tiny flies.

They buzzed around you and very often made for your ear canal with incredible speed. You would hear a faint buzz that would rapidly increase in volume until you could feel a vibrating speck inside your ear. They left dots as smears as you tried to catch them and were very frustrating.

Submitting to the onslaught of sun and insects, I dropped my bad at the side of the road and let Jörg walk on. I doused myself with repellent, spraying some in my newly attractive ears, and emptied my boots of dust and seeds. A little more comfortable, I pushed on.

Jörg had taken a break around the corner. His top was drying on a road sign. “I was right,” he said “it is that tower on the hill.” We had been walking for a few hours and it looked a little closer but still very high up. There was another valley between it and us.

And so, we continued to walk. The sun rested at its noon-peak and the path’s gradient fixed itself in an upward direction. I sucked up more and more water and had soon drained my pouch. There was still a long way to go and no sign of any fountains. My mouth began to prickle with aridity.

I turned a corner on the tarmac and saw a watering point. I gratefully pulled my pouch out of my bag and filled it from under the tap. I check the map: four kilometres to go.

Suddenly with this information, the difficulty of the day vanished and everything felt immediately achievable. Not feeling a stop necessary, I began the final climb to Radicofoni. I passed through olive groves and up concrete paths. There was more shade and I felt my arrival to be imminent.

The final distance passed by quickly and soon I had arrived at the town. The tower was, in fact, a little further up the hill and was not somewhere I was in a hurry to visit. Jörg, who had paused at the water fountain, strode in a couple of minutes after me.

It was a Sunday and all the shops were shut. We settled at a bar, again waiting for the hostel to open.

It was another place that was organised by the Confraternity of St James. They cooked for us and once again our feet were washed. One of the hosts taught Italian literature at a school in the north of Italy. She had also done her masters’ degree in the medieval period, on translations of Seneca.

Whilst we were eating dinner a huge storm broke and several of us ran outside to save our drying laundry. Although I was glad to be under a roof I was missing the frequency of my tent.

The Italian leg of the Francigena is so much more popular and consequently it is so much better serviced. It seems silly to pay ten euros for a camping pitch when a bed costs the same price. And the heat makes daily showering close to necessary. The company, too, of other pilgrims is perhaps the beginning of a reintroduction to society.

The next morning, breakfast was eaten communally. Jugs of coffee dotted the table and bread was spread with jam. The start, then, wasn’t quite as early as we had been used to but the forecast predicted a blissful day of sub-thirty degrees.

We left Radicofoni and headed gently downhill for about ten kilometres. The time whizzed by and the distance felt like no effort at all. We reached a T-junction at the small village of Ponte a Rigo. Jörg and I had a coffee together.

If you went left at the junction you would arrive in Acquapendente after another eleven kilometres or so. If you went right it took a detour that added another eight or nine. Jörg wanted an easy day because he thought he’d be having a difficult one the next day.

I, on the other hand, had very low mileages planed for the next few days. I thought that it could be one of my last challenging treks, so I decided to take the right path. Jörg told me he’d reserve me a place at the hostel and we said we’d see each other later.

I turned right and headed along the Via Cassia in the wrong direction for a couple of kilometres. In fact, I stayed on tarmac for more than an hour and was beginning to think I’d made a bad decision.

However, after a while of being buffeted by the rush of passing cars I turned off left onto a farm track. From there, the day became utterly glorious.

Soon, I met an enormous field of sunflowers. I wiggled my way into them and did something of a photoshoot for the sake of my vanity (read: Instagram). The must have been tens of thousands of flowers. Maybe hundreds of thousands. The sight made me very happy.

I walked alongside this flower-field for a while but eventually left it. I continued up a small hill and got stuck between a herd of sheep and a farmer crawling behind them in a tractor. They were impossible to overtake: each time I tried to find a gap they would think I was herding them and canter on forwards. So, for a couple of kilometres I accepted my new speed and my new vocation.

After a while, I passed them as they diverted to the left up a track. I continued along a ridge and was full of the beauty of the valley on my left. I had officially left Tuscany that day but there was one final archetypal vista.

It felt like it was being fed by the landscape but it wasn’t being diminished. I walked with a wide grin, light feet and the occasional spontaneous laugh. Maybe I’d gone mad.

The distance, although over thirty kilometres, felt remarkably easy. The diminished heat surely had something to do with it. Soon, I passed through the town of Proceno and bought a little fruit. I descended, passing an ancient boarded up church.

Much of the rest of the day was through woodland. The dirt tracks amongst the trees are probably my favourite and each minute was a pleasure. I occasionally had to deflect stinging nettles with my walking poles but did this with an easy carefulness.

The final climb into Acquapendente was the hardest part of the day. It was up winding concrete slopes that were difficult to gain purchase on. Nevertheless, soon I was in the town’s city centre, meeting with Jörg and Tom, a young German pilgrim, at a kebab shop.

We all headed a little out of town and up another short but steep hill to a monastery that took in pilgrims. The hostel part was run by volunteers as there were only two nuns left. It was, nonetheless, incredibly beautiful and had a quiet cloister with a trickling fountain and a vast back garden.

After cleaning, I headed into town to buy myself some new insoles. The ones from the boots that I had bought in Besançon (1,100km ago) were now thoroughly holey.

In the evening our hosts cooked us dinner again. It transpired one of them, Julianna, was from Texas, living very close to the border with Mexico. I tentatively offered that it ‘must be a strange time to be living on the Mexico border.’

I was told not to believe everything I heard. That they weren’t being overwhelmed by drug-smuggling, raping immigrants and that that story was ‘propaganda’. I replied that I had heard the opposite and that the state were separating children and parents. “Yes.” She replied, “People didn’t vote.”

A bit of a discussion of American policies ensued which somehow got onto the education system. “Isn’t it right,” said Jörg “that they still teach creational … creation… creationer in some of your schools?” Jörg was reaching for the word ‘creationism’ but I was unwilling to help him find it. I sensed there might be a lack of agreement at the table.

He pushed on. “You know, they don’t teach about Darwin.” “What do you mean? The monkey theory?” I have rarely felt a more English sense of awkwardness but couldn’t see a way out. “Well I taught at a public school and so we have to teach a certain curriculum but I am of a more religious way of thought.” An uneasy silence fell. Nobody was keen to stir the debate further. Although Jörg, to his credit, offered a final word on the matter: “I see no conflict between the two.”

After the meal we were shown around the monastery’s chapel. We were told it had been founded in the fourteenth century. “I would like to point out how well preserved the statue of the Virgin is,” Julianna said. “Ah yes,” I replied “And when was it made?” I asked innocently inquisitive.

She was clearly still on the back foot from the monkeys and felt under attack. “Well the chapel has existed from the fourteenth century and you know… its been here … so.” The entirety of the chapel interior was clad in neo-classical powder-blue plasterwork that was probably no older than the mid-nineteenth century. I suspected that the statue dated from the same refurbishment but nodded with attempted credulity.

We then retired to a vestry where a candle was lit. We passed it round and were asked to reflect on our time as pilgrims. It was Julianna’s orchestration and felt like an import from the Santiago-pilgrimage-machine. I tried not to look sceptical.

When the candle reached me, my doubt softened a little: I realised that I was grateful. “I alone for a long time. Through France and Switzerland I met almost no other pilgrims. But now I am grateful to share this experience with others. But most of all I am grateful, and gladdened, and surprised at the kindness of those who persistently welcome me in.”

The candle reached the Texan. “We do this every night and I always try to think of something new to say. I will just say this though. Know that you didn’t come to the Camino. That the Camino came to you. That you were called to find something. Maybe you’ll find it this Camino or maybe you’ll have to keep looking. But I hope that you find it.”

I winced a little bit each time she said Camino. It felt packaged and plastic. I don’t know if what she said was cliché or whether I believed it.

Jörg played his flute in the vestry. We all watched the sunset and went to bed.

The next day was short: less than twenty kilometres. My camera had been playing up for a few days so I let Tom and Jörg go on ahead whilst I tried to fix it. After half an hour or so of fiddling it seemed to be repaired and I made my way out of the town.

I visited the cathedral. It was a replica of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. It had a fantastic old crypt that I paid a euro to be illuminated. Acquapendente was a town that had initially grown and thrived because of the Francigena. It had made a big part of its historic business by catering to the needs of pilgrims.

On leaving the town the land fell dead flat. It became dominated by unspectacular farms. I was, however, surprised by my lack of disappointment. A few times now I have found myself leaving ecstatically beautiful areas and feeling a sense of mild relief. There was something comforting about normality.

I followed the path alongside fields for a couple of hours, eventually coming to a town where I ate an ice cream. As I was leaving, I got my first glimpse of Lake Bolsena which was just a few kilometres away, a vast body of water formed by volcanoes.

The Via Cassia passed by the flat land next to the river but the path for the current Francigena didn’t head directly for the lakeshore. Instead, it remained in woodland and passed over sharply tilting hillside.

At one point in the morning I became frustrated that I hadn’t arrived. Anything less than twenty kilometres feels like it should take no time at all, I convinced myself. I pushed on, struggling against myself.

After about an hour of wishing time away I managed to re-think the situation and persuade myself of the pointlessness of being agitated. The walk was the walk and every kilometre had to be stepped. I curled my way happily across the final fields and along the tarmacked street.

In the centre of Bolsena I found the door to the convent and a nun answered my knock. Jörg, Tom, and Jolieke were already inside. We made and ate a salad together, sitting under the shade of a vast tree in the garden.

Across the square from the convent was a Basilica. It was particularly famous for being the site of the miracle of Bolsena in which a priest who doubted the True Presence in the Eucharist was persuaded otherwise when the host began to bleed inside the church. The drops of blood fell to the ground and the floor was the chiselled up. Now, the drop mark stands on the altar in a reliquary of its own.

After visiting the Basilica, I went for a swim in the lake. The edges had been warmed by the sun. I swum out, away from the shallows until I couldn’t touch the bottom. Then I crawled on further, until I met with a patch of weed that grew at least two metres in length which turned me back.

In the evening, we were a group of six and all ate together in the garden of the convent.

The next day was another short one. As light slowly crept through the windows I noticed Jörg and Jolieke and Tom readying themselves to go. I felt in no hurry so turned over and shut my eyes again.

When I did rise, a little while later it was still fairly early. A chunk of unwanted bread was left on the table from yesterday’s meal and I took it for my breakfast. I set off on the path away from Bolsena.

It was a short way that was mainly through woodland. There was a short climb out of the town but after that it remained largely flat.

I left the forest for a while to walk alongside fields again. Strangely, it reminded me of Surrey, where my Dad and his family are from. There was something that felt very familiar about this patch so close to Rome and so far from England.

Walking on, my steps felt easy and care free. I knew how long the eighteen kilometres would take and I had no desire for it to be longer or shorter.

There was an alley of wild flowers with tall thistles and delicate blues. Bees and butterflies and bugs were feeding and I stopped for a while to inspect the different plants. It no longer felt so much like Surrey.

Signs now resolutely pointed to Roma. There was a closeness to everything. Like a river loses speed when it nears the sea, so I was slowing down and languishing in those footsteps.

As I was walking up a small track a man in an orchard allotment called to me. He told me not to follow the Francigena into town but to keep going straight ahead and I’d save myself a loop. He then asked if I wanted some figs from the tree he was standing under. He started picking them and giving them to me, showing me how to peel them.

I must have eaten seven or eight whilst he watched me. Then he walked me up to another tree and picked eight more for me. I clutched them in both hands and thanked him profusely. He seemed unmoved by his kindness or by my response. I walked on, still grinning, fingers sticky with juice.

Soon I met the turning he had told me about and I followed his advice. I continued on the quiet road and very shortly I was at the outskirts of Montefiascone. It is a town on the south edge of Lake Bolsena and its old centre is built on a small hill.

I made my way up through the town, to another convent. An ancient sounding nun buzzed me in and I padded the corridors looking for someone to meet me. I spotted the nun who had answered the intercom but she waved me in another direction, busy with her Zimmer-frame and a a stair lift.

I heard “Pellegrino?” being called from upstairs and made my way to the voice. The nuns were Benedictines and wore the traditional monochrome habit. She told me she hoped that England would win the football that night. She wanted a France-England final.

At the top of Montefiascone is a castle which used to be a Papal fortress. It had a tower that could see for miles and miles. It is also a town which prides itself on being 100km from Rome. It’s a badge that is displayed a few places in the city.

Downhill from the castle is a very old church with some gorgeous frescoes. I think these ones are twelfth century and the architecture is eleventh. Very well preserved, for their age. In the crypt is a grave of a pilgrim who allegedly drank too much of the city’s famous wine ‘Est!!! Est!! Est!’.

The name comes from a bishop who was travelling through the region. He told a servant to go ahead of him and write ‘Est’ (it is) on the door of any inn that served good wine so he would know where to stop. The servant did so but then came across a inn with wine so good that he inscribed ‘Est!!! Est!! Est!’ next to the door. I only had a couple of glasses, not wanting to be the ancient pilgrim’s bedfellow.

In the evening, I ate in the convent. Jörg and Jolieke had done a double day and had gone further ahead. There were still a few pilgrims I knew around the table including Antonio who I had met in Ponte d’Arbia and kept talking to me about the football with vocabulary that was far beyond my grasp.

After the meal Antonio and I tried to watch the semi-final on his phone. The Great Silence had begun in the monastery but the nuns didn’t seem to strict about enforcing it. I sat on the stairs in a patch of WiFi and watched England lose, surprised by my disappointment.

The forecast for the next day gave another kindly sub-thirty. Accordingly I woke without too much hurry and was underway by seven thirty. The route took me back up to the Papal fortress for a final view of Lake Bolsena before descending and exiting the medieval centre.

Very quickly I left the urban area and began walking on a flagstoned path. It was the original Via Cassia that had been preserved. It began narrowly but soon began to widen as I stepped along it.

Soon, it was unpedestrianised and led through a group of houses where it served as a normal road, cars parked alongside it. It was clearly still highly functional.

After a while, the Cassia petered out. I passed through farmland again, with more hay bales dotting the fields. There was a final hill, the path turning up its right side. There was a picnic table and a house for sale at the top. I thought it looked like a nice place to live.

After that descent, the land remained totally flat. I walked along a long, straight, unbusy, tarmac road for quite a while. I passed another set of thermal baths, this one behind some wire fencing and smelling pungently of sulphur. On the near horizon I could see the wide patch of buildings that was Viterbo.

Heading towards it, I reached its outskirts before too long and began to walk along pavements and cross at traffic lights. My phone led me to a Capuchin convent in a suburb of the town.

The distance had been short and I had arrived before midday. Nobody was in the reception office and nobody had answered my phone call so I sat on a stool in the shade and waited.

Soon a large man who soon introduced himself as Philip arrived. He wasn’t a friar but seemed to manage the accommodation. I asked if I could stay and he said ‘of course’. He clutched the butt of a cigarette between his teeth.

He talked in an accent I found quite hard to understand but I tried to make up for my lack of comprehension by looking enthusiastic. I asked if I could stay two nights. He said it would be no problem.

The streets signs had started mentioning Rome with greater and greater frequency. In Viterbo’s centre there was another Papal palace and three Popes were buried inside its cathedral.

That evening I ate in the garden of the convent and Philip was sitting near me. He answered his phone. Afterward he turned to me, “Two more pilgrims tonight.” “Isn’t it late for pilgrims to be arriving?”, I asked. It was about eight o’clock. “No,” he said “Our door is open always. We take them all: beautiful and ugly.” He actually said “belle and brute” which I think also has a bit of a sense of ‘good and bad’ to it.

The next day I was lazy and lurked around the convent for most of the day, hiding from the sun and writing. Later, I visited the town and the cathedral. Inside was a fresco of St Peter and St Paul either side of the virgin. For the first time on the trip I lit a candle in front of the two Saints of Rome: their graves were near at hand.

You know you’ve come a long way when eighty kilometres feels like touching distance.