Fields of Cobwebs & Thistles, Valleys of Magic & Mist

i loved Siena. its full of statues of Romus and Remus everywhere being suckled by the she-wolf as allegedly the town was founded by Senius, the son of Remus and the Piazza Campo has to be one of the most stunning city centres i think i've ever seen. they have a bi-annual horse race inside it, thats how big it is. Strangely the afternoon i arrived i could hear singing in the streets and when i went to investigate i found that it was the celebration for the town that had won in August and there was a big feast going on that night. i got a cheap room and spent a couple of hours wandering around but didn't see any of the celebration as i had my own feast of pizza and gelato and hit the sack early. i think i now have restless legs as Sunday was meant to be my rest day (my last rest day before Rome) but i couldn't sit still and ended walking around the whole city. its really stunningly beautiful - architecture, dress, food. its got it all. Monday dawned rather too quickly for my liking and i headed out of the city rather mournful as a few more days there would have done me nicely. still, i only had 25km to do this first day back on the road. the weather was a bit overcast but as i walked i had some really great views back over Siena, perched on top of a mountain. this whole area is volcanic and sometimes you do wonder where the volcanoes are. i mean most are dormant but there are loads of thermal springs in the area and the rolling mountains and hills clearly show the impact of considerable geological change over a long period of time: there's just an awful lot of mountains and hills. i'd rained quite a lot over the wknd and as autumn is now in full swing a lot of the crops have been harvested. i'd already passed a considerable number of tractors ploughing away in weeks past, as well as lorries full of tomatoes, trucks full of grapes and bales of hay everywhere. the landscape here right now is a mixture of bright green and dense brown fields, predominantly brown due to all the harvesting. so what with the rain and the lack of vegetation i ended up walking through fields of mud. it wasn't the kind of mud that just slips off. this mud seemed to stick like glue and every step i took i accumlated more. in the end i felt like i was walking on stilts and as if my feet were covered in clay (which i guess they were). it didn't help when the skies opened, the rain started and i was stuck in the middle of not just a ploughed field but a series of ploughed hills. with the accumulated mud on my feet i was slipping and sliding everywhere as i had no traction. thank god for my trekking poles - they saved me diving head first into some very sticky mudpools. i then found i had to navigate down a particularly slippy slope (it was like trying to iceskate through a mud pit) only to find i had gone the wrong way and then had to grapple my way back up again. the benefit of the rain was that the day was a relaxed one (despite oodles of mud) and i passed through field of dead sunflowers, heads bent like sad little soldiers. i kept thinking how glorious they would have looked in summer but it didn't take away from how mournful they looked right at that moment. that night i stayed in a one-street village called Ponte d'Arbia where i was the only person staying in the pilgrim accomodation - a huge, dusty, derilict residence with echoing halls and lots of closed doors with broken furniture inside. what with that and the wind and rain outside it gave me the fear and i had to lock the door and leave the lights on in the hallway. yep, i'm a wuss but really it was a bit spooky and i didn't like it at all. the next morning was one of the most amazing i've had on my journey so far. i'd gotten up early and as i left the sun had just come up and there was a very light mist covering everything. i passed by flat fields full of thistles covered in cobwebs and as it was so early the morning dew lit the cobwebs up like silver. each blade of grass also had its own little drop of dew so the fields looked like they were made of green-white glass, sparkling away. it was a magical effect helped by the clouds of heavy rolling mist that suddenly appeared as if from nowhere: one minute i was walking in the intense bright sun of the early morning and the next i couldn't see 5 yards ahead. the mountains surrounding me kind of appeared and disappeared as the mist and cloud rolled in and over and then off somewhere else. the moon was still high in the sky and the day seemed mystical somehow. it looked cold, yet was warm and hot. the sun blazed and yet there were clouds everywhere. some fields were the brightest green you've ever seen; others just churned dark earth and then when i turned a corner it was almost a desert-mountain landscape with light dry hills & just one Tuscan farmhouse perched on top with maybe a single conifer standing tall and straight. it was an unusual, mesmerising day and i must admit to being quite entranced by the volcanic landscape. the day did, however, end with quite a steep ascent to a town called San Quirico d'Orcia. by the time i arrived i was fit to drop and then couldn't find a room so in desperation went to the church. the priest there, Giovanni, was the nicest guy you've ever met in your life and the accomodation was better than a hotel. 2 other pilgrims were there (Marissa and John. he was 77, she 73. there's a lot of pensioners doing this trip so i'm never, ever complaining of pain again!) and i had a lovely hot shower and a beer. Giovanni was so friendly he even invited me to supper with Massimo, an italian grape-picker, and Raphael (a brazilian student). my god they could eat - i was fit to drop by course 6 and then Giovanni had the bright idea of going to a thermal spring in the middle of the countryside at 11pm ! luckily some priestly business distracted him (a knock on the door from a local) and i was able to get to bed without much difficultly. the night presented more of a problem as Marissa and John got up quite a few times (we were in a shared dorm with bunkbeds) and proceeded to bump and crash into the doors, the wall, the toilet, the bunkbed ladders and the washing line. by the time the morning arrived i half expected to find them both strewn across the floor unconscious. i left after saying a big thank you to Giovanni - i think one of the nicest priests i've ever met & the town itself was pretty lovely too. the thing about mountain towns is that firstly you have to climb up to get to them and secondly that you have to climb down again. the third problem can also sometimes be that after doing that you have to do it again as your next destination is also a mountain town. however thats the negative side. the positive side is that i saw one of the most awe-inspiring things i think i've ever witnessed. i walked down the hill from San Quirico and the sun was up and shining with a lazy early-morning lemony light but because were so high up we were above most of the surrounding valleys that were filled with a white-blue-amber mist. it was as if the valleys were lakes and the mountain tops were islands and i stood on the crescent of the path as it curved around the mountain and just stood there watching the light gently play on the mist and the mist gently play in the valleys. it touched the very core of me so unexpectedly that i found it hard to focus on what i was seeing and then when i eventally began walking again i walked down and into the mist and the only way i can describe the essence of what i was feeling was that it was like walking down and across into another world. the whole scene is imprinted upon me - i can see it as i write - and i hope, i hope it stays with me for the whole of my life. its not something i ever want to forget. the rest of the day was, naturally, very different. once the mist had cleared i was back on a quiet but major road in the middle of a hot day for long, long stretches with no towns and just big chunky fields of brown earth on either side. it was never ending and finished with an 10km ascent of about 700 meters that took me 3 hours to climb before i hit Radicofani (sounds rude to me!) about 3pm absolutely knackered. after my good luck with the church yesterday i tried the same again today and met Morena, the local granny who looks after the pilgrim accomodation. she must have been in her 70's and she could hardly climb the stairs (nor could i), and she was huffling and puffing (me too) and then she had to sit on a chair for 10 mins once we got up top (as did i). obviously she realised i was a kindred spirit in all but age. We laughed, we cried, we hugged and danced the night away. ok slight exageration: she staggered down the stairs and i went for a shower. the accommodation was absolutely superb - i could hardly believe it. until i turned the corner and found Marissa and John snoring away - in bed.

The Unnecessary Mountain

Gambassi was ok in the end. i was pissed at no thermal spring and the hostel opening late but when it did the owner was friendly, the accomodation quite good and they had a great restaurant attached & it all refreshed me. my life is like 'Groundhog Day' right now as before i knew it i was up packing again at 6.45am, out the door by 7.15. a quick coffee and pastry and then hitting the road - or the field. i've been doing this for nearly a month now and its become my life. the reality of life in Sydney will be surreal when i get back to it as this seems to be a better way of living: just a few possessions, no worries except food and a bed for the night. most of the day spent in the most beautiful countryside (when not on major roads). of course its just an illusion - the weather is warm, not cold. i have enough money to fund myself for 6 weeks and really its an indulgence. i may complain about pain or hardship or the frustrations of getting lost but compared to what other people have to deal with in their lives its incredibly minor stuff. i'm a pampered middle-class male from a weathly country just doing a 5-wk trek. to be honest there's nothing remarkable or out of the ordinary about what i'm doing. most of human history was spent wandering from one place to another its just now we're become indulgent, indolent and used to sitting on the couch watching TV. is that a life? i don't really have any answers but these are some of the questions that go through my head the days i spend walking and i do wonder how divorced we are from the world around us and how much we end up missing jut consumed with the complexities of modern life. forgive my digression - i've got no-one to talk to so i talk to myself via this blog!

leaving Gambassi i headed straight into the countryside and had a good few hours of solid walking before hitting a town i'd never heard of: San Gimignano. its famous for having 14 out of an original 72 towers intact and in the morning mist, as its outline appeared over the tops of trees, it looked like a modern city skyline with skyscrapers - but in the middle of the Tuscan countryside. the VF took me round a few hills, up and down a few minor mountains and then another big circuit before i found myself climbing into the main piazza. being so well known and famous meant that i had to beat away the hordes of tourists that ganged up in every available space and after the most delicious mid-morning break of coffee, OJ, a lovely mozzarella& tomato sandwich and wildberry tart i staggered off very happy indeed. i wasn't happy for long: the VF signage stopped as soon as i left the city & i took the road to Siena thinking that was kinda in the right direction but it wasn't. i should (in retrospect) have taken one of the more minor roads. typical that the VF signers think you should possess psychic powers. the rest of the day was less pleasant than the first simply as i had to walk a mixture of major and minor roads before getting to Colle Val d'Elsa which was my destination for the night. i got a hotel after searching for an hour but i didn't warm to the place at all. the old part was settled but dull and the major part of town seemed to consist of newish housing estates. for me it was just a chance to sleep and then go. the next day my destination was Siena and most of the walk was through the Tuscan countryside and then a day off so i was really looking forward to it. it'd rained during the night so everything was covered in dew and the early light made everything seem new and fresh and clean. i was in really good spirits - my leg was good, i had lots of energy and the route ahead seemed like it was going to be spectacular. the mistake came early. i came to a fork in the path with no signage. there was a house in front with a guy who spoke very good english and he told me to take the left fork saying that this was the old VF route. this was at about 10am. the path lead straight up, into & over a forest-covered mountain. needless to say it was the wrong way. 3-4 hours later after going up, down, around, in, out and sideways with absolutely no idea where i was or where i was going i ended up back were i'd gone wrong. the whole day wasted. i reckoned i'd walked 15-20km in circles - my single worst day of things going wrong. usually i'd be able to get back on track fairly quickly or get someone to help but it was now 2pm and i was still 12km from Siena. i know that getting lost and finding your way back is part of the Camino - it tests you. it tests your resources, your determination, your stamina and endurance. it tests you physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually but this was one test too far. after calculating how far i'd walked that day already (& knowing i should have been in Siena already) i thought 'sod it' and got on the bus. 20 minutes later i was in the city centre & an hour later i had a bed and food. in some ways i was disappointed in myself but i i also know that sometimes you have to recognise when things aren't going your way. 95% of the time i won't compromise but there are sometimes (as in the blizzard that started on top of the Grant St Bernard Pass when i was due to start the Camino) where you have to regroup, rethink and replan. i have to keep reminding myself that this is not a contest, its not an endurance test (even though it is very tough) and its not something that anyone judges me on. the hardest judge i have is me and sometimes i have to take it a little easier and relax my self imposed rules. the Unecessary Mountain was a lesson i needed to learn so lesson over: its time for bed.

days of blazing sun

Lucca was founded by the Etruscans and became a Roman colony in about 180 BC. the mediaeval walls around the city remain intact (which is unusual in this region) and they encircle the old part of the town where most of the historical sights are situated. i had some slight luck at the end of a hard day as the tourist office was just inside the part of the wall where i'd arrived & they quickly found me a B&B around the corner so off i limped. it wasn't until i arrived i realised that my underpants were hanging out to dry on the side of my pac and i must have passed about 50 tourists on the way. i've decided i have no dignity left at all. the woman who owned the B&B intially seemed quite lovely but when i asked if i could have breakfast early due to leaving at 7.30am and breakfast not being served until 8 things got tetchy:
'please can i have breakfast early?'
'Not possible.'
'I'm a pilgrim and have to get up to start walking at 7am.'
'No.'
'it would really help me out.'
'No.'
'Please.'
'No.'
i hate you, i hate your family, i hate your dog, your hotel and everyone you have ever met. I am Mr Hate from Hate City in the Land of Hate and if i don't burn your hotel down you'll be very lucky indeed
Such charitable thoughts were going through my mind after 9hrs trekking. i gave up and sculked off to my bright green room in a very grumpy mood indeed. ah well, brekkie would have to be the normal coffee and pastry costing 2 euros from the local cafe. big deal luv!
a little while later i went out to explore Lucca which i may say is a delightful city. there were 2 slightly annoying things about it though: first the tourists who were everywhere in huge packs and who wouldn't move for love or money. all they did was stand and stare and get in my way! (as you can see my mood was still on the grumpy side of things!). the second thing i didn't like about Lucca was that it was full of some of the best shops i've seen in a very long time. i mean wherever you go Italy is good for shopping but this was exceptional and, of course, i couldn't buy any of it as i'd have to carry whatever i'd bought - it was so frustrating! i had to bat away the buying bug and just go looking at the sights, which were pretty amazing. Lucca seems to have so much character and life as well as great elegance and history. i fell in love with the place, especially after the most amazing pasta funghi, salad caprisi and some exceptionally delish vino bianco. i burped my way back into bed feeling somewhat tired after all the trekking and then another 3 hours sightseeing. the next day came round so quickly i could hardly believe it and left Lucca after having a quick walk along the mediaeval walls feeling, once again, a little sad that i couldn't stay longer but i only had one more rest day to use and i was saving that for Siena. this day proved not to be a good one. i think i was just exhausted from the day before and the day seemed to drag on and on and on, most on roads which is never enjoyable and my leg was throbbing like a dead weight. i chewed on paracetamol most of the day and that got me through but it wasn't pleasant. even, as often happens, the end of the day was better that the start as i ended up in a one-street town called Ponte a Cappiano which really was just a bridge over a river built by the Medici's in the 1530's. the hostel i was staying at was huge and actually inside the tower over the river. it helped that i was the only one there - so i had it all to myself for the night. i went to bed really early to catch up on some rest and the next day felt a lot, lot better which was great considering the day that was to come. even my leg had calmed down - the redness and inflammation were both improved and the pain was much less. i was worried when i'd gone to bed as this day (out of all the days on the Camino) was due to be the longest - i had to cover 37km which was the most of any day on my schedule (this was the planned route anyway as other days i'm sure i'd done 37km or more but that was usually when i'd got lost). one good thing was that my destination was a place called Gambassi Therme where there were thermal springs so i consoled myself with the thought of a long trekking day followed by a nice long soak. it was a beautiful start to the day walking through the Tuscan countryside, heading to a hilltown called San Minato that was meant to have some stunning views. Thomas the german cyclist i'd met 2 weeks before was working near there and we'd texted so i was due to meet him at 10am. the first couple of hours are usually for me when i have the most energy and with a morning of beautiful views, amazing scenery and clean fresh air it was just fantastic. Thomas and i bumped into each other in the main street both having arrived 2 minutes earlier so we had a coffee and caught up. he'd gone to do voluntary work at some vineyards but they were ripping off volunteers so he had upped and left and gone to stay with an 83-yr old German artist he knew who was living in the area (strangely i seem to be meeting quite a lot of 83-yr olds this trip). we exhanged travelling tales, i met the artist, we talked a little more and then i was off. it was great seeing Thomas but i'd then lost an hour's walking and at this rate i knew i wouldn't get to Gambassi until 4pm and the day was getting very, very hot. it was also one of those annoying times when my guidebook wasn't clear and the signage disappeared at a crucial point so instead of walking along country paths i ended up on rather busy roads but with no-one to ask and no signs to tell me how to get back on track. eventually, about 2pm, when i was ready to drop, i stumbled across a workers cafe right in the middle of a 3-house 'village' and the cafe owner (who spoke good english) said 'yes people always get lost around here. we see many pilgrims.' somehow that didn't make me feel any better but after fuelling up and with the knowledge that i had another 12km to go (3 hours!), i set off. the rest of the day wasn't pretty: busy roads, blazing hot sun and a very tired, weary and demoralised me. about an hour and half into it i hit a wall: i really was running on empty and felt like i just couldn't go on. except of course that i had to go on, i had no choice. even now i don't know how i did it. probably the fact that i seem to have been there many times before when i feel like i've reached the limits of my endurance and yet have to carry on. it sounds and feels familar these days! i sang, swore, yelled at the cars, barked back at the dogs who were barking at me and somehow, somehow got to the outskirts of Gambassi. only to be faced with a road that went up at a 70 degree angle and a sign that said '6km'.

i could have cried but instead threw myself inside a bar at the bottom of the road attached to a petrol station (although it did occur to me that having a bar and petrol station together probably wouldn't be allowed in other countries) and had a bloody big beer. this broke my rule as i never drink when trekking - only generally do i touch alcohol once i get to my destination but i had no chance in hell of getting up that road otherwise and you know what - it did the trick. all pain was anaesthetised, i got some energy and determination back and off i marched and at 4.30pm i literally staggered into the square of Gambassi thinking my last breath had come. of course it hadn't as i now had to find accomodation which i did quite easily at the local tourist office except that it wasn't open until 6pm so i decided to go and get my treat: a thermal bath. imagine my face when i was told that the thermal baths open only at 8am: they aren't open at night. justice: it bloody well doesn't exist !!!!

sinking into Tuscany

so there i was walking through the Village of Silent Cats again but this time there were no cats to be seen anywhere. 3 villagers were wandering around looking at me very suspiciously but there were no cats to be seen at all. despite knowing it was all a little weird and crazy i did feel a little uneasy. maybe it was the mist, the quiet, the feeling of being somewhere that you don't know and can't get a handle on. whatever it was i could see why 1,000 myths and fairytales had grown in this region: the feeling of the land, of the mountains and the mist created mystery and illusion.
but now 2 hours behind schedule i tried to go a little faster as i still needed to be in Sarzana by 2pm but it was tough going with steep ascents and steeper descents. it didn't rain again but that didn't matter as the humidity was so high i was dripping with sweat. the trees were packed together tightly and the edge of the path ran next to steep slopes falling away sharply onto rocks and streams of mud. it took a long time before i got to the next village desperate for a coffee and a rest but the cafe was chusio (closed) and i was late. i managed a banana and some yoghurt hunkered down in a doorway before heading off on the last 10km into the town. best of all i was semi-on time. just as i hit the outskirst of Sarzana i ran into Jules again and 10 minutes later the city centre - where almost immediately Sasha turned up on his bike. at this point it was a quick goodbye to Jules and big hello to Sasha. it must have been about 3 years since i'd seen him but he looked exactly the same - blue t-shirt, blue eyes and a big smile. after 2 weeks cycling from Rome to Florence he seemed in pretty good shape and had had some great adventures. we had a quick beer, did some shopping in the monthly French Market and headed off to to the farmhouse he'd booked. Sasha having his finger on the pulse of modern techonology had brought an ipad with him that had a Google Map & GPS system attached. he regaled me with the tales of all the times he'd used it bicycling around Italy and quickly established our position in relation to where to we needed to go: 'its just around the corner'. 8 corners later my feet were killing me but the farmhouse appeared and it was lovely: villaesque with a restaurant (being used for a wedding that weekend), swimming pool and separate accomodation. we booked in, settled down, caught up, ate, drank and then collapsed into our beds. the next morning the sense of relief i had not having to get up and start walking at 7am was amazing. it also helped that i'd persuaded the lady at reception to wash all my clothes in the washing machine so they were properly clean! i can't tell you how nice that felt (and smelt!). Sasha used his GPS to find the swimming pool and off we went and proceeded to spend a drunken day just lying down, chatting, eating, ipadding, exchanging travel stories and chatting with the odd drunken wedding guest. i should mention that the night before we were a little bit pissed and desperate for coffee so had nipped over to the pre-wedding meal that was going on and persuaded one of the waiters to make us a cappucino. the same waiter was on duty when we were lounging by the swimming pool and as it turned out that just last year he had walked the Camino de Santiago and then took off his shirt to show me the tattoo on his back (of a shell - the symbol of the CdS). Sasha was using the GPS to navigate from the swimming pool to the toilet and back whilst one of the very drunken wedding guests was telling me about his trip to Mykonos and all the lovely girls there. Yes, how very believable that he was straight and yet coming over to talk to 2 gay men but he did give us both a lemoncello before staggering back to the wedding. Sasha and i pigged out on french cheese, olives, some delicious bread and grapes whilst loving the view over the pool to the mountains: the clouds were sweeping up and over in all sorts of shapes and sizes and looked like they wee going to hit in a big storm but somehow seemed to veer off leaving us with a perfect day doing nothing except chill and relax which we did with expertise. very sadly the evening drew on all too quickly and, leaving Sasha using the GPS to go from the bedroom to the toilet, i hit the sack. the next morning it was a slightly sad farewell as the weekend had been great and now we were going on our separate ways and soon back to our separate countries and who knows when we would see each other again. this i find one of the more difficult things in life as i get older: the friends and family i have that live in the UK or elsewhere i never get to see so much of and i really feel it. i guess its the price you pay for living so far away. but anyway, Sasha used the GPS to take us down an overgrown path where we had to bend double and got soaked in dew from the overhanging reeds before finally reaching the main road. this was goodbye and i went one way as Sasha went the otherusing the GPS as a guide. i heard a crash but looking back seemed impolite.

this day was the start of my 4th week on the VF and it seemed at the start like it was going to be great but i was too confident and still needed to learnt the lessons i should have learnt many times before: the first of these being get rid of your expectations. the journey for the day was a long one of about 35km but it was all along the mediterranean sea. great - or so i thought. the first stage was amazing: after about 40 minutes along some fairly busy roads i hit the sea and walked onto beach littered with red and white deckchairs all laid out in a grid with the clear bright early sun freshening the morning and there behind were the Marble Mountains: backlit by the sun and an incredible view. it was definitely a Wow! moment. i had a coffee and croissant and then started walking along the beach and at first it was fine as i walked along the sand at the edge of the sea but eventually had to head slightly inland where there were promonades and minor roads. this whole area (apparantly made famous by Shelley in the days when it was an empty penninsula) had beach restaurants on one side and hotels on the other and i was inbetween. the distances were huge and as the day went on the scenery just became repetitive and boring. and never-ending. it got to 2pm and then 3pm and 4pm and i still was going: hot, tired and really not in a good mood. the small town of Piestrasanta eventually appeared and i arrived in the main square and found good accomodation pretty quickly. the town is famous for being adopted by local artists due to being so near all the marble and it really was a lovely town: full of little artist studios, statues everywhere and some lovely little cafes and restaurants. rather annoyingly my camera had broken (whilst i was taking a photo of a most amazing mushroom - i think i must be turning into a Mushroom Hunter!) so i lucked out and found the one little shop in town that could sell me another. the next day i was up early and off to the famous walled city of Lucca. this was another long day too and i was a bit worried as my leg had been playing up. blisters were no longer a problem: i still get them but my feet have become so hardened (or maybe now my tolerance of pain has increased) they no longer bother me. the new problem was that my left leg had become inflammed from just above the ankle to about mid-shin with a dull, aching pain. it was clearly inflammed from all the walking or from something biting me. whatever it was it hurt and with a long day ahead i was really quite anxious about how it would be. sometimes the Camino is strange and days can be the mirror opposite of each other. the previous day walking by the sea i had really looked forward to but it had disappointed me. this day, which i really was NOT looking forward to, turned out to be fantastic. there were a lot of mountains but i was walking through Tuscany and the scenery was just incredible. considering its late-September the air is clear, you can see for miles and miles and the smell of pine just suffuses everything. as soon as the classic confiers started appearing i had a grin on my face as wide as can be and it lasted the whole day. my leg actually was ok as well: it did start aching when i hit the outskirts of Lucca but on the whole there were no major worries. Lucca itself has a reputation of being one of the most beautiful cities in all of Italy due to having its old Medieaval walls still extant, as well as all the bell towers and shops and little narrow alleyways. it also had tourists, tourists and more tourists

the Village of the Silent Cats

i left Pontremoli a little sadly as it seemed such an interesting and unique place. i felt like it exhisted almost in an alternative universe where the mediaeval times had melded with an age of technology to produce a hybrid culture where moss and brick and little dark alleys blend in seemlessly with laptops, ipads and mobile phones. the sky was very, very dark as i navigated my way under strange low-hanging bridges that joined houses on opposite sides of the street for no apparant reason and then i hit the hills just as the rain came down. luckily it was only a light shower and as i made way on i bumped into Danilo, the Italian guy i'd met a couple of days before. i thought he was still a few days behind me but he'd covered a far distance the previous day to try and beat the storm. he was a funny chap - always covering his face with his hands when he talked in a very italian way. he said he'd been porcini mushroom hunting in the forest on the way down the pine mountains yesterday but that this summer had been super-dry so there weren't that many. i very proudly showed him a picture of some mushrooms i'd stumbled across which he said weren't porcini (i was very disappointed - i'm getting into the idea of being a Mushroom Hunter) and then we carried on down the road as the rain started again. eventually Danilo made his way off into a nearby village for a coffee but i carried on, suspicious of the rain. because it was looking better and the road was getting busier i decided to head up further into the hills even though i didn't fancy having to climb up waterfalls of mud if it started raining heavily. i've done that before and its just not enjoyable. about 2 hours later i bumped into Jules, the Belgium banker: the Camino seemed to be getting rather communal in some ways! Jules was ok but he said that he'd covered 39km the previous day and was really at the limit of his endurance - he'd had a heart bypass about 3 years ago so was careful about how far he pushed himself. we chatted briefly and then i headed off up the slope. this was actually more arduous than i'd anticipated as the rain the previous day made the path a bit mushy plus all the reddy autumn leaves were mulching up under my feet. the path itself was a mixture of deep furrows, almost as if a river had run down and left tracks for us to follow. there were large pieces of granite and smaller clumps of gravel as well as all the branches and twigs and fallen trees that you expect in the deep forest and to cut a long story short it ended up like an obstacle course. visibilty wsn't too good either as the higher i went the more mist came down: the slope became harder, the mist denser and the humidity was so bad that sweat was pouring down my face, down my arms, down my legs. even so the rain held off even if the humidity didn't and i stumbled up and down forest paths wondering when it would ever end. the mist itself made the forest seem quieter than it probably was and all i could hear was the sound of my own heavy panting as my respiratory and cardiac systems seemed to be in overdrive. reaching a small town half-way to my destination of Aulla that day, i had a coffee (well, 3) and some fruit and was just getting ready to move off when Jules turned up. it did occur to me in the middle of the morning that if either of us had fallen down a slope or got injured then no-one would know where we were or what had happened. with this cheery thought in my mind we both started up and i started to chat with Jules about why was on this trip. as someone just said to me recently i shouldn't be surprised doing a pilgrimage when i find out that people are religious. i guess on the Santiago route it was very secular and my reasons for walking the VF are primarily to see Italy, to have some crazy adventures and also to really push myself out of my comfort zone. Jules, as it turns out, is a Catholic and is doing the VF so he can get to a place called Fatima where a 'miracle' happened in the early 1900's. he said that even most of his best friends didn't know this but that he was obsessed by Fatima and had read countless books and stories about what had taken place there. this kinda took me by surprise: often radical faith is hidden behind a very calm facade and so it was with Jules. we did end up quite a long time talking about matters of faith, spiritual beliefs, the state of the world and everything inbetween but it seemed as if God wasn't happy with either of us as the heavens opened. up until that point i'd been wet through sweating but this was something else: it was like someone had dropped a swimming pool on our heads. i had my raincoat covering my pac and by this time we were near the roads again so the roads it was. the rain was so bad that water came over the top of my boots and i was saturated from the knees down. every step i took squeezed water out that was then sucked right back in. i lost Jules on the road in the storm as i was just focused on getting to Aulla which i did about an hour and half later. luck smiled on me (after frowning all afternoon) as i found a hotel immediately and just threw all my clothes on the bathroom floor before i lay on the bed soaked through and exhausted. there wasn't much to do after that except eat and sleep - both of which i managed to do excessive amounts of - before once more being woken up by the 6am alarm the next morning. this day was my last before my planned rest day - i just had to get to Sarzana 20km away. according to my map the route ascended sharply in the first hour but then it descended slowly all the way to Sarzana & it looked an easy day. i should have known better. the first hour was actually ok. the dark rainclouds in the sky held off as i went up & up & up but the mist got thicker and thicker. there was a heavy cloudburst but i was undercover at the time and was feeling pretty pleased with myself - fatal mistake that that was. the thing that threw me was passing through a tiny village called Vecchietto perched so high on the mountainside it seemed almost as it it was falling off. it was quite, quite eerie - just one long narrow street, houses piled up high on either side and no sound at all, just mist, and mist, and more mist. and cats. up until this point in virtually all italian villages i'd only really seen dogs which every house has at least one of. i'd seen one or two cats here or there but nothing to talk about. in Vecchietto cats were everywhere. they sat on windows, in doorways, in small open barns, on empty cars, in the middle of the street. black cats, ginger, white, tabby, old, young, big, small, skinny, fat. and all with wild yellow eyes and jet black pupils staring at me as i passed through. some ran away when i drew near, but most sat and watched in groups of 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 and they were all completely silent. it was as if all the people in the village had been turned into cats overnight and were waiting for the rays of the sun to turn them back to being human. ok i know my imgaination was in overdrive but it really was very, very strange and despite myself i hurried out of that village as fast as i could. 2 hours later i'd had a reasonable descent but couldn't find where i was on my map so i had to flag down a passing car when i found a small country road and luckily the guy driving could speak English. i confirmed what i'd already suspected - i'd taken the wrong route and had walked 2 hours in the opposite direction from which i needed to go. good luck followed bad pretty rapidly and the guy, his wife and kid (the kid = a 5-year old Mushroom Hunter so they told me !!!) gave me a lift back to the place where i'd taken a wrong turn: the Village of the Silent Cats

Porcini Passes

i was late crossing the River Po due to getting stuck in the middle of unknown fields so had to try and make up some lost time - which isn't easy when you have feet that feel as if they're cased in cement. about 3-4hrs after crossing the Po i emerged into the centre of Piacenza which is a beautiful city but one that i had to get to by navigating an industrial estate and then an endless road that just went on & on & on forever. for those that live in Sydney just think the Parramatta Road. except it was even longer. & more boring. the usual accomodation issue then had to be dealt with as it was about 5pm and Saturday night. all the Italians were out and about dressed in their finest and there was me, slumped on the steps on the cathedral: dirty, smelly and so tired i couldn't raise my head. i'm surprised they didn't start throwing coins in my direction thinking i was a tramp. however the luck of the Camino smiled on me once again and in the tourist information office 2 lovely italian ladies got me a room for 30 euros that was just perfect: just round the corner it was clean and pleasant and just delightful. there was more unexpected luck as Piacenza was having a 2-day European food festival so i limped off as fast as could (not fast) and had a great time sampling olives, bread, cheese and anything else i could get my mitts on. my energy didn't last long though as i was so, so tired and collapsed into bed and slept like the dead. sadly the dead don't often wake at the sound of church bells which is what i had to do at 7am and this next day was not a pleasant day as it ended up turning out. the VF trail just followed a very busy main road to the next town and yet again it was just me and lots of traffic which really just sucks all the joy out of the day. i think i've said before that sometimes the Camino delivers some odd surprises and so it was that i ran into the only 2 Belgium people that i know in the whole world, both at the same time. there was Freddie the Priest and Jules who i'd met on the pass over from Switzerland to Italy both about to cross the road into a cafe. it was so strange as a minute either way and we'd have missed each other. we had a quick catch up and it was very nice to see them: Freddie was catching the train to Sienna as he was late for Assisi and Jules said he would be following me down the bloody traffic-filled highway. 6 hours later i ended up really pissed off arriving at my destination (i forget the name of the place - it was a pretty small village) as it was dead to the world. sunday is a quiet day in most places but in italy its almost as if the whole population has run off to France for the day. i tried 2 hotels (closed) and the local church (no reply) and then found somewhere not listed in any guidebook called the 'Emerald Hotel'. God know why my Gaydar wasn't working at this point coz it bloody well should have been. the picture in my room of the fluffy cat with a string of pearls looking earnestly down the yellow brick road should have been a bigger warning but in all honestly if there has been a banner over the front entrance saying 'Big Gay Hotel' i probably would have missed it. it was only the next day when i was checking out that i found it was 2 big old queens running it. however the night i arrived there was (yet another) food festival going on here too but with more of an Asian feel as they had food from India, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia and Israel. stuck in a small village with about 6 streets it did seem odd to me but i dived in and ordered some humous and felafel (which was dire but i tried to smile and say it was nice) and then listened to the goddam-awful rock band set up in the Church Square. i could have clicked my little red heels at this point i can tell you. Sunday over, Monday dawned and there was i back on the bloody road again heading towards Fidenza. this was a bit better as i managed to find some rural paths and got back into walking through the little villages and forests that i came here to experience. even so there was a still a lot of roads. Fidenza (when i got there) actually turned out to be a small town but one really well laid out (one street) with everything branching off it. kinda makes things simple and simplicity i value in these troubled days when all i want is someone to point and tell me either a direction in which to walk, a place to eat or where to find a bed to sleep in. the local tourist information place was closed when i got there at 2pm but i rang the bell anyway (i've gone past the point of caring if i wake someone up from their siesta - after all its not as if i ever get one) and gave the woman such a woleful look that she got the maps out and told me where a hotel was and (best of all) sold me a guide with ALL the pathways of the VF mapped out by satellite from here to Lucca!!! i could have bloody kissed her but i was so smelly i think she was glad i kept my distance. the hotel was nearby (the Irish Bar and Pizzeria - who woulda thought?). the night was a good one - i had great pizza and caught up on lots of sleep before heading off in the early morning with my new map leading the way. it was the most gorgeous day. the sun was shining (not too hot) and the air was clean and clear. i headed out of the villages, right into the deep, deep countryside and towards the mountains in this region and then for the whole day i just walked & walked & walked. the views were some of the best i'd seen since the valleys of Aosta right at the start of the VF and even though i was still in some pain it wasn't half as bad as it'd been before. it felt like i was really at the heart of the Camino and powering along through vibrant green fields and the autumn gathering of crops. the freshly churned earth glimmered in the morning light and here you could really see the end of the summer. i passed fields of sunflowers with bent yellow heads bent turned to dark amber and rows and rows of ripe tomatoes, little nuggets of red in green. as the day went on the up higher i went: up and up and up. there were no clouds and the sky was the bluest blue with a blazing hot sun beating down. the VF pathways took me in and out of little villages no bigger than 5 houses with dogs barking in fury as i passed by, my sticks clacking on the road. sometimes i passed under canopies of trees with branches leaning in so i walked through shadows and sunshine at the same time. it truely was an incredible day just seeing and feeling the beauty of this country - its just such a transcendant feeling when you're standing at the top of a mountain looking down on a clear afternoon into green valleys with tiny, tiny villages dotted around and nothing, absoutely nothing, disturbing the quiet of the day. that night i ended up in a place called Fornovo di Taro where a rude Priest showed me into a dirty room with 2 bunkbeds and then threw the key at me and left me to sort myself out. as it turned out i was sharing with Dave from Coventry (travelling the world & had already walked the VF to Rome and now was walking back), Danilo the Italian (just doing a weeks' walk to Aulla) and Emilo (an 83-year old Swiss guy who seemed not to be able to stop talking). Emilio did know an awful lot of stuff but my god by the end of the evening i was waving a white flag of surrender. he just didn't stop. the rest of us couldn't get a world in edgeways - we'd gone for a pizza and had eaten ours whilst he hadn't even had one slice of his!!! i must say though that for an 83yr old to do the VF is pretty amazing. Danilo was also quite knowledgable - he works for a bank but his ambition (such a great one) is to manage a forest and he knew all about Porcini mushrooms as they're a speciality of this region and people hunt them in the forests (which i must say i think is a very good idea as they are bloody delicious). it turned into an early but disturbed night as Emilo got up at 3am and then spent half an hour trying to get back into his sleeping bag & there was the obligatory snoring - which you always get with lots of guys in a room together (or with my friend Jane who i know has taken a few tiles off a few roofs in her time!). the church bells ringing right above our heads didn't help either so when i got up ('waking up' not being the correct phrase since i seemed to be awake half the night anyway) i quickly packed and shot out the door. this day was as bright and brilliant as the day before and as i knew i had quite a distance to cover - 32km - i decided to push on at a quicker pace and yet again it was the same stupendous mountain views as the day before. except for the fact that i missed a VF sign (which meant i walked around the side of a mountain that i didn't need to and lost 2 hrs) it was a great day but i'd been through 2 tough days of travel up and down mountain slopes: i'd go up one side, down the other, up another one, down again, up a third, and down. you get the picture. lets just say it never seemed to end and when the freshness of the morning turns into the weariness of the late afternoon you end up literally begging for your destination to appear. as i'd taken the wrong path, by 3pm i was fit to drop & i looked at my map and realised that i still had another 2hrs to go. its at these moments that you either discover the stubborness, the stupidly or the sheer desperation of being able to keep going & at 5pm i got to Berceto - which happened to be at the bottom of quite a steep hill. God knows what the local villagers thought seeing a foreigner run down a sharp slope with sticks waving above his head screaming and unable to stop. 2 old grannies stopped gossiping and gave me a very strange look. however with no serious injury the local hotel was very easy to find and had a great restaurant - fantastic pasta funghi - and i filled up and slept for a solid 10hrs. this morning (for this morning it was) i had NO PAIN for the first time in 2 weeks. i was feeling knackered though - in 18 days trekking i've only had one rest day and am starting to feel like i need another as now i find myself actually waking up tired. once i get going its ok but its not easy. my own body does surprise me sometimes, just with the stamina i seem to have developed. some of the slopes i've had to climb in the past few days just keep going up at angles ranging from 45 to 60 to 80 degrees. part of it is that you just HAVE to keep going - you have no choice - but there are othertimes when you could just cry with desperation. just when you think its over, its not, it gets harder, and harder. and then harder again. but still you do it, still you keep going. this morning it was very, very misty. not since Mortala about 10 days ago have i seen mist like this (or rain) and even though its mid-September the weather has been really lovely. the mist did seem to suggest rain (which apparently will come tomorrow) but off i headed up the mountain again. it was a very different day - all on road, but on very quiet mountain roads that wound around and around and with visibility that waxed and wained. there were times when i couldn't see 5 metres in front of me, and yet other times when i could see over to the mountains alongside and see huge torrents of cloud and mist just swell and fall, diving into shadow with the sun behind. the smell of pine filled the air and the valleys and mountains appeared and disappeared as mist rolled backwards and forwards like surf over sand. it was another long day to reach Pontremoli - a strange medieaval town unlike any other i've seen so far. you can imagine that in some parts its exactly the same now as 500 years ago and has about 4 stone bridges and a castle - and its raining. tomorrow its yet another another long day and but then a shorter one of about 20km as i get to meet up with Sasha in Saranza on a Saturday night. i think i'd better get my clothes washed. or burnt.

Crossing the River Po

it seems incredible that a week has passed since i last blogged. part of the problem lies in accessing the internet as all the hotels and cafes expect you to carry your own laptop which is not something i would remotely encourage someone to do over 900km across the Alps to Rome. so where was i a week ago? ah yep, limping out of Mortara. i won't deny it was painful to leave but my day of rest had reinvigorated my stubborn determination - or did until i looked out the window to see it was raining. but thats part of the Camino so i put on my plastic raincoat and limped off as quickly as a could, which really wasn't quick at all. i think i must have looked like a drunk plastic bag staggering down the street. the rain eased a little as the morning went on - the wheatfields were covered in mist for miles around which made the countryside seem rather eerie. small rivers criss-crossed fields, large herons flapped slowly out of deep ditches and the only sound i could hear were my trekking poles and the rustle of my raincoat. the VF signs in the area were consistent and regular which meant that i didn't get lost and after some hours (taking it slowly) the rain cleared, the mist burnt away and the sun came back as fierce as ever. i rolled into a town called Garlasco late in the day (after meeting a local VF historian mentioned in my guidebook on the way) & that night i slept well. the next day I headed off into the mist again, passing through tiny villages with 2 or 3 churches sometimes with their bells chiming which made it seem that little bit more magical and the day took me on towards a national park called Park Ticino. This was a park full of wildlife: grey stately herons still rising and flapping slowly and grandly from the ditches ahead; clusters of ducks coloured brown and green; tiny black coots and big white storks. there were even rabbits that crossed the path ahead, barely stopping before they hopped off quickly into the cornfields. the mosquitos had quietened down a little but they still rose up in black clouds at unexpected moments causing me to frantically run down gravelly paths with my 10kg packpack weighing me down. Park Ticino was a highlight not only of that day but of my trip so far. it seemed to go on forever: a day of birds and butterflies, of green fields and a brilliant blue river that gently wound its way around the contours of the forest. rather unexpectedly i went through a copse of trees and found a restaurant on the side of the riverbank, looking over flat sandy banks with white storks and black ducks resting in the midday sun. here i stopped for a hour and had the most delightful lunch of pasta funghi, beer, lemon tart and coffee. i simply didn't want to leave, but of course i was only dreaming of lost pleasure. it was a longer finish to the day than i'd expected - sometimes the distances you have to travel seem longer or shorter than expected and this day they were longer. the sight of the Dome of Michel Maggiore appearing over the tops of the trees as i approached Pavia was something i'll remember for the rest of my life. Pavia is a big city dating back to pre-Roman times when it was known as Ticium - an important military site during the Roman Empire. Under the Goths it became a fortified citadel, in the 12th century it was a self-governing commune; the Spanish took it over until the early 1700's followed a bit later by the Austrians and then the French under Napoleon. its had quite a history. i walked into it via the famous covered bridge and then (frustratingly) had to spend about 2 hours looking for accomodation. after trekking for 6-8hrs a day somewhat optimistically you kinda hope that a hotel or hostel will just appear on route. this optimism is often seriously skewed and having to search small streets for the vaguest sign of a hotel late in the day can really test your mental state. of course i ended up booking in at the very first hotel that i'd initally rejected as it'd been too expensive. i'd also been (in my tired, frustrated and irritable state) quite blunt with the receptionist when he'd told me the price (60 euros). when he saw me stagger back 2 hours later he mananged to knock 5 euos off which saved both our faces. i booked in, threw my boots over to the other side of the room and just collapsed insensible on the bed. i can only try to describe the pain. if you imagine that someone has a rolling pin and the spend 5 minutes battering the soles of your feet and then suddenly stop then that feeling was the one i had lying on the bed just at that time. after an hour or so i got myself up and moving. Pavia had such a great history that i wanted to get out and see some of it which i eventually did (despite thinking that i should have brought a collapsable wheelchair with me as it've been easier to get around). it was quite a city and one i would have liked to have spent more time exploring, but i now had a timetable to keep to as my mate Sasha from San Francisco was on a 2-week biking trip from Rome to Florence and we'd arranged to meet on 18th September in Sarzana - just under 300km away. i got some food for the next day from a local store and limped around tiny cobbled streets (damn those cobbles!!!) before finding a little outside pizzaria surrounded by vines. i was just limping in when suddenly a car came screeching down the street, 2 guys got out, flashed police badges and then demanded to see the contents of the bag i was carrying. what on earth was going on? worried in case i was in possession of an illegal croissant i handed the bag over which they examined with great suspiscion, and even more so when i communicated to them that i was English. when i also said 'Australiano' they suddenly beamed, gave me the bag back, waved and drove off. it was a bit surreal. i turned round to sit down and get a pizza only to find the owners and their children all standing there with folded arms and raised eyebrows. i tried to act innocent but somehow felt very guilty. even so they made me great pizza. leaving Pavia was a bit melancholy as i liked the feel of the place and would have liked to have spent more time there. despite that it didn't take long to pick up the route back onto the VF and i was soon back in the cornfields, walking longside a system of canals that'd been built in the late 19th century and heading off into the deep italian countryside. my destination for the night was a palce called Santa Christina which was a very small town where i was hopefully going to stay at the local church hostel. the sun shone very, very hot and hard all day and it was tough going, but the countryside changed as i went which disatracted me: the rice paddy-fields had virtually gone now, and cornfields were in the ascendance. sometimes the corn was taller than me on both sides and it was like walking down a road with walls made of cornreeds on both sides. i met another traveller that day - Thomas from Germany who was cycling down to where grapes were being harvested in Tuscancy. we hit it off straight away and agreed to meet up when i passed through in a couple of weeks. the sobering thing about cycling is that he could cover in an hour what took me a day so i told him to get some good wine in for when we met up again. i got to Santa Christiana about 3pm burnt by the sun. the town was so small and quiet that i hlaf expected tumbleweed to be blowing through. one slightly unexpected thing that i've found about rural italy is the number of black, indian and asian people that there are. italy is much more multicultural than i thought and not just in the cities. to my great surprise in this one-horse town the local bar was run by Vietnamese! they were lovely and fed me beer and crisps before i found the local church (next to the bar) and settled into the spare room above the local youth club that the local Priest ran. the Priest was actually a lovely guy (my guidebook gave him a glowing report) and he really did seem to be a pillar of the community. all the local kids were there playing football, table-tennis, cards and using a kitchen to cook up some food. i got showered and washed some clothes and settled down at the local bar to read thinking that i'd have a nice early night. some hope. what i hadn't anticipated was that i'd arrived on friday night and the youth club turned into the local disco. i went to bed at 8 and then for the next 3 hours had to endure screaming, yelling, loud euro-pop and Lady Gaga at top volume before their parents arrived, spent another half an hour screaming at the kids to leave and then finally at around 11 it all went quiet. then the buzzing began. i got up, turned on the light and saw that the walls of the place were covered in mozzies the size of small cows. i had no repellent, no incense and no hope on God's earth. the next morning i felt like i'd been dancing the Rumba in my sleeping bag all night & the bits of me that weren't bitten were red with slapping. i'd even slapped myself awake at various times so i wasn't in the best of moods leaving the village and it didn't get any easier that day. i should have seen it coming. at this point i just want to try and describe what it's like following the Camino trail in the countryside. imagine that you're entering a maze. there's 3 entrances to that maze and one of them has a sign saying 'Via Francigena'. you follow that one which leads you to an intersection where you can make one of 3 choices. there are no signs so you weigh up the options. one path is overgrown with a few indications that people have passed by. the second is well used and the third curves away in the distance, following a small river. you take the well-used path. this goes on for half an hour before branching into another 2 paths. there are no signs. both paths look as good as the other. one heads into fields, the other by some trees. you take the trees. after another half an hour the path peeters out by a ditch. you go back to where it branched off and take the path into the fields. this leads you on and on and on with the path becoming more and more overgrown until there is no longer any path. you are stuck in the middle of the countryside with no path, no signs, no directions and no-one to ask. its also boiling hot and you're running out of water. for no points and no prizes what do you do? look for a bloody church in the distance (or any kind of visible structure) and stagger on, thats what you do. i would also say that this is not an unusual or rare occurance - this happens quite regularly and has become quite a regular part of my world at present. i guess i've learnt to deal with it and work my way out but it isn't easy and the morning i left Santa Christina was one of the worst days for this happening. i traversed ditches, fell into nettles, got scrapped by trees and encrusted by mud. after quite some time and most of the morning i staggered out of the countryside feeling like Robinson Crusoe being washed up on some unknown island somewhere. i think even the locals were frightened by my wild staring eyes. i found a bar and threw myself through the door only to hear Kate Bush singing 'Hounds of Love'. Now dear Kate is one of my favourite singers and 'Hounds of Love' a favourite song but the lyrics of 'I'll be running up that road/ i'll be running up that hill/with no problem' were rather too ironic to let pass. 'i've been running up that f*cking road and i'*ve been running up that f*cking hill and a few bloody f*cking fields as well luv and there HAS been quite a few f*cking problems' i found myself muttering madly. i found out afterwards that a local farmer fed up with VF pilgrims passing through his fields had uprooted all the VF signage and left us all to wander the countryside getting lost. that was nice of him & i hope something lovely happens to him very soon. anyway, i'd made a telephone call the previous night to a chap called Danilo who runs a riverboat service across the River Po & said i'd be there about 11am. after getting so lost it was already 11am and i was over 5km away. it was also blazing hot so i had to really pull myself together. luckily the trail for the next section rose above the cornfields and was very clear so i basically had to do a forced march to get myself there in reasonable time. i'd filled up with water at the cafe and marched so hard in the next hour that i drank 2 litres straight. of course when i arrived Danilo had been and gone but he came back and the sight of his little speedboat arriving was glorious. he then powered the boat up, turned the tiller and off we shot down the river. the exhilaration was electrifying - it was another moment of sheer unadultered pure & complete pleasure. it made everything worthwhile

the joys of Robbio

old Freddy had stayed at a religious place overnight but then they'd kicked him out the next morning despite Sunday being his usual day of rest. so he walked to Robbio and had ended up, rather obviously, in the same dorm as me. we only chatted a little as the fiesta was in full swing. the narrow cobbled streets were all penned off with rope, chairs lining both sides, and not only the whole village but lots of the surrounding villages seemed to be crowded into the narrow pathways and alleys. on the stroke of 4pm the chruch bells rang and the whole crowd roared. an annoucer then spent an indeterminable amount of time talking through something before a little rickshaw pootled its way around the corner containing a big fat opera singer. the crowd went mad and Ms Big Op tried to do a regal wave but with the combination of little rickshaw and many cobbles it just looked like she had a bad case of parkinsons. off she went trundling down the street, clambered out onto a platform and then belted the whole village over the head with a voice so strong i swear the bells in the church tower packed up and went home in defeat. after Ms Big Op a group of young kids came along dressed in pleasant outfits (huge roar) followed by a convoy of bicycles with guys riding and girls dressed up in other peasant outfits perched on handlebars whacking wooden shoes together so the air was filled with the sound of clapping wood. after this there were a few more kids dressed up, then some women in 19th century big dresses (i suspect they'd raided Ms Big Op's wardrobe whilst she was on the rickshaw), then there was a kind of bread-themed entry with lots of bread being carried around of all different sizes followed by a big man made of big loaves. Ms Big Op was licking her lips. a few more entries followed of various different traditional outfits before it got to the finale which was about 6 teams of 3 guys in each who had to race round the village with a hugely heavy sack on a one-wheeled cart that they had to push in front of them. of course on the cobbled streets this was extra-hard. i'm not a big sports fan and really haven't been able to engage with watching any kind of competition but my heart was in my mouth watching them and when the eventual winner came round the last bend and ran for the line the crowd roared, my heart lept into my mouth and the whole village went crazy. it was quite something. the 3 guys who'd won were crying their eyes out (being italian, naturally) and i did think that this was a moment in their lives that they'd always, always remember. after that there was a big communal rissotto being cooked (alas it contained meat) & Ms Big Op was busy wrestling Bread Man to the ground so Freddy and i went for a beer and then for something to eat. the italians as well all know like to eat and eat well but the sheer volume of food sometimes does me in. you start with an entree, move onto the first course (pasta), then a second (pizza), then dessert and a digestive (usually grappa) and then coffee. i get to pasta and give up. its all delicious of course but its just too much. on this night i decided to give it a go and Freddy and i sat back and chewed the cud. due to my work in developing countries i've worked a lot with religious orders and am quite used to the way they think, even if i don't think it myself and so we engaged in debate about the current state of the Catholic church - the paedophia scandals, women priests, the dying church in the West and the growth in Africa and the East. without going into enormous detail i felt sad for Freddie. he was against women Priests for not a lot of good reason (there isn't any) yet couldn't see his own blindness or prejudice. the paedophia scandal had affected him as his Bishop in Belgium was the one who had to resign recently due to abusing his own nephew and Freddy said that some kids at a school he'd been teaching had even called him a paed. i didn't like to say that the church had brought it on itself and, in some ways, the way it treated people you had to wonder why some members of the church hadn't been arrested (some had in Belgium). the saddest thing about Freddy wasn't any of this though, it was the fact that his brother had committed suicide 2 months ago at the age of 22. he'd been involved with an older woman and that'd gone wrong. he'd then got engaged and his finance ditched him a week before the wedding and then his third girlfriend told him he was moving too fast. he then texted 2 friends who suspected something was up and they raced to his flat to find that he'd slit his wrists and had hanged himeself. he was still alive at this point and when the ambulance arrived they managed to stablise him and got him into the ambulance itself. they strapped him in but couldn't handcuff him as he had slit wrists. then on the way to the hospital he managed to get the straps off his legs and threw himself out the back of the ambulance as it was travelling at 90km/hr. he died instantly. there wasn't a lot i could say really. i knew from my work that this would affect his whole life. i just hoped that he'd be able to make some sense of it later on once the rawness had gone, but that wouldn't be for a long, long time.

drunk, yet feeling rather sober, it seemed a good time for bed.

the next morning came quickly, interupted throughout the night by the sound of the church bells that kept going off every hour right above our heads. my feet were still in a lot of pain so it seemed as if a short 15km walk would again be the order of the day. i checked my schedule to Rome and calculated that if i walked 30km a day from tomorrow then i'd still have 3 days to spare - so i had some flexibility which was great as it turned out i needed it. walking for the first hour was very uncomfotable. just putting my feet into my boots was like sticking them into a bag of hot nails but i knew that if i could just get them to the numb stage then i could keep going and thats what i did. the countryside seemed to be empty of people as Freddy and i trekked on - the wheat and rice fields seemed to be thinning and the sky was slightly cloudy which was great for walking as you don't get burnt to a crisp. the day went by quickly and as we only walked for 3-4 hours we quickly reached Mortala which is a smallish town in Lombardy which we've just crossed into. Freddy and i tried a religious hostel but it was closed due to my inability to now walk i said to him that i had to book into a hotel and we said a second goodbye as he went off to to local church to get some sanctuary there. the hotel i'd booked into was just fantastic - a lovely owner, great rooms and lovely food so i felt refreshed (http://www.ilcuuc.it/) . i was going to get up early and start off towards the next town but i decided to take a rest day instead and this was lucky as it turned out as this is the first day its rained ... which has enabled me to catch up on blogs, emails, haircuts and blister care. tomorrow i hit the road again - who knows what adventures lie ahead but one thing i do know is that i won't feel bad to go back to Australia now the election results have been sorted out. maybe Freddy was right - there is a God after all.

hitting the Camino Wall

i didn't sleep that well in Santhia either. the paper sheets on my bed ripped a little too easily and my dreams of getting caught in a fishing net turned out to be a little too real when i awoke and found my head sticking out of the middle of the sheet, one leg out the bottom and 2 arms from the top. i felt like i was in some kind of reality TV 'get-out-of-this' situation. the night was also complicated by Frederick who was 5-6 weeks on the way to Assisi after setting out from Belgium. a Priest by profession he'd been planning this trip for some time and was doing quite well. i didn't like to tell him about how he smelt, and being very British sometimes just tried to endure it, but he really did pong a little too much. it was almost overwhelming - but how do you tell a Priest they have body odour? maybe i should have just come out and said straight-off. anyway he seemed like a nice guy and we chatted a little and then set out walking together. again compared to the Camino de Santiago the VF has been markedly different in many ways. one main one is that on the VF i've only met 2 other pilgrims (both from Belgium strangely enough). on the CdS it was almost the opposite - there were so many people that as soon as the door to the hostel opened in the moring i used to shoot straight out just to be ahead of the crowd and sometimes it was just overwhleming with the sheer amount of people that you had to contend with. even so, it was a very communal experience and also very supportive. you got to know people as you were all travelling in the same direction at about the same pace and sharing the same experiences. on the VF its been very solitary. most days i walk along and don't really talk to anyone expect for people in cafes or the hostel owners. and i like it. sometimes its difficult - there's no denying it - but in the world we live we're saturated with noise and people and everthing is at such a frantic pace that you can never just stop to reflect or just enjoy a bit of solitude. there's a term i read about recently called 'ecological illiteracy' whereby people have just lost their sense of the environment - too used to TV's, radios, ipods, mobiles and all the rest of the noise that we feed incessantly into our ears without even thinking about it. after years living in India (and taking time out at various points in my life) getting away from this noise saturation was one of the main reasons for walking the VF. its not as if i'm going to be able to get completely away from it all, but so far (and for a long distance) its been just me and the sound of my own footsteps, birds cheeping away and the wind blowing the corn. it teaches you about yourself more than anything - your own resources, strength, determination, frailties and direction. the mind is a funny thing - sometimes you find myself thinking about the same thing over and over and over again. its like the mind has a hook imbedded in a thought that you just can't release it from. back in sydney that hook would be subsumed within the working week so you may think about it but not with such intensity or from such different angles. the lesson has been that eventually you get sick of thinking about the same things but that trying NOT to think about them has the opposite effect so i let myself think about them more. has it worked? its too soon to say but i think so. we'll see.

due to the blisters that'd come up on my feet i decided that Day 6 would have to be an easier day of about 20km and it was. Freddy & i wandered through wheat fields, lost the VF signs (yet again), walked along main roads and ended up at Vercelli which is quite a major town in Piemont. loads of history - Roman ampitheatres, sarcophagi, a hippodrome and lots of mediaeval Basilicas and Churches. not that i got to see any of them as my blisters were multiplying like you wouldn't believe and i had to stagger off to a hotel leaving Freddy to seek out a relgious hostel. the place i found to stay was the worst i've had so far. for 35 euros i ended up in a room in a house that was rundown and dirty with a street light right outside and cars beeping all night. i was at a really low ebb - in pain, fed up with the VF signage and really pissed off with being in such a miserable yet expensive flea-pit. it was Saturday night however so i washed and changed and then headed out to have a look round. of course all the Italians were dressed up to the nines and there was a night market going on which was great to see but i didn't really make the most of it because i was just feeling grumpy and very, very miserable. after having a hellish night of no sleep i left early planning just to do another 15km to get to a town called Robbio in the middle of the countryside. it was on the way that i really hit a wall. for a start the rice paddies around contained millions of mosquitos and i came under sustained attack all morning. the pain from my blisters were becoming almost unendurable and the heat was getting worse and worse. then to to it all the VF signs disappeared again right in the middle of the countryside. i didn't know where to go or what to do and after the third attempt of trying to find a path through the rice and wheatfields i just though to myself 'what's the point?' i was completely and utterly over it. dirty, miserable, in pain - i was sick of it so i made my mind up to just get to the next town, get a bus or train and head off to Sienna or Lucca and relax for a few days before seeing what i could do with my 4 weeks before my friends arrived to meet me in Rome. walking though the last of the golden wheat fields into the next small village the church bells began to chime. being a Sunday they kept chiming, and chimed on & on & on. the day suddenly seemed to have some joy in it even as i was saying goodbye to the Camino inside my head and my heart. i walked into a local cafe, ordered some lemonade, a coffee and croissant and just slumped in a chair too tired even to cry. then something happened. it was such a small and simple thing but the mother and daughter who ran the cafe came over and started asking my about my trip. they asked what i was doing and where i was from and when i told them they managed to say what a good thing it was that i was doing even though they spoke no English. i felt ashamed, a fraud, as i knew then that i'd given up.

i'd given up.

i don't know even now why i changed my mind and why i continued on but i did. some how that simple conversation with none of us being able to speak the other's language made me question myself and remotivated me and off i went again, limping own the street towards Robbio and once again determined to get there whatever pain i was experiencing. it also helped that i'm reading 'Decline and fall of the Roman Empire ' for the third time (i never finished it the first 2 times !) and the amount of times i've read about marching over the Alps in 10 days flat or some other such incredible feat and i think to myself how lucky i am, and also what do i really have to complain about? a few blisters, thats all. it kinda reframes things in a way that makes me feel less sorry for myself.

Robbio was a great little place. i went to the local church as i'd read they had a religious hostel. the local priest greeted me, took me to this car, reveresed at top speed, virtually did a handbrake turn, sped round tight corners on 2 wheels, did some 'pretend running over' of locals he obviously knew and then dumped me in the centre of town in a very bare dorm above the local police station. as it turned out i'd arrived in Robbio on the day that the annual Autumn festival was taking place. i did the usual washing, went out to get a coffee, walked back and there sat Freddy on the balcony, waving at me ...

tears by Lake Viverone

i slept badly that night. sheer exhaustion for one thing (i calculated that i must have walked nearly 40km), plus a lot of frustration about the signage. on the Santiago route the signs were everywhere. that didn't mean that you didn't occasionally get lost (because you often did) but they added up to a coherant whole when following a pathway. on the VF the signs just seem to peter out in the middle of a field leaving you nowhere to go so you end up on the major roads again. of course wandering the Italian countryside is lovely but in the terrible heat of the day between 1 and 4 pm its almost unbearable - but you still have to continue as you're in the middle of nowhere with no-one to ask and no villages nearby. this is the down side. the up side is that you're walking through the most beautiful autumn countryside: the wheat and rice fields are golden, the air fresh and clean and there's peace. in some ways its the peacefulness thats the best thing about it all: quiet, meditative and tanquil. thats the majority of the day. until you get lost when you end up in the opposite state of mind. well, maybe i exagerate as by that time you're too tired to be annoyed - merely resigned to having to walk, and walk, and walk some more. it does teach you to extend your limits - which also seem to extend more & more & more. back back to Lake Viverone. i'd eaten in their restaurant the night before and the sunset from the hotel balcony set behind the Alps and i sat watching the the sky deepen to orange, crimson and then a dying purple. it was quite maginificent. i kept jumping up from my chair to go and stare at the colours changing even as my food was getting cold (the food was incredible by the way - somehow at the end of my 40km trek i'd gotten lucky and walked straight into one of the nicest hotels i think i've ever stayed in. the staff were wonderful, the food exquisite and the view over the Lake was breathtaking). i wandered down to the Lake in the evening, watching the ducks and swans swim by, and felt the cares of the day and my aches and pains just die away. of course they all came back during the night, but you kinda expect that. in the morning i woofed down a huge breakfast, got my pac ready and headed off. it was a serene morning. the Lake was clear and still, the light gentle and the early hour still carried a touch of mist. i walked around the shores of the Lake and stood looking over towards the Alps on the far side. at that point that i cried. it wasn't because of frustration or pain or being unhappy. it was because it was just so incredibly beautiful. its not easy to say why it was but it was a moment i'll remember for the rest of my life: a moment of absolute clarity when everything seems to fall into place and makes complete sense. it was as if everything in my life had drawn me to this point, at this time, for this moment.

my route for Day 5 was going to be a shorter one due to the excesses of the previous day. i decided that about 15km would be enough and headed towards a town called Santhia. i was now crossing from the Aosta Valley into the Piemont area. apparently there is a huge amount of benzoylecgonine in the River Po here (this is the by-product of cocaine, secreted in people's urine). its been estimated that the cosumption would be about 27:1000 population. thats a lot of cocaine. seemes odd when the italians in this region seem so laid back. i should digress into talking about the Italians actually as i know i haven't spent a lot of time talking about them as 'a people' (if you can do such a thing!). the first thing to bear in mind is that you're passing through different places every day so you never get to make friends or get to know people other than a quick 'bonjourno' or 'ciao' but even so most of the time they've been helpful, funny, engaging and quite, quite lovely. more reserved than the Spanish in some ways, but then pilgrims travelling to Rome are a relatively new thing in this modern age. in the cities the 'dress up and go out for a gelato' time seems to be around 4pm. i've often sat in a little cafe and watched people strut their stuff. being Italians style is everything and they put it all on show. on Saturdays the hairdressers are full as the women get their hair coffured and the degree of elegance is sometimes breathtaking to behold. of course not everyone meets the standards expected. one woman had such a big camel toe i spent the next 10 minutes looking round to see if she had any Bedouin following her.

the journey to Santhia was lovely. just a trek through the golden wheatfields now turning into rice paddies as the Alps flattened into Valleys and then into plains. Santhia itself was a smallish town and i'd decided to give the religious hostel a try. for pilgrims you can (of course) stay in hotels but you can stay in places run by religious fraternities for a small donation. on the Santiago route this was quite common and even though there were a couple of places i'd passed through that had had them in italy i hadn't tried them yet. i arrived at the hostel and a sign on the door directed me to a local cafe where the barista gave me a lovely greeting but said that they key wouldn't be available for a hour. i sat drinking coffee and dressing my blisters (one of which burst over the rather nice yellow cushion i was sitting on) before going over and settling in. it was actually rather nice - 3 lots of bunkbeds but clean and with everything i needed, except linen sheets. all they had were paper sheets which i'd never seen before. it was that day in that hostel that i met Frederick: the kind, plump, smelly Priest from Belgium

the Camino tests

yep, this old granny saw me coming. 40 euros to stay the night in a run down decayed old hotel perched on top of a hill. it took me half an hour to climb up there my feet were aching so much. i paid up begrudgingly and she took the cash rather too quickly it seemed to me. still, i needed a bed and was quite relieved to just shower, shave and relax. the problem came when thinking about what to eat as it meant staggering back down the hill again. walking the Camino is fine apart from sightseeing in the evenings - by the time you've arrived at your destination your feet ache so much you can't be bothered to walk anywhere. in fact you can't walk anywhere - its too painful. a rather undignified limp is about all you can manage. so limp i did, down to the local tavern where i was served the best white wine i've had in a long time matched with the worst pasta i think i've ever had. imagine drain water boiled down to its essence, add some old veggies (mainly dried peas) and then thrown some penne in the mix. that was about it. i was so hungry that i just threw it in my mouth and swallowed. and then had more wine. the next day i was up early to get my 'free' brekkie from granny which consisted of stale bread and nutella. the coffee was good though. i left late - about 8am - and headed off out of Chantillon. the VF route followed the dreaded SS26 and actually became the SS26 for most of the day. i'm not easily frightened but i can't say i felt safe at any point of the day. i had to hike down a busy main road that curved and wound its way along the side of a mountain as it descended. there was no path. i had to walk within the space of the white line at the side of the road and the road barrier itself. that measured about a foot wide. i had cars, trucks and buses whizzing up behind and past me at quite considerable speeds. in the end i had to cross over and walk facing the oncoming traffic. i thought that if i was going to get killed then i may as well look whoever killed me in the eye. and i'm not joking. i walked that road hugging the mountain side, trying to peer round when there was a bend, stopping and waiting for big trucks to pass, speeding up when i could. luckily i'd lived and worked in India for 2 years so i was used to some pretty hairy traffic situations but this really tested me. i was lucky i wasn't hit - its as simple as that. hiking the SS26 was not pleasurable at all and yet for the past 2 days i've spent an inordinate amount of time on it. the VF doesn't seem to deviate into the countryside. i'm hopeful this will improve as i'm sick of exhaust fumes and just want to get back to walking country paths - which i did a bit of today. one problem is the fact that my guide book and the signs for the VF seem to differ and i have to guess which one is the best to follow. its like a game of bluff or double bluff when you have no idea what the result might be. one pretty special moment occured yesterday when i came out of a forest and saw Bard Castle - an incredible place cascading down a small mountain into a valley, a jumble of stone and granite so big that it defies description. i ended Day 3 in a place called Pont St Martin - best known for its old Roman Bridge - and started Day 4 on the SS26 again. God i hate that road. setting off at about 7am i got to a big town called Ivrea considerably ahead of schedule and was rather pleased with myself. what a fatal mistake that feeling was as i then (as it turned out) took the wrong road out of town and walked an hour and a half in completely the wrong direction. its funny sometimes on the Camino - you have a piece of incredibly good luck immediately followed by some bad. or visa versa. so my bad luck was to take the wrong path and my good was a bus immediately turning up and taking me back to where i started. i then had bad luck again as i walked into the country until about 2pm and i was tired, knackered and ready to rest but there was no accomodation for 15kms. another 3 hours. i cannot tell you how frustrated, depressed, angry and annoyed i was. but i couldn't do anything except walk, so walk i did (after fueling up - at a cafe i found - on beer, water, coffee and chocolate which is quite a potent combination if you consume all 4 within 20 minutes of each other). i then literally marched up the bloody motorway that'd replaced the SS26 and, good luck again, turned a corner to find Lake Viverone. this is such a beautiful place that it nearly brought tears to my eyes. i've walked nearly 40kms today, have 2 enormous blisters on my feet, and tired beyond belief and reached what i thought were the limits of my endurance. but i got through it and have ended up at a place i never knew existed. if someone was to ever ask me why i put myself through such hardship then this is the answer. its a feeling like nothing else on earth - and thats why i do it