L Plates

Today has been just great! Again, very different to what we planned for the day. Let me explain.

We left our hotel in Pontremoli this morning and had breakfast (dare a Nutritional Medicine doctor tell you that we had hot chocolates and croissants at the prize winning Bar Moderna for breakfast) fully intending to walk the 18 km to Villafranca. However the local newspaper was almost totally devoted to the story of Tuesday's deluge with pictures of bridges down, cars on top of each other, and Aulla (our next major town) without potable water, gas or electricity a fifth body just recovered and 300 people in emergency accommodation. Heading further downstream did not seem wise, especially as landline phones were still out of action and we could not pre-book a place to stay. After numerous attempts to find a place to stay for the night, we were finally offered a warm welcome in the region of Camaiore at a parish house. This meant a big jump in our journey, as we had to take a train to Pietrasanta, and saw much evidence of the flood damage as we raced through the district.

What this reveals is how much our daily journey is influenced by finding accommodation for the next day. The via Francigena is not in any way set up for pilgrims to just drop in and the understanding is that you need to arrange lodging 24 hours in advance. That is not always easy, especially when phone or Internet connections are down. So not being able to confirm a place to stay this morning, as well as the uncertainty about the trail following the floods, has moved us quite a distance forward.

We happened on a wonderful restaurant for lunch - the Locanda la Monarche, highly recommended if you are passing through Camaiore - where we enjoyed soup, seafood risotto and kebabs and a superb house white. The waiter was really friendly, the atmosphere comfortable and I even got a phone call from a friend from Tassie who is presently in Florence and hopes to join us walking for a day. Let's make it happen Jen! We began our day's walk about 1 pm very satisfied!

So finally we were really on the road again, and it felt GOOD! Even Tim and Soph were glad to get walking again, after our extra day in Pontremoli. The country side with early autumn colours was just superb, and I even got the chance to prove my prowess against dangerous dogs.

When we arrived in Valpromaro, and asked directions to the church, we just happened to ask Benetto who was actually waiting in the street for us to arrive. He indeed gave us a warm welcome - a most surprisingly wonderful welcome. We are staying in a town that has welcomed pilgrims since the seventh century, and the hospitality is quite moving. We have come to expect nothing, and here we have a washing machine, heating which was turned on for us, a fridge and cupboard with food, coffee, and clean linen and hot water. The pilgrim log book is filled with appreciative entries and postcards that have been sent on after pilgrims have arrived in Rome, and most of them say 'grazie mille'. It is such a privilege and very humbling to receive hospitality as total strangers, with no expectation that we will give anything in return.

It looked as though we would be unable to find accommodation in Lucca for tomorrow night as there is apparently a big games event or convention in the city this weekend, but Tim found a place and we are looking forward to entering this beautiful city. Only a short walk, so Sophie may finally get her longed for sleep in before we head out.

So, the L-plates? We have been commenting that with our use of public transport much more often than we considered we would, and our stumbling ways of learning to do Pilgrimage, we may not be 'proper' pilgrims at all, and that maybe we should consider this our learning pilgrimage and do a 'proper' one in a few years' time. Mentioning this to Jenny on the phone, her response was that really that's how life is. It's all just the L-plate version.

Love from Merran.