Different directions

After a great few days together with Maddie and Sophie touring Italy in our Mafia style rental car, tomorrow we split up and go our separate ways. Merran returns to Australia, to home and back to work. Maddie heads back to school for her last four weeks, and Soph and I catch a scenic train over the Alps to Munich (I think via Innsbruck).

Venice was great, two perfect but cold days to explore the city. We even ran into friends from Sheffield in St Marks Square!!!

We have enjoyed staying again for a couple of days with Maddie's host family who today included us in a family birthday party. Fantastic home style Italian food. Soph and I have the IPad so the blog will now follow us.

A different style of pilgrimage

We picked up a rather flash and quite large (for Italy) hire car on Monday morning and navigated our way carefully out of Rome to Orvieto. A fabulous lunch with our friend Kaye followed as we collected some gear we had left with her when we travelled through. Then it was over the mountains to Jesi where we met and stayed with one of Maddie's adult support people Fiona and Paulo. Fiona is a teacher at Maddie's former school and it was great to meet her. We appreciated their hospitality. On Tuesday we enjoyed exploring Jesi and meeting one of Maddie's friends for afternoon tea at their favorite meeting place. Back to Fiona's again for the evening where after dinner we discovered to our distress that the house had been burgled during the day and money, jewelry and Maddie's laptop were stolen. Tragically this contained all her Italian photos from her exchange year and a novel she has been working on for 4 years, so it was a little distressing for us as well as our hosts. We all felt a little flat for the next day. A visit with the police the next morning held us up a bit but we were ready go by lunch time and made our way to Ravenna.

The early Christian mosaics of Ravenna were fantastic and we all enjoyed spending some time exploring the various sites where these still survive. We had a great meal on the recommendation of a shop keeper where Sophie bought a new winter coat.

Today we spent the morning back in Ravenna before heading north to Venice. It was dark by the time we arrived so it was a fun finding the Hostel out on one of the Islands facing the main square. We settled in and down to bed early however there is a large very undisciplined French school group here who are extremely noisy..... And it is 1.00am. They show no signs of settling in spite of several of our fellow dorm mates asking them to show some respect an the hostel rules which indicate expulsion for noise!!

Always a pilgrim(2)

We saw this very apt cartoon up at the Pilgrim hospice in Rome run by the confraternity of St James.

The caption reads, "Don't worry, Signora, he will be over it by the spring".

The funny thing is we have met so many men who do not get over it quite so easily and leave again on longer pilgrimages. We head of one man who left his wife and family for 11 years!!

Always pilgrims

For the last 39 days our focus has been to get a step closer to Rome each day. As Tim wrote, we all had a huge sense of anticipation and elation as we walked the final 17 kms into St Peters Square only 2 days ago. Sophie and I could hardly walk for the next few hours and hobbled around, and we finished our journey by arriving at a wonderful hostel for pilgrims to Rome, where we were warmly greeted by the volunteer looking after the pilgrims, and had reunions with several other pilgrims we had met on the way. Meal times were special to catch up and celebrate together.

Yesterday we had the privilege of farewelling a young German man who has walked from Germany, and now continuing his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, a total of 5000 km. As you can imagine, we are keen to follow his ongoing journey. Then we visited St Peter's Basilica before meeting Maddie who had taken a train from Milan early in the morning. Still, it seemed strange that it took her 8 hours and us 39 days to cover a similar distance! It was wonderful to reconnect and introduce her to a taste of what has been our life for the past 6 weeks.

This morning we finally left our pilgrim world behind. Tim's comment that we had finished as pilgrims, though, was met by the response that the pilgrimage had only just begun. We had some more goodbyes, and set out for the Colosseum. Getting there before 9 am we simply wandered straight in, and spent the next few hours in Roman ruins. After lunch we visited a museum with a Renaissance art exhibition, the highlight being an original portrait of Martin Luther and his wife Katherine.

We have now settled into a local B&B, which is not quite what we expected, quite funny really, and heading out for an Indian meal.

With love from Merran.

Rome!

It was all smiles as we hit the outskirts of Rome this morning and wove our way through the traffic and a couple of nice parks to St Peters. The feeling was almost euphoric even if it was hiding lots of aches and pains. Just as we walked through the arches into St Peters square, Pascale a French woman we have walked with for a few days, came up to greet us.

Tourists have little idea of the joy and wonder that pilgrims feel on reaching their goal. It is wonderful. We picked up our testimonials and went for lunch. Then it was back to the square for a while to savour the atmosphere. Then navigated the very crowded bus service to our accommodation at the confraternity of pilgrims to Rome centre.

A great day we will long remember.

There are more photos and posts coming over the next few days as we have a good connection here and will want to stop and reflect a little on our journey.

Thanks everyone for your support and prayers. It has meant a lot to us to know people were praying for us on this journey.

All roads lead to Rome: ours does today!

Thanks to those pilgrims who have emailed, blessed and wished us well for our arrival in Rome today. Thanks for the warnings on traffic. We are going to give it a go, even though the Via Cassia is a chaotic. We will head to the Vatican hopefully by lunch time.

Pace e bene, everyone.

The short cut

It is quite a relief to be writing this as it indicates that we have settled into our accommodation for the evening after a long day. We are actually hobbling around the room in fits of laughter as we are all incredibly stiff and tired after a late start and a longer than expected day walking into La Storta.

We enjoyed our evening with other pilgrims last night and met again at a bar for breakfast - the usual coffee/hot chocolate and brioche healthy breakfast I recommend to all my patients - then covered about 9 km by 11 am. We had many hills to climb and descend, and passed a couple of quite emaciated horned cattle, a bit too closely for Sophie's comfort, in a national park. Our reward: hot slices of pizza and fresh pork rolls in Fornello. But we started to drag after that and decided to take a short cut that would cut our journey from 25 to 20 km. We began along it, but the traffic was so intense I told the others that I couldn't face it, so we changed plans and walked back to the official via Francigena after all. This route was very rural, but had quite uneven surfaces to walk on, with roads closed, damaged bridges and strewn rubbish from the recent floods. We had an interesting river crossing with huge stepping stones, thankfully intact after the floods. So our short cut ended up being a long cut, and it was getting cold and dark as we finally walked into La Storta. Tim, our trusty team leader, stopped at a bar for hot chocolates to warm and encourage us. We had hoped to stay in a monastery tonight, but couldn't easily find it. Sophie noticed a hotel right behind us, so we booked in here instead. Hot showers, in-room wi-fi and a pizza delivery to the room for tea. We have been laughing at the smell of our feet as we took off our boots.

We have been laughing also today about some of our attempts at language. Walking along the road yesterday my mobile rang. Assuming (correctly as it turned out) that it was a priest returning our call about accommodation in Campagnia di Roma, I attempted to copy what Tim says on the phone, we are 3 pellegrini from Australia, do you have lodging for the night. The priest was trying so hard to understand me, but thought I was saying we wanted 43 salami to stay. Tim got the message through much better, even able to understand the response. On the other hand, it is good we understand a little Italiano, otherwise we could be slightly offended when we arrive in a parish house, and the welcomer says kindly, Stanke? (This is actually asking us if we are tired after our long walk, but the English phonetic is probably more accurate.)

So, very tired, slightly silly, stiff and sore, we are also extremely grateful for the adventure we have had so far, and very excited about walking into Rome tomorrow.

With love from Merran.

Sutri and Campagno

We have had two good days of walking even though Soph is still battling blisters with her new shoes. The weather is clear and very cold. We can now add the crunch of ice (frozen mud and water) on the tracks to our collection of VF sounds. It soon warms as the sun rises and we can strip off a few thermal layers.

Lazio is not generally as beautiful as Tuscany although there are some wonderful forests we have been through. These are a bit spoilt though by great mounds of uncleared rubbish around the provided refuse skips. They obviously haven't been cleared for a while as things have blown around the area and been disturbed by animals. The towns generally seem poorer, we often do not have good phone or Internet connections in the local areas even though they are sizable townships. Yesterday we walked for 1/2 an hour into Campagno beside a creek which had recently flooded with what was obviously raw sewerage. It was still running. Hard to know whether this was a normal or the result of a malfunction due to recent floods. It looked like it was how things worked. We entered the old walled town by what was obviously the back entrance. The more modern part of the town was to the South.

It is interesting seeing another side of Italy as we head further south. the churches seem to be responding to this need. Again the parish centre in which we stayed was well set up and running education and support classes for kids and families.

We spent last night in an upstairs room (no heating) with a french woman, Polish man and Lebanese woman all on their way to Rome and a Spaniard on his way back home after walking the Camino to Santiago, the Camino North along the coast to France and then the French Mountain and Coastal route to the VF and the Rome. he was caught in the same floods as us and lost his backpack with all his gear, keeping only his documents, hat and pilgrim staff. It was great to meet him as he had spent the last few days with another pilgrim friend, Manuel and bought greetings from him.

Photos when we have a 3G connection, hopefully tonight at our last stop, La Storta.

Are you going to Rome? Pray for us!

Yesterday was a strange day of rather uninteresting walking along a highway and through pretty average scenery. We did reach the 100 kms to go point early in the morning.

We finally turned onto a country road and promptly fell in with an older man out walking. He spoke English, having lived in Nigeria for a while and was interested in horses. He had a local property he was hoping to develop as a base for the Via Francegina into Rome by horseback. He seemed to know about the trail and told us if we stayed with him and ignored the signs to our track, all would be well, he would set us on the right path. 1/2 an hour later he was ready to turn back and pointed us to a road. Even though he lived locally, our GPS revealed we were now several Kms off track and needed to work our way back across country. We had to ask directions from farmers obviously unused to seeing pilgrims. One couple harvesting their olives, when we asked for directions, said, "Are you going to Rome? Pray for us!"

Just as we were about to regain the VF, we discovered the keys from our room last night in one of our pockets. So we had to ring the place we stayed and apologize. We decided to continue to the town we were heading to and sort things out there.

We arrived in Vetralla which had the feel of a rather unfriendly suspicious town. Most pilgrims stay in other places. We were now too late for lunch and ended up making do with chips, coffee and chocolate. Our accommodation is the strangest we have had, an old room in the parish centre was set up by one of the parish workers. The linen changed on three beds and we were shown the bathroom (neither clean or tidy).

We were however given a good meal in the dining room, eating with a young man we thought might have been living in the parish complex. Then it was off to bed. Thankfully the room was warm. However there was not much sleep as the local Ambulance service used the upstairs area above our room and spend much of the night rearranging their furniture. The 3am to 4am shift were especially keen on dragging large items around on the floor above us for over an hour.

Our souvenired keys were collected the next morning and we set off for Sutri, buying some fruit from the market on the way. Merran in particular keen to leave Vetralla well behind.

Montefiascone to Viterbo - Roman Roads and Maremmanos

There were two highlights on our downhill run to Viterbo today. The first was another 2 km section of Roman Road with the large smooth paving stones still intact after 2000 years. I tried imagining all the people who had walked this very road over the years, amazing that we could still walk the same stones.

Not long after we left the Roman Road our musings were brought to ground with a quick thump of reality. 4 large Marammano dogs left their herd of sheep grazing in open fields and came racing towards us, obviously intent on warning us away from their sheep. No fences! (The top photo is a web photo, we are in no condition to take photos when we meet these in real life, the shot underneath is the flock from a safe distance) These big and sometimes aggressive dogs live with their flocks and are highly protective. We have had dealings with them on several occasions, they are a bit threatening because they are always on the loose and are intent on warning you away. All OK unless your track goes close to where their flock is grazing. Mostly it is only one or two, sometimes with others breeds, but four was a bit scary. We stayed together, had our sticks ready and prepared to unveil our secret weapon (Merran and I have named it 'sting', Soph does not approve of the name). We kept it in reserve until one of the dogs closed in and I gave it just one short 'sonic burst' basically to warn it back in return. We have to say, that effect is instant and usually highly effective. The dog spun around and backed off, the others also gave us a bit more space. We were able to walk on unhindered, and our heart rates returned to normal eventually.

Viterbo is great. We enjoyed a walk this afternoon through the old Medieval quarter called San Pelligrino (Pilgrim). Something was going on with people in period costume around the museum. We enjoyed some 11th century churches and a wander around the area. Accomodation is booked for tomorrow with the help of the guy who runs the small B&B where we are tonight (on pilgrim rates) which is nice. I can now say the equivalent of "we are three pilgrims from Australia, a family, do you have lodging for us tomorrow?" I am very proud of this, however if the answer is anything other than si, va bene (yes, good), I am at a total loss. So I needed help tonight.

Bolsena to Montefiascone - Sophie joins us on the final 140km to Rome

After our friend Kaye dropped us back to the Castle in Bolsena, we wandered down through the town, bought some supplies and headed out into the lakeside forests. It was not long before we me Anne, our French companion pilgrim, who was on the road in front of us. We walked together for a while and shared our respective morning teas on the trail.

Around a corner we saw several men with powerful rifles, reflective jackets and dogs, planting what were obviously orange warning flags around the perimeter of a forest area. Several more corners and lots more men, dogs and some serious hunting gear. A cordon of men lined up across a field facing a forest, it looked like a battle scene. They had jackets badged what we translated as the Bolsena Boar Hunting Society. This also made sense of the many posters we had seen taped to trees over the last day or so, indicating something to do with wild boars, we hadn't put together the fact that it was a hunt and it was on right now and we were walking through the territory. Two or three times over the next hour or so we heard volleys of rifle fire and baying of hounds. The forest was stunningly beautiful, but we were rather glad to leave the wilds and regain farming country closer to Montifiascone.

We arrived in good time and met Kaye, Sue and Claudio for coffee. It was a big favour to us to allow us a day of walking without packs. We collected them and headed to the Monastery where we were staying for the night.

Kaye had mentioned a good restaurant just nearby called Mamma e Pappa, we thought it would be fun to go there. A great host, who treated us to tasty bits of local cheese, salami, bruschetta with 'new oil', while our meals were prepared. He had asked us if we wanted two courses, to which we had said 'yes', as long as it was finished by 9.00pm when the monastery gates closed. 'Tranquile', he said 'be at peace', and sure enough we were safely inside by 8.50, and very well fed on wonderful local food.

Some photos from Aquapendente to Bolsena

Our own Orvieto tour guide

Hi folks

Well we didn't get a chance to blog last night - will let you know all about it soon- as we had a pretty awesome day. Tim and I clocked up 110 km in 4 days which was epic for us, even if I could hardly stand up straight at the end of it!

We strode out well about 7:30 am hoping to meet Sophie in Bolsena at lunchtime. 22 km to go. Our first surprise of the day was coming across a flock of ewes with very new lambs bring taken to a new pasture by a shepherd couple. We then met up with our friend Francoise, and a bit further on, Anne, walking in the wrong direction after seeing her son off on a bus to Siena, en route to Paris. We left the 2 French ladies to walk together and soon came to San Lorenzo Nuovo, and our first glimpse of the majestic Bolsena Lake. I had declared to Tim that it was pretty much downhill all the way, so the frequent sharp ascents became rather a joke. I was very thankful that my good husband did not rub in my error.

The day was filled with really lovely experiences. First, we made good time to Bolsena and to our great joy Sophie and Kaye met us walking back along the track from Bolsena Castle. It was so good to see Soph again, esp as she looked really relaxed and happy. Kaye had packed a picnic lunch, and we all (including Kaye's friend Claudio and another Australian friend Sue) enjoyed a wonderful picnic lunch on a friend's olive grove looking out over the Lake. We than had a coffee on the edge of Lake Bolsena, in warm sunshine, got our pilgrim credentials stamped at the church of Saint Cristina, then headed back to Orvieto which was glowing in the late afternoon sun. Great photo opportunity.

Kaye lives in a gorgeous white apartment just outside the city walls. While Kaye thought about dinner (homemade spring rolls, Thai chicken curry and a spicy beef salad) she sent us off to wander the streets of her town. The highlight of our day was having our own tour guide. Sophie took us to the lift which operates at the city walls, then through to the Duomo, and the main street, and we just loved having her show us around. We couldn't but think how proud my parents would have been to see her! We then bought her a pair of Mephisto walking shoes which we really hope will assist her in the final walk to Rome.

Back to Kaye's for an amazing meal, Orvieto wines, Australian and Italian company, then a good night's sleep ready for another day walking - as three pilgrims again.

Thanks so much to Kaye and Claudio - and Sue - for their friendship and hospitality. And welcome back Sophie!

Time for sleeping, good night, and today's news tomorrow :)

Some photos from Radicofani to Aquapendente

Sounds of the VF

I have been pondering the sounds that accompany our daily walking through the Italian countryside, towns and cities.

Church bells often sound the hour, then a single toll on the half hour. Around sunset there is often a medley of bells and mostly no chimes from around 12pm to 6am. Last night we stayed next to the bell-tower and the chimes continued through the night, though we did sleep through most of them.

Barking dogs. They bark a lot. Town dogs, country dogs, behind fence dogs, chained dogs, free-range dogs. My autonomic nervous system is well attuned to the sound of dogs and my pace instantly cuts by half at the very mention of "dog". Sometimes we have a lovely walk in solitude until we come along a fence line and have a tribe of dogs follow us all the way along with their friendly and sometimes not so friendly greeting.

Low flying military planes doing some kind of surveillance are often heard well before we see them.

Tractors on tracks not wheels, 3 wheel bikes, scooters, nothing unusual here.

People stopping us to say good day and to wish us well as we walk along. Really special. People have been really friendly.

Scrunching of autumn leaves as we kick them along the roadside verges, crunching of gravel. Acorns falling on the hillsides in a gentle wind and usually missing us as we have our morning tea break under the oak trees. Sometimes the roads sides are strewn with acorns.

Groans, then giggles, as a very stiff and sore pilgrim tries to get up after break on a long hard day.

Mobile phone ringing while climbing a steep hill. It always rings when climbing a steep hill! So good to hear from friends and family!

The welcoming voices of our pilgrim hosts as the expected 'pelligrini dell'Australia' arrive at the church, parish centre or hostel. Then the wonderful explanations of where the beds are and what is in the kitchen cupboards and that there is hot water and more conversation that we probably don't really understand but it is amazing how much can be communicated without a common language.

From our first morning, gunshots have been resounding along the way. In the rice and maize fields of Lombardia, the Appenines hills of Emelia Romana, in the Tuscan hills and sheep country of Lazio. We have not often come in contact with the hunters but know they are around. One fine Saturday morning as we left Monteriggioni along a forest path, we found a bag and umbrella hanging from a tree. Now if you were a pilgrim walking a pilgrim trail, your first thought would be that another poor pilgrim had left them behind. Your second thought would be that you might even know this poor pilgrim (as you are slow walking pilgrims and might have met this pilgrim a few days earlier). So the obvious thing to do is to inspect the contents of the bag. Not a bad idea. But it was our first meeting with a pheasant hunter which became obvious when

1. There were gun shot pellets in the bag.
2. A man wearing hunting gear and carrying a gun cleared his throat and indicated that it might not be the best idea to be searching through his bag.

All ended well with a few embarrassed and apologetic gestures.

From Merran.

One kitchen chair

What a day! Another one full of the unexpected. As I write now, Tim and I are sitting in the kitchen of a 15th century convent (actually he is standing at the stove as I am sitting on the only chair) and we are about to have a bowl of minestrone soup. We had thought we would be the only ones here tonight but to our joy our French pilgrim friends, Anne and Stan, have just arrived after deciding to join us here rather than the hostel they had booked. We are only now missing Francoise, our other co-pilgrim for the last 2 nights.

This morning in glorious sunshine we started out from under the tower on top of Radicofani expecting a long but mainly downhill 30+ km day. An initial steep descent over a few k through sheep country brought us in contact with a few dogs and the chance to confirm the effectiveness of my dog deterrent. We have over the last few days often come across large white sheep dogs that live with their herds, and are very protective. We had the choice after 12 km to take the via Francigena for another 21 km or walk alongside the via Cassio (a main road to Rome) into Aquapendente and cut about 8 km off the day's walk. Foolhardy as we are, we took the long route. What a glorious walk it was! We zipped into our shorts, and strode out, feeling ever so fit and strong. I have noticed my energy is fine for maybe 90 minutes then I crash. A bite to eat and I'm off again!

We were delighted to arrive in a beautiful town called Procena and even more delighted at the prospect of an afternoon treat. Walking up the main road in our shorts we realised that a funeral procession was coming down towards us. We slipped off our hats, pulled to one side and hoped that we looked respectful enough as the townspeople followed the priests and the hearse to the cemetery.

By now we were pretty stiff and sore and knew that if we had taken the short route we would have arrived by now. A ginseng-spiked coffee restored my spirits and off we went for the final 8 km. Probably the most dangerous stretch of road we have been on with cars tearing through the hilly roads often missing us by whiskers. Then we turned off the main road again onto a track which went up. And up. And up some more. The feeling of exultation I experienced on turning a corner and realising that we had arrived at our destination was short-lived.

The next hour was one of the strangest we have yet experienced on the trip. The official route took us behind a restaurant, down past an abandoned orchard, through a grotto type trail with stinging nettles everywhere, then up past pigpens and kennels up a really steep road and through an arched gate, all to miss walking alongside the via Cassio we presume. We then got a little off the track so to rejoin it, went up and up and up some more, until finally Tim found where our accommodation was on the GPS. Of course the convent was at the end of another huge hill. I practised my turtle impersonation again, and could hardly make it to the convent. We were met at the top of the road by a very friendly couple of children who were so excited to meet Australian pellegrini (pilgrims) and rang the convent bell for us. 2 old nuns greeted us, and we were shown the kitchen with a well-stocked pantry, and given the choice of rooms upstairs. A hot shower and minestrone soup cooked by my husband, what more could anyone want!

One of the thrills of being here, at the top of the hill, is that we now can look back as far as we can see to Radicofani to the north, and only yesterday morning it was as far as we could see to the south.

So here we are, an extra chair was found in the old Refettorio, so we now have one each to enjoy the pasta, and recover from 67 km in 2 days. We have had a chat to both our daughters and are very excited as we look forward to Kaye and Sophie meeting us at Bolsena tomorrow and visiting Orvieto.

Buon apetito! From Merran

To Radicofani

A morning tea stop. We propped up a car seat with our walking poles. It was lying on it's side under a tree. We finally worked out where Radicofani was. It began the day as the most distance hip top we could see and we ended up at the village on the other side of the castle. About 5 kms short of Radicofani we passed the 200km to go to Rome.

Radicofani

We have had a couple of really good days walking, and also enjoying the company of other pilgrims. It has also been good to keep in touch with Sophie who is loving staying with Kaye in Orvieto.

Yesterday as Tim mentioned we arrived in the early afternoon and Anna very graciously met us and let us into the great Pilgrim hostel in San Quirico. It was very narrow with 2 very tall, very narrow staircases going up up up, with a kitchen perched on one side and 2 rooms up the very top. After a great time wandering around we met up again with our French friend Anne who was now accompanied by her son Stan. Then before tea another French lady, Francoise, arrived. We all went out to dinner together and enjoyed bilingual conversation.

Before 6 we were up, had caffe latte, ham and eggs for breakfast, made ham and cheese panini for picnic lunches, and out the door before 7:30.

What a day! We knew we had a lot of climbing to do today, but were not sure which hilltop our destination was on. We kept guessing until 2/3 of the way it became evident that the tower-topped hill, as far away as we could see, was Radicofani. To our great delight we walked all the way, 33.5 km with an ascent of over 1000 m.

Now we are again enjoying the company of our 3 French friends, and clean clothes and soft shoes.

At one stage today, I was incredibly aware of how happy and content I was in that moment: Warm sunshine, vast space, sense of challenge and achievement, solitude and companionship. I realise that I will really miss this journey when it is over. Hence Tim's encouragement to me to journal what it is that is so special while it is happening.

Love from Merran.

More Tuscany photos up

We have a slightly better 3G connection tonight so I have uploaded some more photos from Tuscany.

Tuscany Photos

San Quirico

Walking out of Buonconvento this morning on the way to San Quirico we followed a ridge fairly high above the town with great 360 views of the Tuscan hills. At one point just as we walked past a deserted hilltop farm (there are quite few on our trail), I looked down and in one vista there was Italy...... Hilltop farms with Cypress lined driveways, vineyards, olive groves and fallow fields ready to plant in spring, on hills and in valleys, walled villages with church towers, stone houses crowded around cobblestone streets, then new housing developments on the edge of town, supermarkets and industrial zones, and finally on the edge of town a block of individual garden plots, everything except the artichokes has been harvested.

We made San Quirico in good time today, rested up, and supplied ourselves for tomorrow. 33kms of up and down, we climb to 800m overall with no supply points on the track. This is our biggest and most demanding day so far, it is mountain terrain but becomes barren, exposed and wild toward the the end. I am about to check our friend Manuel's blog to see how he went today.

Sophie takes a break

Soph has found the Tuscan hills and her boots a bit of a challenge. Not to mention 4 solid weeks in constant company of her parents, no sleeping in and 364.7kms on foot through varied terrain. So when our Aussie friend Kaye from Orvieto happened to message us and offer Soph some space, time to sleep in, read, watch movies and eat her home cooking for a few days, she could hardly refuse. Kaye and a friend drove to Buonconvento today and we met there over lunch. Soph messaged us a while ago from Orvieto enjoying a Thai Curry and a good movie.

We now face 100kms in four days through San Quirico, Radicofani, Aquapendente to Lake Bolsena. There are a couple 30km days which are described encouragingly in the guide book as "very strenuous uphill stage". Another reason Soph felt Orvieto looked like a good idea. We may well come to appreciate her wisdom!

We are staying this evening high up on a Tuscan hill with 360 degree views, overlooking Buonconvento. A thunderstorm is brewing in the distance and the weather seems to be cooling. We plan for a fairly early start in the morning.

PS we have no idea if anyone is reading this blog, love to see any comments if anyone is there!!!!

Hospitality in Siena

Last night we stayed in a convent in Siena which was rather hard to find. Finally
Tim knocked on the door of a church and was redirected to number 4 on the same street. No markings at all other than the street number, we knocked and a nun came to door and let us in. To our surprise, 2 pilgrims we had met the previous day were already there and another Irish guy walking in the opposite direction. From being on our own it was fun to have others to share with, and conversations in several languages.

The warmth of our hosts' hospitality was truly a gift of grace. The nuns were so friendly, chatty and provided a generous evening meal as well as good coffee and pastries for breakfast. Again, we have been deeply encouraged by the life and vitality in the Christian communities we have visited.

The sisters loved this photo, taken this morning on Tim's iPad, especially that they could check it out 'pronto'.

The end of a series of unfortunate incidents......

So when I tipped a glass of red wine all over Merran in a restaurant this evening it was just about as much as we could do not to dissolve into 1/2 laughter, 1/2 tears!!

The day started with Soph in all kinds of pain due to blisters and sore feet, not at all sure she could manage our 20kms. But she bravely soldiered on. The track today went backwards and forwards around hills and valleys. It felt like every time we came to the top of a hill, there was Siena, again, no further away than when we last looked.

Some new highways, not marked on the map, made the going difficult, with multiple routes marked. We had to back track at one stage where our route ended at a new unmarked highway and take a different path about a km back. Thanks to the GPS we could at least see where we needed to get to.

Then we had to laugh coming into the last town, which is off the main track, where we were staying. Google maps gave us a good route plan, only to find the planned road was completely closed due to major roadworks, not just with warning signs, but serious non climbable barricades. At this point we were not about to look for another road. Soph found a way around the barricades through a disused farm, and at the other end of the closed road we tracked through a ploughed field and crossed a deep ditch to regain the roadway to town. Just as we cleared the road works it started to rain!!

Soph was in lots of pain today, our 20kms took 4 hours yesterday and 7 today. I even strapped her pack onto mine for part of the day. So we were feeling a bit discouraged and down as we unpacked our gear and showered.

Merran was finally comfortable and clean in bed at the place we are staying and looking forward to my freshly brewed espresso coffee, which I thoughtfully delivered and then spilled over her, the bed and pillow.

So we were thankful for a really good meal in a simple restaurant, so good we decided to share bits with each other...... Which is how I came to start this saga!

Some of Sophie's photos of the day.....