Camino 2018/2019

15km up 955m down 422m. Up and down steep slippy limestone paths.
Onward today from the nice ostello with the well equipped kitchen and the lady Hospitalero with the loud voice under the bells that toll at 8pm and 6am for 30 rings! So an early start then. The Australian and Dutch group in the ostello beat us by road to Casio. Not by much though it is a bit further.
There was a rumour, unfounded, that it had stopped raining. But it’s not as much as yesterday. We go up the road to Bardone where there is a church of variable antiquity certainly Christian since 6C but quite possibly a pre Christian site on this ancient route across the north Appennines. Moving on we slip and slide up and up a path through the woods until we arrive at Castillo do Casola which has a fortified church.
It’s then down a path with discesa pericoloso signs, not for the last time today. We start towards the Devil’s false teeth they seem not far but well below. The next path is even worse and signs direct pilgrims with loads around a slightly less pericoloso route. We spot a few wild peonies and one of the non chlorophyll symbiotic plants we have seen before. Eventually we reach the teeth, a set of pinnacles guarding the valley up to Casio and have our sandwiches at picnic tables less than a km from the village.
We enter the village through the archway by an interesting fountain and quickly find the ostello we are booked in. The Hospitalero is there he shows us our rooms. Men and women, Betsy lucks in and is next found nearly asleep with her feet warmed by a fluffy creature of indeterminate type.

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18km Down into the valley of the Taro and back up out again. down 508m up 430m.
A good night inspite of the thunderstorm raging overhead. There’s a lovely rocking horse that we Betsy has to restrain herself from riding and bizarrely an Italian constitution on the bedside table. One cat looks a bit wet in the morning. We get a good breakfast from the farmer’s wife whose barn acts as a wind tunnel and had our clothes dry in no time. She urges us to stay on the road and avoid the path by the stream as it will be over its banks. It is still raining when we set off and this continues to a greater or lesser extent all day.
We pass a garage selling Jeeps, a popular make including one with high exhausts and air intake, which may be indicative of the countryside around here. The model on sale is called a Rubicon. Ray says it can’t have a GPS system as the position of the Rubicon is unknown today.
Unsure of feeding arrangements in Sivizzano on a Sunday we shop in the supermarket at the end of the bridge in Fornovo de Taro. In fact there is a good bar that would have been happy to cook is a meal.
We are 8 in the ostello tonight us pluse two Aussies a Dutchman and an American with a trolley.
Tomorrow is a big ascent but only 15km. There is no phone signal or WiFi in the valley so this post will be late. Found WiFi in the bar!

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24km Up and down several ridges and valleys. Maybe up 860m down 620m.
We leave the stoney carved city of Fidenza with its church and fine ostello rapidly getting into fields and soon, very soon the route goes up and along a very straight track between two rows of ancient black mulberry trees. A church named for St Thomas Beckett appears above us and then we are down and the day of up and down begins.
The bird life has changed no more egrets or herons but kestrels and a buzzard. Nightingales are still singing in the trees and butterflies, more blues and occasional Red Admirals flit in the patches of sunshine between clouds.
It remains cool thankfully and we climb up and down to around 300m in Miano. On the way delights such as a large hairy spider Tim prevents being run over by a tractor, to the bemusement of the farmer driving it. And a very long horned beetle. The bar in Costamenzzano is just 300m off route but we’ll worth the visit for a gratuitous timbro with a squirrel among other things on it. A lunch spot by the church in Cello has seats and a water fountain our lunch is consumed. 100m further there is an unexpected bar well it would be ungrateful not to use it. Shortly after we encounter the second ford of the trip but no film crew this time.
On the final climb Ray spots a fine orchid in flower new to us it may be one for our on call botanist Paul.
By 3.30 we get to Santa Nicola a farm B&B whose lady does all our washing and then climbs a ladder to hang it to dry in the barn. We are not even allowed to wash our coffee cups and the shower has a digital thermometer in the showerhead! Luxury, we are usually very happy if it’s mounting bracket holds it vaguely in the right direction. The dogs are very friendly the cats all seven that we saw, slightly less so.

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ONLY 20km.
We stayed last night in an Agri Tourismo these are country located privately run places to stay and have a range of prices, ours is still in the development phase and was a cheaper than many. Farm buildings have been and are still being converted and it has a friendly black Labrador just recovering from an operation on its back leg.
Today hopefully we have a somewhat shorter day along the Via Aemilia and are in no hurry to start. We have been following the route of this Roman trunk road for some days, presumably in the days of Empire it was straight now it is like the labradors bad leg as many centuries of agriculture using every inch of fertile ground have resulted in a route that resembles the squashed snake we see on the road. Several more nightingales sing along the way and Betsy manages to spot one of these secretive nondescript looking birds. It’s all tarmac again today as we zig zag again across these fertile fields
There is a fine Cistercian Abbey in Chiaravalle della Colomba we stop for a while and enter wondering if we are respectably enough dressed as the sign outside requests.
Around 1pm we get to Bastelli which has a community recreation area next to the church. It has benches and a table ideal for lunch. Our bread is very crumbly and we hope the clean up squad in the shape of a sparrow flock going in and out of a brickwork hole can cope.
After a couple of railway and autoroute crossings we arrive in Fidenza with church with its flamboyant carved stonework. After a beer just round the corner from the tourist office we check in and get keys to the ostello which is just back round the church. Walking back we once again are starring on Italian TV. The film drone follows us around the church but we are not up to our usual standard and have to Take 2. We are still quite early so washing and shopping are relaxed. Tony thinks perhaps mozzarella may be worth eating.

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32km AGAIN!! flat but we can see hills to the south. The rain gradually stops and the sun comes out.
We share the neat and well provided for ostello with an Italian from Turino. He seems quite clued up with organising himself for walking. We discover he walked back to Italy from Bali via the Silk Road more or less. Two years. Now he wants to see something of Italy! We spend an interesting evening swapping travel stories.
The cafe across the road provides breakfast and we are off across the flat lands on the south side of the river that will not be mentioned. The irrigation system is not as advanced pumps and lengths of hose snake across the fields. Hills loom in the south we turn from them racing across the plains first southern East and North crossing several small fiumes and torrentes. The good news is that coffee and later beer present themselves at regular intervals. We eat oranges outside a closed church with a benevolent looking creator in terracotta on the gable end.
The highlight of the day is turning down a grit track to a ford with partly submerged stepping stones and mud at each side. The Torrente caused by yesterday’s rain is subsiding. There is an Italian film crew awaiting our crossing. We hope we put on a good show.
Eventually we get to the unpronounceable town beginning with F.As we cross the footbridge, our Italian film friends are waiting to film us crossing under a Via Francigena sign,no explanation is given and no contracts signed we just wave to them as if they were long lost cousins It has a modestly interesting not very gothic church, We have a beer in town as we have now done the planned 28km with two more to go out of town (eastwards, why are we going east? to loop around and go up a SW running valley across the northern Appennines). We find our accomodation an Agro Tourismo looks quite plush! They have never heard of us. We try to explain we are film stars and will be on TV soon. It is no good we eventually realise it is the wrong Agro Tourismo. Our booking is just up the road. You guessed it another 2km! But happily no more fords.

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32km flat
We get directed by the mayor to a grand little restaurant a km out of town. It is not obvious when we arrive but our waiter is also arriving and ushers us in though unmarked doors. It is not quite empty but has a large car park, of the three other patrons two leave soon after our arrival but we get an excellent seafood meal involving pasta shellfish fish, cephalopods and chips. Complete with wine 20 euros a head. But the waiter goes to ask the other patron how much he should charge. He then gets to his feet to work the credit card machine. He is the boss. We walk back to town after a slightly surreal experience.
In the morning we are off to the ferry 3km away. The three Germans in the hostel are off before us, no stereotyping. But wait kindly to tell us where to get our timbros. We find the pontoon for the ferry down the bank as expected. The Po here is maybe twice the size of the Severn at Worcester in UK.
We wait there is no sign of the boat. Thoughts of Domani come to mind. As if to rub it in a woodpecker flits across the 200m of gently but steadily flowing Po. A cuckoo mocks from the far bank, a few more million gallons of water slide by. Tony communicates with the mayor who booked the ferry for us and the non Italian non English speaking Germans. A reply returns, Charon is busy he may be here at 11am. We elect to walk.
A very long walk down the Ciclovia Po ensues. It is some 10m above the surrounding fields and is a levee. Snow or more likely seeds from the multiple plantations of poplar trees falls freely and covers some fields. A fluviometer on the side shows a flood in 2000 almost over the top. There are few buildings along the bank except for one cafe at a summer campsite, open for coffee and cake, much needed. The only other bright spot is a sight of two hares in a nearby field.
Eventually,we finally cross the Po across an endless bridge into Piacenza.
We have been promised one of the most beautiful squares in Italy, but are it is raining and we are are tired so it’s delights escape us, yes there two large equestrian statues and some arches but……..
We refuel in an adjacent cafe before the final 5 k push through the city and out through the detritus of out of town shopping opportunities until we find our hostel for the night.
We get the keys from a local bar and promise to return later.
The hostel is good and and the water in the shower is warm even if hot means cold and cold means hot.
Later in the bar we worry about the cat we saw stranded on a high window ledge at last night’s hostel
Did the mayor manage a rescue?????

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17km not quite flat. We leave Lombardy for Emilia-Romagna
The fair was finished by 8pm and we found one Italian Oriental restaurant open with a good value 10euro fixed menu. In the morning the first of several cafes is open opposite Father Antonio’s parish rooms, where a good night’s sleep was had. Today is short to get nearly to the ferry across the Po, so we idle our way from cafe to bar across the fertile flood plains of the Po.
The second cafe lady obviously enjoys decorating our cappucini but the bar of the day award goes to the lady whose tapas include some sizeable chunks of panetoni made with orange peel and a toilet with a Plummer. We get a bag of panetoni to take away, and the bar has advertising from such illustrious names as Tennants from Scotland and Guinness from Ireland. But only Heineken on tap. This bar is spotted by the eagle nosed Tony and appears closed or defunct at first. All agree that the large pipe cleaners hanging in the doorway are a substantial clue.
The only other notable building en route is the Cusani castle in Chignolo Po, this had been in the family for five centuries. Now the lawyers have it it is a legal centre!
We reach the modern well appointed pilgrim hostel in Orio Litta and settle in quickly, the mayor arrives to check all is good and invites us to the running and cycling event passing through the town this afternoon. He speaks good English and stands chatting for a while with his little dog. We hopefully have him notifying Charon for tomorrow and he tells us of a restaurant with a pilgrim menu. The kitchen here is bijou!

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27km flat
We are quickly out in fields from the edge of Pavia and start the long slightly tedious day. Coffee and beer appear at expected intervals feet are placed one in front of other. St Leonardo provides great cappucini. In spite of the Italian reputation in this respect not all are good.
The day continues with failure to enter the church in San Giacomo Della Cerreta which is supposed to have good frescoes, and a long walk around a large quarry.
However Belgioioso, Ray can even pronounce it, is good with some great tapas with the beer from our oriental hosts. It is strange that a surprisingly high proportion of cafe proprietors in this area seem Vietnamese or similar. The town has a good castle with castellations and a drawbridge. The bank frequented by Betsy and Ray is also unusual.
The Tolkienesque Torre de Negre has a sort of Baradur tower but it is alas a modern utility.
We finally cross the Torrente Olona and weave our way across more fields of Acacia in full bloom which has been a feature for several days.
Our lodging tonight is in the hall adjacent to the church. A fair is setting up outside shortly after we arrive!

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25km Flat And WET.
We rise and since it’s Sunday the bad boys were not up. So breakfast was delayed for 5km to a café crammed with the local post mass crowd. Just down the road still in Gropello Carolli there is a church dedicated to St Rocco our saint with the dog and the bad leg. Mass is still in progress so we limit our visit to the outside. Though we would probably have been welcome.
In the evening yesterday we ate with the lads they had cooked and shared their pasta and fish fingers with us. It was great and very welcome if a bit loud with them shouting Italian names at us, the only one any of us recognised was a motor cyclist by Ray why you may well ask. No one reacted to the name of a famous mafioso!
Having met some other pilgrims in the second cafe in Villanova d’Ardeghi we walk a while with a one paced Dutchman discussing Brexit. But eventually leave him behind in the rain when we encounter a very wet path down the bank of the river Ticino. We get a beer out of the rain in a bar, which would be in a great position if not for the rain.
Continuing down the Ticino we see Common Terns. This comes as a suprise to us but apparently they nest communally up the Po which we cross in 2days time and into which the Ticino flows.
Crossing the Ticino into Pavia seems a major event across the reconstructed Ponte Coperto bridge a copy of the 14thC covered bridge bombed by the allies in WW2. A bride is having wedding photos taken on it in the rain. We feel for her, but .there is a pizzaria just at the far end into which we fall gratefully for lunch.
On exit Tim spots that the gellateria next door does timbros. It is enough of an excuse for Betsy who is feeling a bit gellato deficient. Two half price gellato (pilgrim rates they normally offer water but all felt there was enough outside) and we are on our way through Pavia dropping in on the Basilica with some fine stone carvings of various ages.
We find the apartment easily rented for the night via Booking.com. We use the hot shower gratefully and are amused it has now stopped raining!

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22km flat.
We were not the only people in the abbey lastnight two couples Italian and Canadian arrived later. One of them, Alessandro will be an Hospitalero further down the Via Francigena in August.
We leave in a cool morning after breakfast and scoot across the slightly damp field which warm gradually to reveal the usual herons and butterflies. We get to Remondo a nice little place with a café with cappucini with coaco and are then ushered into the church open at the time. Someone is cleaning, the ceiling frescoes are very good better than in many much bigger churches. We march on across fields and canals to Tremollo (not the 60s band) and are greeted by a TV star! Tony recognizes Carlos from the BBC program on the Via Francigena. He pedals of with our credentials and soon returns with them stamped and certificates and badges for passing through Tremollo. The force is indeed with us. He declined a beer with us and pedals off, every man should have a hobby! We have to see the church in this place it is a bit dark but with four bishops in silver behind the alter. We leave them all there not even the fourth is with us.
But Ray gets an email from his daughter Rosie in Sydney. She is in a Star Wars bar with a Blue Light Sabre we presume a cocktail. Modern communication is amazing.
Not many canals later we get a pizza for lunch in Garlasco and are unimpressed by the Municipio in the main square. Another couple of km and we arrive at an old mill, the Exodus Foundation a donativo hostel and institution for young offenders. Tim finds a regime of cold showers difficult! Betsy talks to those in charge and the rest get pleasant warm water.

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