Yesterday, April 1, was a pretty walk starting into the mountains but it made us realize how hard the full mountain trail would be. The path over the mountains is 35 miles total which we planned to do over 5 days. The pass is at 3300 feet but if you count the ups and downs it would be up 7000 feet and down 7000 feet. Also there are no places to stop to rest or eat in the mountains (between night stops) and since rain was predicted that would be very difficult. It is one thing to sit on the grass for a picnic lunch on a sunny day and another when it is windy and rainy. Finally the track included a lot of road walking. Some of the roads have more traffic than others but, for example, the road we walked on several miles yesterday had about one car a minute coming from one direction or the other. That is tiring and not fun because the roads have very narrow, almost nonexistent, shoulders.
So, since apparently we are not die-hard pilgrims, we decided to take a train from Fornovo to Pontremoli and skip those remaining 30 miles and 4 days in the mountains. The train took 45 minutes.
So now we are on the south side of the mountains in the beautiful Tuscan village of Pontremoli, no walking today except around town. Tomorrow we start walking the VF again, heading further south into Tuscany.