Via Francigena 2017

Above is Wynette pretending to be concerned. Below is her crossing.

It is not clear to us what this is about. Graffiti in an underpass. 

We are starting to see these. The table seems to be in some disrepair though. The park 200 feet back had much better tables.

In the background are the mountains we start climbing tomorrow.

We just started seeing them in bloom today.

In some places we have to walk along busy roads. This is a photo looking back at Medesana. The road was busy with lots of trucks and morning traffic. Here is the other direction.

It was like this for about a mile, then we took a turn off to a new EAVF path. It was 1.5 miles farther and up 300 feet and back down again at the end but worth it. The old trail followed this road for four miles. Here are going up the hill and later meeting some friendly dogs.

A fair amount of the VF is along roads and some parts along busy roads. They are gradually modifying the route to avoid the busier roads. This has been done over the years on the Camino de Santiago also.

It seems Kennedy was popular in Italy. Last year in Portugal and Spain four or five people, on finding out we were from the US, told us how much they liked Obama. Some mentioned what a great democracy they thought the US was. 

On this trip we were in a bar with a guy from Equador who had lived in Italy for 15 years. He liked Obama also. He pointed to his skin and said “chocolate”. I guess people of color all over the world were inspired that Obama was President.

I think you can guess the reaction we are getting about the Orange One. Three different people have expressed their dislike. One guy went into a long discussion about how we should have supported Bernie Sanders.

Did you know we are really Canadian?

We see these in bars and in stores. And lots of smaller ones. Easter will fall towards the end of our hike, about three days from Siena.

It is not unusual to have to ford a stream. In a rainy spring this can be hard. This one was pretty easy, the water was only 2-3 inches deep and we just walked through and counted on the waterproofing. Sometimes you have to remove your boots. That has not happened to us. The 40 km we skipped had some stream fording and that was one reason we skipped it, another reason was the walking on busy roads.

Here we are in the middle of the old track we took on 3/30. No signs, no footprints, overgrown. Without the GPS track we would have given up. Here I am a little later checking the track on my phone.