Via Francigena 2017

We had a somewhat hard day yesterday. We only walked about 11 miles but that is a good distance for us. That had made three eleven mile days in a row and my feet were starting to burn. It was 95% walking on asphalt along roads, some quite busy and noisy. And the sun was relentless. Leave it to Charlie and me to complain about 70 degree days being too hot if we can’t find shade. We were very hot, sweaty, and tired when we finally got to Altopascio, a small town at the end of the first stage past Lucca. But we had a treat waiting for us. We found a lovely B&B which I’ll write more about later. And Altopascio is a great little town. Not spectacular enough to bring in a whole lot of tourists but still lovely.

The above is the main church in Altopascio. I loved all the add-ons. Our B&B is just behind it. I included the photo to show what the Italian weather-people mean by “partly cloudy”. Every day the weather forecast will say “partly cloudy” (or even sometimes rain) but for days and days there haven’t been any clouds dense enough to block the sun. So, yes, we are complaining that the weather has been 70s and sunny.

Early in the trip we passed this, noted it, and walking straight on. 30 feet later we get the “off track” warning since clearly (now we see it) this means the trail turns. No problem being dense if you have the track following app backing you up.

Each day we pass one or more small road or trail-side shrines. Earlier on they were mostly open and, remarkably, not vandalized. But lately, they’ve mostly been behind protective bars. Above photo taken between the bars. Below from a bit further back.

Here are two that were out in the open:

We’ve written about the pilgrim hostel in Valpromaro. These (above and below) are the two hospitaleri who took care of us and cooked our wonderful dinner and breakfast. Hospitaleri are the volunteers who run the hostels on the Via and the Camino. Volunteers come from all over, including the United States, to manage the hostels for a certain number of weeks. The man above is from Spain. He spoke a little English and, I think, pretty good Italian. He said he was going to be there two weeks in all. The man below is Italian and he apologetically said he only speaks Italian.  All of us pilgrims were chatting away in English at the meals so I felt bad that they could not join in the whole conversation. We did ask them questions as best we could.

This hostel doesn’t charge a fee but takes donations.  Pilgrims on the Camino in Spain know these as “donativo albergues”.  Charlie and I decided to donate 10 each for the bed plus 15 each for the meals. The next morning we left fairly early.  We were about a mile away, going up a steep hill, when we remembered we had not remembered to leave a donation. Oh dear! When we got to a high point where we had phone service I called the hostel and told the Spanish hospitalero our predicament. I said we’d like to mail the donation to him.  He said he didn’t know where we should send it. He said “No problem. Next time you stay you can leave a bigger donation.” We felt bad but decided to continue on. We sure didn’t want to backtrack.  Then, a few miles later, we were walking on a small paved road and the Italian hospitalero passed us in a car.  He waved and then slowed down and then stopped to say hello to us. He said he was on his way into Lucca. (A long 11 mile walk by foot and a fast trip by car.)  We told him about forgetting the donation and so we were able to give it to him to take back to the hostel.

If you zoom in, you might be able to read that the note says Emma was born on March 8. We’ve seen two of these now. Must be to announce a new baby in the home.

We stopped for coffee in Cappanori on walk yesterday from Lucca to Altopascio. This large sign was in the coffee bar. It means Coffee should be hot as hell, black as the devil, pure as an angel and sweet as love.

The VF has at least three generations of signage and I have seen a dozen or more kinds of markers. Here are a few of them on one post.

At the beginning the signage was minimal, just at places you have a choice and sometimes not even then. Since we got into Tuscany we are getting many more signs. What you want are clear signs at the choice points and frequent “yes don’t worry, you are still on the VF” signs. On the Camino the yellow arrows do this. On the VF this is done with the white over red stickers, second from the top above. Basically a bumper sticker, it can go on vertical posts or any surface. They give you reassurance you didn’t miss a turn.

We haven’t said too much about dogs. When we go by houses, which we do a lot on the VF, we often have a dog barking at us. After we got this photo the dog got up and started barking at us.

With a tiny fountain in the center.

You see these a lot on the Camino but this is the first one we’ve seen on the VF. A 74 year old Belgian pilgrim died here in 2015.