Saturday, September 6th
We’re still traversing the Apennine mountains and had another hard day of hiking: 14 miles with 2500 feet of elevation gain. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s not really the distance or the elevation gain that has been so exhausting, but more the difficulty of the terrain. Although the rocky uphills are hard, it’s the steep downhills that slow us to a crawl and leave us with aching feet.
On the plus side, we had a beautiful clear day and, once we reached the top of Monte Valoria (4,061 feet high and our highest elevation of the day), we could see 360 degrees around us. We also crossed into Tuscany at the top of the Passo della Cisa. It was also at a cafe at the Cisa Pass that we met a group of Irish pilgrims who happened to be staying at the same B&B we’re staying at tonight. Had a wonderful group dinner with the three Irish gentlemen (Val, Gerry, and Aushy (sp?) and Jose, a young man from Nicaragua. We all commiserated together about the difficulty of today’s track. They’ve all crossed the Great Saint Bernard Pass and walked the steep downhill from there to Aosta and said the trail today was harder than coming down from the Alps.
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| Low clouds in the morning |
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| Almost to the top of Monte Valoria |
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| Resting our poles after the long climb up |
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| Another view from the mountain top |
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| Sanctuary of the Madonna della Guardia at Cisa Pass |
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| Via Francigena gateway to Tuscany |
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| Navigating a rocky forest path |
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| More uphill climbing |
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| At the top of Il Cucchero |
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| Celbrating the view from the big red bench |
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| Magra River |
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| Our home for the night - B&B Temperance |
Sunday, September 7th
On our way out of town today we first crossed the Ponte de Groppodalasio, a picturesque stone bridge built in 1574, and then started a long uphill climb toward Passo della Croceta, our high point of the day. Total mileage was 13 miles with @ 1500 feet of elevation gain. The terrain is still very rocky, but we should be out of the mountainous area by Wednesday and are hoping it will improve.
Rich got a ride to Pontremoli from our B&B this morning and then took a train to Filattiera. Our plan was to walk to Pontremoli, meet him for lunch before his 1:00 pm train and then continue our trek to Filattiera. It took us longer to get to Pontremoli than we had anticipated so we missed him for lunch, but ended up having lunch with Val, Gerry and Aushy.
Our accommodations tonight were rooms above a restaurant/pizzeria and, when we arrived there, the doors were all locked. Rich had gotten there before us and tried knocking on the door without any luck, so he waited in the shade of a dilapidated building. When we finally met up with him it was after 3:30 pm and we decided to try knocking on the door again. This time, restaurant staff were there, let us in, and showed us to our rooms. The fun didn’t stop here though.
Becky and Jerry had a number of hornets taking up residence in their room! There were no other rooms to move to (all 4 rooms were booked) and no other accommodations in this small town. Restaurant staff were able to kill the hornets in the room, Becky and Jerry closed all their windows (as did we), and turned up the air conditioning. We had no other issues after this, but we’ll all be glad to leave this town behind us.
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| Crossing the Ponte de Groppodalasio |
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| Church steeple in Groppodolasio |
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| Peaceful refuge on our journey |
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One of the small towns we walked through today
was getting ready for a soapbox derby race |
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