This morning I opened my eyes and it looked like it was afternoon: heavy clouds and a thin rain reminded me that I am on the mountains and the warmth of the paddy fields is behind me! Despite the urge to roll on my side and go back to sleep, I got up and ready: I must always keep going! It was Suor Bibiana who made me smile with a good breakfast (enough for three people with the celiac disease!) She also found an ultra nonagenarian priest who blessed me: my first blessing!
After breakfast, I left: the rain wasn’t nothing terrible and in half an hour it was off.
The stage today was very beautiful, even if it was very difficult and longer than the guide book said: it was more suitable to the hikers than to the pilgrim with a big backpack: it is necessary to pay close attention to the stretches in the woods, where the path becomes narrow and slyppery, especially in this weather! Anyway, I went through the silent woods of Val di Susa, disturbed only by the works for the TAV and by the highway. I saw waterfalls and lakes and I walked through small villages, half abandoned, but full of charm because they are the witnesses of a time when the mountain still was inhabited.
I saw the Fort of Exilles, where they say that “the Iron Mask” was imprisoned. Today it is the kingdom of many signposts saying “Once upon a time in Exilles”… Once upon a time, there were many activities in this small village that a few decades ago counted more than 3000 souls, but today there are mostly closed shutters. Nevertheless, it’s in Exilles where I met the first people who precisely asked me if I was going to Compostela. And the urge to sing the pilgrims’ song came to me: a song that I learned in Grañón. Maybe, thanks to my magic voice (!), I could witness the escape of two chamois and a lot of squirrels along the Franks’ Path that crosses the Natural Park of the Great Wood of Salbertrand.
Now I’m resting at the Salesians’ in Oulx, together with two more pilgrims: Giancarlo who is walking to Rome, and Stefano, who will walk with me from tomorrow on.
