100DaysOnTheWay, Senza categoria, Travelogue

Day 10: Susa – Oulx

23 October 2014 admin Leave a comment

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.

100DaysOnTheWay, Travelogue

Notes about my Way in Italy

Aside 13 October 2014 admin Leave a comment

These first 10 days of walk in Italy were, on one hand, very beautiful, and on the other one, very difficult. They were very beautiful thanks to all the friends I met for the first time of after a long time we hadn’t seen each other, for the time we shared and for the love I received and I gave. It was wonderful to see how this “strange” experience I am living is arising so much enthusiasm and the curiosity of many people: their support repayed the loneliness and the fatigue. And I also learned new things: for example, do you know that the hikers in Piemonte should thank all those volunteers who go doing ranze runze? This means that they go cleaning and fixing the markings on the trails… Carlo taught me this very nice word! And Accob too does ranze runze on the Via Francigena, even if his tools are a bicycle and the markings he leaves on the trail… that’s true, because the ways don’t get marked by themselves!
On the other side, these first days of walk, that are about the 10% of the total, put me on the test. This surely is a very different experience from the Camino Francés, where the keyword is compartir. A part from the people I wrote about and from my family, I cannot really say that there are many people with whom I could share. A few km from Susa, we asked for information to a boy and he simply told us: “I didn’t really believe that somebody walked the Francigena”. And indeed, during 6 days on the Via Francigena I’ve never shared the bedroom with anybody else than Alessandro, and I met only 5 other pilgrims while I was walking. But, contrary to the current position, the Francigena (at least for what concerns the part I walked) is not very expensive: on 6 stages I had to sleep in a B&B only once, paying only 20€ for a studio flat. All the other nights, the hospitality was granted to the pilgrims on donativo (the Spanish way of saying free offer). By the way, it is also true that people still look at the pilgrim with curiosity, or maybe better: like a “strange” person who wanders among fields that he doesn’t know… as the word “pilgrim” means. In terms of education, awareness, dissemination and promotion, there still is a long way to go, but the heritage that we have is very rich and the way is walked mostly by foreigners who are better aware of this than we are.
A last thing that is very clear to me, after these first ten days is that, for me, getting older means learning to deal with the stress of the separation, from my relative, for whom I’m worried, of course, and from my husband, who I miss in the same way I would miss a harm… In short, my 30th year gave me realization that I can no longer walk with my backpack emptied of the worries about my home, like I did in 2008…

100DaysOnTheWay, Travelogue

Day 9: Sant’Ambrogio di Torino – Sacra di San Michele – Susa

10 October 2014 admin Leave a comment

Today it was a hard one, mainly because of two reasons. The first one was the necessity of arriving in Susa by 4 p.m., so that Alessandro could catch the train to Turin. The second was the constant presence since morning of big and nasty dark clouds over the northern mountains. Naturally, we can also add the fact that we don’t like easy things, so, since we didn’t manage to go to visit the Sacra di San Michele yesterday in the afternoon, we decided to do it today! So, we added more or less 4km with an average gradient of 18% to a stage that was already 29km long. But we did it: 33km in 7 hours and something, with the ascent and descent to the Sacra for breakfast… In the worst tradition of speedy walkers, but that’s it!
I’ve been walking for the whole day with my heart torn apart: Alessandro already takes on a hard charge for reaching me around on the Way and, if he had missed the train at 4 p.m. he would have arrived at home after midnight, and tomorrow he will have to leave at the sunrise, also having his luggage to prepare… But, on the other hand, I didn’t want to let him go: now, we will have to wait for a long time before we can see each other again. Getting older I’m also softening, I know, but I’m already missing him so much!
Anyway, a part from these considerations that are merely personal, the stage is very beautiful, the Way winds its way between the left and right side of the valley.The Sacra di San Michele is wonderful (we will have to go back there: when we arrived there it was still closed!) and it’s worth climbing there! Unluckily, today we couldn’t really enjoy the scenery because of the weather…
Now I’m writing from the harmchair in my single room at the Sisters of San Giuseppe, here in Susa: for the room and for her caring affection, I really must thank Suor Bibana, who takes care of the pilgrims!

100DaysOnTheWay, Senza categoria, Travelogue

Days 7 and 8: Torino – Sant’Ambrogio Torinese

10 October 2014 admin Leave a comment

Yesterday, I didn’t really have the energy to write anything: I was destroyed and I prefered to enjoy a bit of relax and of the company of my friends and guests in Turin… I hope you will accept my excuses!

By the way, yesterday morning I left with the best wishes that don Patrice could wish me, without sounding too much skeptical about my chances of avoiding the rain. And, surprisingly, I had a wonderful day: sunny and warm!

Walking in the middle of the fields wet with dew and the rain of last night, I literally drank the first part of the stage, arriving in Chivasso. In front of the cathedral, I got free of my backpack and I waited for Valeria, a pilgrim friend who helped a friend of mine who was having a bad time. After sharing a cappuccino, we started walking together for the first stretch of the way in direction of Turin. We said goodbye after meeting a lady who was “working” on the trail. After something than 2km I met Carlo, another pilgrim friend who came to meet me from San Mauro Torinese. We walked together along the Po and to Gassino and San Mauro. We reached once again the Po, but the stretch of walk that I still needed to do to arrive to my friend’s Barbara home, was still 10km long. With some 30km on my back, even if I didn’t really like the idea of taking a bus, it really sounded like a nonsense to walk 40km today, with the last 10 across Turin.

So, Carlo took me along a nice tour on the bu 61 to Porta Nuova and on the driver-free metro, until we got to Barbara’s home… and we found her walking Margot, her beautiful dog.

For dinner, my husband Alessandro arrived and we all went out for a Piemontese dinner with Barbara, Marco, Manu and her husband Michele… and their beautiful baby, Sofia!

This morning, Alessandro and I went back to the Francigena, walking along Corso Francia and leaving Turin to go to Rivoli, Rosta and the church of Sant’Antonio di Ranverso: a jem well hidden at the beginning of the Val di Susa. The paintings date at the beginning of the XV century and they left us open mouthed. After the visit, we proceeded to Avigliana, where we stopped for a snack.

The kiwi and the banana must have clouded our eyes, because we promptly lost the arrows and we found them only out of the historical center. Being a bit in advance for arriving in Sant’Ambrogio, we also enjoyed a quick lunch at the bar Tritolo, at the dynamite museum of Avigliana.

We’ve walked the last 3km with the company of the Sacra di San Michele, which dominated the landscape from above… now we are waiting for Don Romeo, to move in, drop our backpack and go to visit Saint Michael in his eagle’s nest!