Campagnana to La Storta

A group of 22 people had arrived in the hotel yesterday evening, and breakfast was a bit of a failure because they arrived just before us: a cross between locusts, galahs and coffee addicts, made worse by there being only one poor guy to make coffee, clear tables and restock the paltry offering. He was cheerful, regardless, and once the horde left, there was peace, but no bread.

We left at 8:30, bought rolls at a Carrefours Express on the way out of town, and went up a steep road for quite a while, then a nice track through woods and fields. We caught the Pack from the hotel after a short, sharp burst up s steep hill, when we all stopped at an old church (Santuario della Madonna del Sorbo - site mentioned in 996, built in 15th C, has a copy now of its 11th C painting (original in a museum)) and then we left them behind as we went through woods snd fields to a town called Formello.

We expected Formello to be a boring satellite of Rome, but there was a museum in an old Orsini family's castle/palace, and the lady there wanted us to walk up the 100+ steps in the new tower (not visible from the street). The views were great, as were the Etruscan and Roman artefacts we had to walk by.

Being quite near Rome, we also expected roads, but spent most of the day walking through more shady woods and fields, and past paddocks of wheat. We had lunch in the corner of a field where the farmer was ploughing (off-set discs and a Landini (not Lamborghini) tractor). By the time we left he was finishing his runs up and down only 20m from us. He waved and smiled.

The next hill we went past was an Etruscan grave site that was being used at the start of the Italian Iron Age, ie from around 1000 BC, then a small village called Veio that had Etruscans then Romans there even before the Iron Age (so in the Bronze Age). They have records of it being a farming village, then a hill fort, one of six major Etruscan cities, a Roman city (Rome won the war) and then deserted from around 300AD, ie after being inhabited for 1600 years. People moved back and built on the ruins many centuries later. There was a large archaeological site beside the path just outside the town, where the Romans had had a huge villa complex. It was fenced off, though, and nothing could be seen bar the ubiquitous holes carved into the sides of the road and the cliffs between the river and the site.

From there it was perhaps 30 minutes through houses and roads to the hotel.

We are now only 18km from the Vatican, and our hotel is on the old main road (Via Cassia), but we were on the main road for only 400m today. The hotel has a separate wing that is quite new, and luxuries like a kettle (but no cups...) and charging points by the bed.

For dinner we stopped at the first place near here: a pizzeria. Excellent.

31,044 steps, 24.9km and 80 flights. Tomorrow is only 17km to the Vatican. Pilgrims walking more than 100km to reach it can see quite a lot, but rather than arriving in the afternoon and having to leave to check in, we might check in first and officially arrive Friday.Читать далее