La Storta to Rome 17.11.10

17.11.10 La Storta to Rome

Triumphant entry to Rome!

At breakfast at the convent there is another guest, a shy and very pale faced boy who could have stepped off the page of any mediaeval bible; get him into a brown cassock with a rope around his waist, re-style his hair with a tonsure and put a little edge of vine leaves and he’s that monk making the first letter on the page.

We step out of the oasis of the convent garden and onto the road. Bam, it’s peak hour, trucks and cars everywhere. People lined up waiting for buses to go to work. Real life is rather shocking, we’re not used to it.

But there’s nothing for it but to walk that horrid stretch of road. Nothing is going to stop us walking into St Peter’s. We stride out, let’s get it done. I‘m still lame, hobbling along, or I would be if my pride let me, and I would crawl there on hands and knees rather than resort to a bus for the final moment of the journey.

We stop for a coffee and an old man with a snappy, yappy dog at the next table stares and stares. Then he says, “Just 10 km to go”. We are pretty practiced now at the humble but proud look and say our little piece, that we are “pellegrini Australiani, a piedi de la Francia a Roma”. We have said it so many times now, and it always gets a great reaction. He beams, “Complimenti! Complimenti!”

We walk down the Via Cassia, I wonder who Cassia was, I must check her out, we have such a long relationship with her now. There is a minor road, the Cassia Vecchia, that looks a little bit longer but we take it and immediately it is quieter, more residential, with gardens.

We stop to buy some bread rolls when we find a shop near the city and suddenly see gypsies again. They are in all the big tourist towns and we haven’t seen them since Siena. The young girls look like proper storybook gypsies with long swaying skirts and long plaits. They are begging or scamming. The old women have scarves and coats and kneel motionless on the footpath with a hand out, holding a plastic cup with a coin in it. They are all filthy. Where are they from? Is it Albania or Romania, and is this the only life for them? It is very disturbing and unsettling. We are out of the quiet country life and into a big city again.

But ahead of us is the river, and when we reach it we turn to walk along it towards the Vatican. There is a quiet walkway and cycleway along the water’s edge; it is a much nicer entry to Rome than we had expected.

We are walking slowly along, taking our time, looking all around. Suddenly in the distance the dome of St Peter’s shows on the skyline.

There is a long road leading straight to our destination. We walk under an arch and we are in St Peter’s Square.

It is magnificent, huge. It is also filled with grey plastic chairs and barricades and thronged with people. Apparently the Pope had an audience today and it sure draws a crowd. We go to find the Sacristy where we can get our Testimonium, the certificate that is issued to pilgrims who have the credencial, the little document stamped every day along the way, evidence of having done the pilgrimage.

First we have to go through security check, after a long wait in line we go through. Into St Peter’s, gasp, amazing building, but we are focussed on our certificates. But the monk who issues them is finished for the day (of course!) and won’t be back till 9 tomorrow.

The official on the door goes away and checks, but he confirms that it’s not possible today. But he keeps looking at us, and then he says, “I saw you, on the road, twice, once at Viterbo and once at Monterosi.” He keeps saying “capella” – hat, and miming striding along with trekking poles. He must have noticed our Akubras as we walked along the road. We are pretty surprised by this coincidence, here he is on the door of the Sacristy office in St Peter’s . No testimonium happening here today, though, so we turn and leave.

I refuse to look at anything in St Peter’s until we have found our hotel and got our backpacks off, so we head straight out again. We see the other place where it is possible to get the testimonium, issued by the city, so we go there and, without any fuss, there it is, nicely stamped and signed. We set off for the hotel.

Rome is so, so cool! We are not. We walk along the streets leading to the hotel past people dressed beautifully; the jackets, the boots, the handbags, the hair, all ultra elegant and cosmopolitan. “I wish I wasn’t carrying my backpack, “ I say. “It’s gonna take more than that,” he replies. How true.

We are like little kids at a grown-up party looking at the shops as we walk, there is Gucci and Pucci, there is Fendi, Ferragamo and Furla. Streets and streets of it, everywhere we look there is another top-end boutique crammed with dazzling things.

For two months now we have lived so simply, away from even the most basic necessities more often than not. We have saved a serviette from the table to mop our brow as we walk, put a couple of slices of bread and cheese in our pocket at breakfast because it might be all we can get during the day, fill an empty coke bottle with leftover wine at dinner to take with us in the backpack. What to do without? Everything, pretty much. What little luxuries? A book. What’s for lunch? A bread roll, an apple. And every night the rituals: I wash the socks and if there is a big enough heater, a shirt as well. We unpack our few belongings, R puts the phone, the GPS and the camera on to charge. We walk out to see the exit from town the next morning. It’s such a simple life.

Now we are here and we will ease back into reality. But we made it! We walked, one step at a time, and we're here.