100km to go!
Pope's palace at Viterbo
Better people would laugh this off says R . By then it's OK really. We're sitting in Vetralla, were out of the rain, we're eating pizze, we have somewhere to stay. At several points during the day none of these seemed likely.
Viterbo was OK, the usual tangle of old buildings, but laid out gracefully becauseit was the Pope's base at one time when the Papacy lost control of Rome. The palace in Fiasco hadbeen his summer residence high on a hill 20km away.
But Viterbo has a cathedral, what seems like dozens of churches and a grand palace all dominating the town. The pope who built it must have been jigging the day of the lesson in the seminary about vows of poverty.
We walk out, take a couple of photos and hey presto, under the arch and across the road we are in a country lane. So far so good. Very pretty, very quiet, except for the Saturday trail bike and push bike riders decked out in dashing gear and calling out cheery greetings as they fly past.
The trail is nice, the weather is lovely. The Via wanders beside olive groves and ancient moss covered walls. Then, what the...it stops. The farmer has ploughed everything within view. We stagger across the ploughed ground, those big clods of earth threatening to turn an ankle at every step. If there is a hell says R I hope that *** farmer goes to it.
It's very hard to pick the trail when there is no trail. Then we stumble on an Etruscan tomb, aha, that's mentioned in the guide and we are back on the page. I don't begrudge them making a litle glass hut over that tomb and locking it up, but instead of using old fashioned opaque wired glass, maybe it could have been clear? So we could see what's inside? Would that have been too hard? We're climbing up the next hill when R taps a piece of broken tile sticking out of the ground near his foot. Etruscan relic he says. It is indeed very old, a piece of history, bathroom reno circa 1970.
A tiresome day follows. We get lost several times. We spend along time wandering through an enormous farm of olives and kiwi fruit with junk lying everywhere trying to find our way. I catch my foot in blackberry bush and yank it out with a howl just in time to save myself from falling head first down a steep slope full of brambles. Finally after going around in circles we find the farmer's wife and she givs us vague direction.
Part of the day was ona path beside the motorway, rubbish-strewn and noisy. Part of it was on a country path stinking of piggery run off, witha Chinook helicopter hovering overhead.
We stop for a break, feelng exhausted and dismayed. After a bit we realise we are actually lying in an olive grove, eating bread and cheese, drinking local red wine, dozin in the sun o a hot dry day. Hmm. Not too bad actually. Pretty good, really.
We walk up a long hill into Vetralla, missingal the pretty bits, if there are any, just ugly blocks of flats. The town is bigger than we expect and it is hard to see where the centre might be. A man walks across the road and I ask him for directions. Across the main road and up the other side we find the piazz, but it's a daggy place. Where to stay? We have discovered that where we had intended to spend the night is 4 km further on and in the wrong direction, that won't do.
There is a B and B just here but we can't raise the owner by phone. We sit on a stone step and consider our options. We ask some teenagers. Hotel? No. Taxi? No. We ask in the haberdashery shop next door, where can we stay? La Signora, bless her, springs into action and goes to all sorts of trouble to locate the B&B owner. Success! In one minute they will be here!
One Italian minute, that is. We setle back on our step. After a while a car pulls up and out gets..the man we had asked directions of an hour ago. We all exclaim about the coincidenta. We have a room, we are sitting across the road in a little pizzeria devouring a family size pizze each. Tomorrow is another day. Five walking days to Rome. We passed the 100km mark today, it felt very significant after coming so far. Zoe said, It's just a long last 5, of a half marathon, a marathon, a pilgrimage. Five to go to reach our destination.
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