Still Chasing the Winter Sun

It’s been too long since I’ve wandered along the unknown roads. The Spanish Camino in 2013, Via Francigena in 2015, Italian Volcano Expedition 2017, Land’s End to John O’Groats (End to End) 2018, and then…….and then……the Covid walk …………….to lockdown!

So much has been written about Covid, the cause, the symptoms, who has had it and who hasn’t, and those who like my granddaughter Stella suffer the long term effects of ‘Long Covid’ and its legacy ‘chronic fatigue’. But I’m not writing about Covid except that it has created a massive hiatus in the travel industry and I am determined to do my part in rebuilding the travel economy in Italy. In just a few days Qatar Airlines will transport me from beautiful (but cold) Adelaide to the magnificent Spring in Italy. I have read the weather in Spring fluctuates from 13ºC to 27ºC. Perfect!

My very new hiking boots are ready, my very precisely weighed items are ready and my backpack’s wide yawn waits patiently to be filled to exactly 7kgs and not a gram more. I have checked and rechecked my passport and pilgrim passport that will be stamped at each stop, yes, all is in order. 

I’m walking the path of St Francis from Assisi to Rome, approximately 255kms. Fourteen days of walking around 20kms per day, accommodation is booked, a different town each night except for Assisi where I will spend two nights. Never having visited and having also heard so much about its beauty and sites I thought it would be remiss of me to only make a fleeting visit without seeing as much as I can. 

Unfortunately for me pilgrim accommodation available in Spain does not present itself on this pilgrimage. My research indicates it may have once been the case however it appears Covid has had an effect, either wiping out completely some of those ‘rock bottom priced’ beds or turned them into commercially priced sites. Here in Australia we’ve seen or experienced the exorbitant increases in holiday accommodation, but for goodness sake a pilgrimage is not the same! 

Just as in previous times, follow me on this trek. I wont bore you too much about the terrain and elevations but I can paint a picture of the natural beauty of Tuscany, Umbria and Lazio and the amazing people who live there or visiting, and doing the same crazy thing as me. I have deliberately not read too much about this path I want to experience it all when I’m looking at it with my own eyes and the not those who have walked it before me.

By the way, there is a ‘before’ and after the ‘trek’, I’ll be visiting my two widowed aunts in a teeny tiny place in Calabria called Molochio. With a population of less than 2000 its not even on the map in your ancient atlases, you’ll have to Google it to find it on the map. Its near other places such as Varapodio (my mother’s birth place), Cittanova (my great grandfather’s birthplace), and Taurianova. Post trekking I’ll be in Rome for a few days, then Florence and Milan.

I’ll see you soon between the lines.

Ciao amici, state bene e ci vediamo a presto!

Adelaide, May 2023