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May 30, 2016

Via Francigena – Haunts of Ancient Peace. San Minato to San Gimignano

A pilgrim signBeside the garden walls,We walk in haunts of ancient peace.
At night we rest and go to sleepAmong the Olive Groves and Flowers
In haunts of ancient peace.
The love and light we seek,
The words we do not need to speak,
Here in this wondrous way we keep
These haunts of ancient peace.

Lyrics by Van Morrison

We began Day 4 from San Miniato early on a beautiful morning.  Leaving behind the town (after coffee and pastries….necessary fuel) for our longest stage of the journey; a hefty 24 kilometres in very warm weather.  However, it is strange that the very best and most varied of the scenery between Lucca and Siena should be reserved for this most isolated of stretches to Gambassi Terme.  The ease of travel was due very much to the distractions of rolling meadows, glittering arcades of tree-lined woodland and the lengths of poppy-lined gravel track among shimmering grasses.  Here and there a glimpse back to the buildings of the town of San Miniato that we had just left.  Here and there a small cemetery or chapel to take water and food, to listen to the noises of birds, and to ease our hot feet.  I wish we had taken voice recordings as well as pictures on this trip, because what appeared to be quietness was in fact a fantastic range of sounds both natural and mechanical along the way, the low hum of a tractor mingled with the simple chorus of the birds.

Pieve, a country church

Pieve, a Country Church

Moving on to GambassiThere was  an ever changing scenery, mainly walking upon high ground until a last long climb up to Gambassi Terme which required a lot of ice-cream to sooth and cool the skin and body on a long but invigorating day.

Covent of Santa Maria daCellole

Covent of Santa Maria at Pancole

Small church now a sumptuous house

Small Church Now a Sumptuous House

On and up the following day after a splendid breakfast took us through farmland and on up to high ground where we passed an fabulous agriturismo property, then on past a small church converted into a highly desirable Tuscan residence and then to the imposing Santuario di Pancole and the Convent of Santa Maria, a white church and a shrine to a young girl cured of her deafness by the appearance of the Virgin Mary. These are the memories of this stretch of the Via Francigena, the images and sounds of peace, of ancient shrines and chapels, of convents and monasteries.  Such an old road where the Pope once walked to meet his gift from Switzerland of guards to protect his Palaces in 1506, a road of pilgrimage and pleasure.

Approaching San Gimignano

Approaching San Gimignano

As we approached San Gimignano we walked through a wonderful monastery, with a simple but gorgeous Romaneque church, the Pieve di Cellole, that echoed with reverent and soulful silence.  The atmosphere was accompanied by the slow, constant and rhythmic drip of water into the font.  It was a place that begged you not to leave and if you did that one day you will return and you soul healed by what was present, human and spiritual there.  This place was the Monastero di Bose, and led to the busy main road into San Gimignano and the throng of tourists and also gentle the splatter of rain.  Taking a beer and a sandwich on the road up the hill.

Next Stage: San Gimignano to Monteridggione coming soon.

The Monastery at Bose

The Monastery of Bose

May 20, 2016

The Via Francigena

LogoViaFrancigenaBetween May the 7th and May the 15th, and in honour of lost friends, relatives and pets we made a spiritual journey on Europe’s most famous walking route after the Camino di Santiago; The Via Francigena from Canterbury to Rome. (Please see previous post)  At least we tackled the 140 kilometer section from Lucca to Siena in the heart of the region of Tuscany.  It was a journey of friendship, of good health and of recognition of those that have died in the past year. It was also a profound connection of our feet on the earth of this most beautiful land, of castles, flowers and the people of Europe. So important in these most concerning of times, when we witness the profound miseries of conflict, displacement and migration.   The Via Francigena was all about travel across a continent in the name of meeting others in the world with the aim of companionship, exploration and spiritual/personal fulfillment.

Days One to Three – Lucca to San Miniato – Lanes, rivers and meadows

There is always a buzz about beginning an adventure like this one, especially when you leave a place as magnificent as Lucca on a Saturday morning with it’s buzz of people; weaving on bikes, walking around the market, seeing the tourist, maps and guides in hand losing themselves among the ancient narrow streets.  Today, in brilliant sunshine, it is fantastic walking along the road out of town and out of Porta Elisa headed for Siena in a week’s time.  We were wondering whether we would see another traveler along the way, but within a few meters of the fat red walls of Lucca we meet two French walkers on their way to Rome from their home in France in one continuous journey.  Still as full of joy and pleasure as we are even after traversing Switzerland and the Alps……we are just beginners I think!

Leaving Lucca

Leaving Lucca

Fellow travellers from France

Fellow travellers from France

 

The Timbro di Credenziali

The Timbro di Credenziali

 

Out through the suburbs of the city and across the plain to Altopascio.  Here the joy is that local people are tending their suburban gardens, already full of tomato plants, artichokes and salad.  The jasmine is in full perfume in the hedges, the people so friendly to passers by and wishing us a ‘Boun Viaggo’.  This is the slow way to grow food and the slow and fruitful way to make a journey.  The VF sign (Very Friendly)

These are the signs that keep us on track, the sign says to us ‘Very Friendly’, they are regular sentries on the footpath that tell us we are where we belong and where we need to be; on the road that will be a joy and a delight to us and will hopefully take us to special places.  Altopascio is the end of day one and has a very old church and hostel for pilgrims at it’s centre. It also has the most fantastic ‘Timbro’.  A Timbro is a stamp that says you have completed a stage of the Via Francigena successfully and you can put it into your ‘Credenziali’, your book detailing your journey from wherever you start to whenever you arrive in Rome.  If you complete this book with its stamps and you begin at least 100 kms from Rome you are officially a Pilgrim to Rome. The next day we continue our journey from Altopascio to Ponte a Cappiano, through meadows and along streams.  Here the VF is quiet and somehow a little lonely.  A small chapel here, and through quiet woods there. We spend a little time walking on a piece of road that is cobbled and is the original 13th century road to Rome. You can almost see and hear the carts and horses rattling along the stones, the ancestors in their medieval clothes, with their loads of merchandise for the next town, or their worldly goods as they travel to somewhere new, ancient refugees from a plague or another war perhaps.

The Ancient Road

The Ancient Road

Altopascio

Altopascio

Here too as we head to Ponte Cappiano the scenery changes.  Across the ‘spooky’ woods’ of a ancient heathland called ‘The Sammartina’ (the land of the lost).  For those without the VF signs on the route, you can imagine being lost among these small woods. We then trek down to the village surrounded by lovely villas. The town of Cappiano gets its name from the covered bridge that crosses a river here.  The walk from here the next day runs along side the watery meadow and swamp land of the plain below San Miniato.  We accompanied on our walk by the distinctive raucous bellows of the mating frogs in the little ditches below our feet.  We notice the fields of wheat and wild flowers as we climb up to Fuccechio for lunch in the square.  We then climb up to the familiar serpent length of San Miniato, by now we have walked 50 kilometres, and begin to look beyond to the famous Tuscan Hills of the Val d’Elsa and Chianti hills.

Near Ponte di Cappiano

San Miniato

San Miniato

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