I had a good nights sleep in the countryside. I put earplugs in, just in case the donkey hee-haw all night. I’d fallen asleep at 22:00, and woke when I heard a distant noise – my watch alarm at 6.45. Despite being the only guest, the owners made a nice and varied breakfast, including scrambled egg.
I was on my way by 8.30. It was supposed to be a 27km day, but with several missed turns, it ended up being 30km, with over 700m elevation. At least yesterday’s weather forecast of thunder storms wasn’t correct. It was a beautiful sunny start to the day. One of the forecasts was now predicting rain all day, the other dry and sunny until late afternoon. The latter was correct.
The days first challenge was a steep and slippery decline on wet cobblestones. I’d hardly started when I missed my first turn and walked around for 5 minutes before doubling back and finding the trail again. I crossed a river and an old bridge, a very picturesque start to the day. The paths were at times quite muddy following yesterday’s rain, but it wasn’t too bad. The cobblestone path had been restored on parts of the section.
It was generally a nice day for walking. The morning largely walking on dirt tracks through a forest, with a couple of climbs, whilst later in the day, the landscape was more open. I passed through a few villages, but non with supplies – even in the beautiful villages of Virgoletta and Filetto, both had castles but no open bar or café. Virgoletta is completely surrounded by a 10 meter high wall, and one enters the village via portals, where you need to climb some steps.
I also visited the porticoed courtyard of Malaspina Castle, passing below a marble shield with a lion and two branches of Spino Secco (dry thorns), the family coat of arms.
Leaving Virgoletta I was back in a mix of forest and dirt paths and small country back roads.
The next village was Filetto, or derived from Greek, fortified village. The village has maintained its quadrangular shape with streets (often small alleyways) perpendicular to each other and central squares.
There were several hill top villages today, all extremely compact with multi-level houses built a few meters apart in long rows and at least one church, dominating each town. There was a steep climb to one such village, Filattiera, followed by an equally steep decline. But at the top there were nice views over the Apennines and the surrounding countryside.
After Filattiera the Via Francigena takes a large detour into flat farming country, so that it isn’t necessary to walk on the busy SS62. I’m not sure that the detour was really worth the effort. In Migliarina, after 21kms, I again crossed the SS62 for another, even longer, detour through the countryside.
After 26kms, I was back on the SS62, and this time there were no detours but a 3-4 kilometer slog on the shoulder, keeping an eye on the oncoming cars. I took a small detour into Santissima Annunziata, thinking mistakenly that it was the start of Potremoli. I arrived in Potremoli just as it started to drip, so it was perfect timing.
Potremoli means trembling bridge, and is a small market town with an old centre. It is also the most northern town in Tuscany.
Just before arriving at the hotel, I received 3 calls from the US. Not expecting a call from the US, I ignored them. When I arrived at the hotel I had a mail from hotels.com informing me that the hotel I’d planned to stay at in a few days time, would not honour my reservation. Hotels.com offered to rebook another hotel, but the process meant that I needed to give them my card info, at which point I decided I would make a new reservation myself.
After fixing a hotel and taking a shower I went for a look around the old town and its narrow streets. It was still raining, so I soon ended up in a packed Pizza place. I ordered a pizza, but only got half a pizza. The waitress told me that Italians share a pizza, so they sell half pizzas.
I saw a total of seven walkers today, walking towards Rome. Cheryl and Cindy from Oregon and Diana for the UK I had a chat with. There was also an Italian couple and a French guy who just said hello. Finally I saw a couple of guys walking in the same direction as I was, leaving Filetto. When I caught up with them, they were chatting with an elderly Italian gentleman, so I didn’t disturb them.
