Morning, more photos of us for Tino, breakfast, sunshine, everything good, except our feet. We have been walking in water for the past week, our shoes our sodden and we have trench foot, or something similar. Anyway, they hurt and our progress is painful, but the going is easy, more canals, more green fields, more good instructions and more back-patting. Then we walk into Tremello and our old friend Gian Carlo. «Cavallo!» We hear him from behind and then suddenly he is there in front, a tiny spider of a man, throwing himself first at Paul and then me.
Gian Carlo has traced and signed a section of the VF in the region of Tremello to Madonna de Bozzolo, perhaps 15km that he maintains and surveys for pilgrims. We met him in 2007 on the route and then spent some time with him in Tremello, admiring the frescoes he is restoring in the church there (he still has the photos I sent). Now we are back and nothing has really changed, except for the bike (a new model) he uses to go up and down the VF. He is still restoring frescoes, still welcoming pilgrims and still pleased to see us. We share a beer, check the details for the local hostel in our guide book and then say our goodbyes.
Next encounter, Brother Cesaré in Madonna del Bozzola (Italiano numero uno – he told us the first time we met). Again we have stayed there with Lubie and our bikes and are recognised as soon as we stick our heads round the Bar de Santuario, where Brother Cesaré is the barman – how many barman have you seen with a crucifix round his neck. He has changed little, except for adding some more weight to the weight he had added to the last time we saw him. Once again, he refuses to let us pay for our drinks, insisting that our visit is a gift – difficult to find an answer to that one. So we drink, talk, wait for yet another storm to pass over, and then we go on and on and on – hours more of walking on feet that should be hospitalised – until we find the Agriturismo where Nellie can have a night in a paddock and we can sleep in proper beds and use someone else's towels – a point appreciated only by people who have travelled for at least 4 weeks, slept outside and washed themselves and their clothes in streams resembling pea soup.
Accommodation - rating: good Agriturismo Sant' Andrea, viale Zanotti
27027 Gropello Cairoli raffaellamoroni@virgilio.it 0382 1862762 0382 1862761 348 4523005 http://www.agriturismo-santandrea.it
No comments:
Post a Comment