Orfeo can't get a car so Danilo drives us to his house – we drink coffee, meet his wife for the first time, remember his time with us in Arles and then try to work out a way of finding a place for Nellie, so that he can drive out to us later and bring us back for supper, shower and bed with his family. The generosity is endless and impossible to thank without repetition (in the evening when I call to say that we have found a place to stay and that it is really too late to come out, he says that if we don't visit him soon he will come back to Arles and visit us there. A welcome threat).
So after all that it's eleven o'clock, a late start, but who cares? Danilo and Gracia make it even harder to leave. He has made us sandwiches and Gracia has collected an enormous bag of bread for Nellie. Not sure who cries first, but we are all mildly damp when we finally part. The animals are not keen to go either, Flea (now at least a kilo heavier – we have had to loosen his harness) ducking back before we notice, meaning that Paul has to return to collect him, Nellie stopping every tenth step, but eventually we get going and the going is good. We are skirting Piacenza, because we have already been through it with a horse and know how difficult it is. Danilo has given us instructions that generally keep us on small roads, but still, unavoidably, involve crossing the Po over a bridge that serves a national route. Nellie bears it well, but lorries skimming past us within centimetres, while simultaneously letting off their air brakes, are simply more than one could expect any horse or person to tolerate. We get through, but will only recommend it with huge warning signs. Next, more small roads and one of so many encounters that could only happen to a pilgrim. A man slows down to ask where we are going etc (this must happen at least 10 times a day), we tell him and he wishes us well and drives off. Half an hour later he is back - «I have hay for the horse, I went to collect it from a friend who also has horses. Have you anywhere to put it?» The answer is no, but we cannot refuse, so we empty one of our large plastic holders, tip everything loose into one of Nellie's packs, fill the bag with hay and tie it on behind everything else – now we really do look like gypsies, but he is pleased as Nellie will be too, later. We thank him effusively, but start to get nervous when he puts his hand in his pocket, obviously searching for change. «No, please don't.»
«Donate this for me in St Peter's Square.»
We haven't the heart, or the courage to say that we won't be going there, but one way or another we will do as he asks, probably through Chris O'Grady, if we manage to meet up. If not, it will go towards Anne-Marie's project. Later, a large van, a mobile shop, pulls up to ask the usual questions and compliment Nellie. In return, Paul asks if we can buy a bottle of Coke. We are given one, payment refused.
Since leaving Danilo we have moved into a new landscape, shaped (as is so often the case) by the agriculture. Italy is a network of monocultures – fruit trees, rice, kiwis, hazelnuts and here tomatoes, where every metre of spare ground is ploughed and prepared for the seedlings we see being planted now – 4 people seated in a row, towed by a tractor and extracting the seedlings from a revolving drum – hell of a job. Hardly a tree or a bush has been left standing and in a country where the people are so open every property is marked Privado Divieto de Accesso, even the abandoned farm buildings. A monotonous, featureless section of our journey where it is impossible to find a secluded place to camp in. By the time we get to San Bonico, everyone is tired and are only hope is a church in the middle of the village. We are heading there when Paul realises that he has left his rucksack (passports, everything in it) about 3km back in another village where we had stopped to get Nellie a drink. We decide that he should go back while I find somewhere to stay. Not long after, when I am almost at the point of despair, a woman comes out of a farm to ask if her daughter can stroke Nellie – I'm am not going to miss this opportunity. In brief - I explain the situation, she phones her husband, her husband phones a man who has horses just a kilometre away and we are installed! Nellie has a paddock and we have a space in front of it for our tent. While we are waiting for Paul, the owner, a man of about 70, tells me about his farm and finally shows me the empty cow stalls, immense hangars that must have housed hundreds of the beasts, plus two huge, bourgeois houses that are now standing empty. «A disaster,» he says sadly «Impossible to get anyone to work for me.» His eyes are full. «But I kept my horses.» The fact that I will be gone tomorrow probably makes it easier for him to confide in me, another feature of being a pilgrim.
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