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 22 May, Tuesday - Beware of the Priest's Instructions
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Tuesday, 22 May 2007 (Day 32) - La Storta. When you have been walking for more than a month your view of life becomes somewhat jaded as your thoughts shift to meeting your basic necessities: am I drinking enough, should I worry about that shooting pain in my knee, do I have any clean socks left, will I find a good restaurant tonight for a huge plate of pasta, will I make it to La Storta in time to see the arrival of today's stage of the Giro d'Italia.
I timed my departure to make sure the last of the above concerns would get a positive response, but getting lost in the countryside between enormous estates and horse farms risked throwing that all to the wind.
Don Renzo, the priest in Campagano, very nicely gave me a little hand-drawn map yesterday and told me to use that for the first five kilometers rather than my out-dated book. Only problem, which I found out when I was in the hills without a sole in sight to ask for directions, was that his map showed just two turns to make in the entire stretch he had mapped out and there were at least a dozen.
So I got lost, which would have been only a minor nuisance since today I had a relatively short distance to walk, but became slightly dire as I risked missing what promised to be a good mountain stage of the Giro.
When I wasn't worrying about the Giro my thoughts were dominated but the almost incomprehensible fact that I had already walked more than 900 kilometers and that I was less than 24 hours from Rome. Trying to reflect on that is probably not easy in any circumstances, but try to do it in the extreme heat after five hours in the sun.
In the fields near La Storta I got my first glimpse of the outskirts of Rome, clusters of huge residential buildings. Modern Rome saying hello to a third millenium pilgrim.
I got a great surprise in the way of a call on my cell phone from Mike, one of the kids in the town of Palestro who was there to welcome me to the province of Pavia (you can see photos and videos of Mike and his classmates on this website, I was there on April 27). He just wanted to say hello and see how I was getting on. I promised another visit to Palestro early next school year.
After staying in one beautiful town after another, La Storta is not much more than a way station on the Cassia. With Carl and Claire, who I didn't walk with today, but as planned met here in town, we managed to find a restaurant with an outside garden and a plate of tonarelli almost worthy of my almost arrival in Rome (long spaghetti-like pasta with fresh tomatoes, swordfish, olives, capers, almond slivers and a tiny bit of artichoke).
Tip for the day: if Don Renzo in Campagnano gives you a photocopied hand drawn map thank him profusely, but don't try to get anywhere using it.
Trip details: Campagnano di Roma to La Storta, 25.7 K. Altitude change: 500 meters up and 595 meters down. Walked so far: 917.2 K. Left to Rome: 14.5 K.
State of the route: excellent, mostly on dirt roads or little-frequented asphalt with panoramic views of the countryside and hills. Don Renzo's alternative route for the beginning wasn't marked and I got lost. Once I picked up the trail again it was generally well indicated though, as usual, there were a few places without markings.
Weather report: hot, 31 degrees C in the shade at 2 p.m.
Medical report: all good though my near sprint in the last two kilometers to get to a television to see the Giro seems to have led to some tendenitis-like pain in my left shin.
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 On the approach to La Storta |
 Martin on hearing what I was doing: "you're a nut case, why don't you take the bus?" |
 Traffic jam on the road to Formello |
 Hanging out in Campagnano di Roma |
 A few kilometers before La Storta |
 Carl and Claire improvise a trail marker |
 Too bad they couldn't give directions |
 Almost perfect...they could have made the portion a bit bigger |
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Supporting the Project: |
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In collaboration with: |
Assessorato al Turismo e alle Attività Termali della Provincia di Pavia |
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Viaggiare in Puglia |
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L'Arte di Vivere
con Lentezza |
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