Day 30 - Traghetto to San Biagio

We rose early for another longer stage. The guidebook recommends a stage to Argento, about 16.5 KM in length. When booking accommodations, Mary decided to lengthen today’s stage (by continuing past Argento to San Biagio) and thus shortening tomorrow’s long stage to Valli di Comacchio.

Breakfast was shared with two other guests, older women who run B&Bs in Rimini. They claimed that they had only come to Traghetto to relax, but I suspect they were also checking out the procedures and practices at the Happy Cherry B&B. They certainly were interested in securing the secret recipe for our host’s marmalade pie.

They were rather effusive about my Italian skills, and immediately brushed aside my apologies for my garbled syntax. “It is harder for a man,” said one of the ladies. “If you were a woman, you would learn much quicker, because women talk so much more.”

I hadn’t heard that tip before.

We also discussed the pellegrini who stayed in Traghetto. Since the Happy Cherry is the only game in town, our hostess sees most of the people who come this way. “They tend to be older, rich people who have a lot of free time. The young cannot make the pilgrimage because they don’t have enough vacation time, and they can’t afford it. If you have to pay fifty or more euros every night for lodging, it becomes very expensive.”

This was a good point, and another big difference from the Spanish Camino. On the Camino, although you certainly can stay in private accommodation, it is also possible to spend your nights in albergi that might cost no more than ten euros (if that). Fuel your walk with the fixed, but cheap, pilgrim’s meals, and it can be a fairly inexpensive trip.

But we needed to press on. We left the Happy Cherry at 8:00 and set off down the road. The pavement quickly gave way to forest paths, and before long, we were walking on an elevated levee. This offered quite a bit of shade at times, which was desperately welcome. The sun was again scorching the earth into submission, so we were grateful for the moments we could hike under a forest umbrella.

Like many recent days, there really wasn’t much to see today. We passed the ruins of an old villa. In the foreground was a rusted, decrepit gate. A driveway was flanked by a double line of broken statues, and in the background, the crumbling walls of the villa that is being slowly pulled to earth by the forces of nature.

Badly Photographed Villa

We reached Argento a little after noon, and left the levee to descend into town. We had a difficult time finding a place to eat, but ultimately staggered into a Chinese restaurant. This proved to be a horrible mistake. I have eaten many brilliant Chinese meals in my life. This was not one of them. Even the ever-kind Mary was appalled.

Normally we would have stopped here, but it was back up to the levee and onward. The road seemed much hotter after Argento than it had before it. We saw a fascinating church that turned out to be the Santuario della Madonna della Celletta. We could only view the church from a distance, far across the fields, as there was no path from our levee down to the octagonal building.

We reached San Biagio a little after 2:00, hot, foot-sore, and ready for a shower. If the guidebook is correct and our stamina holds up, we should transition into the maritime (cooler, perhaps?) climate of the Adriatic Sea tomorrow.

Today’s Distance: 23.5 KM

Total Distance: 526.5 KM