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Today’s stage was described by the guidebook as being of “medium” difficulty. It would feature significant climbs (640 meters), precipitous descents, and a distance of nearly 25 kilometers.
I would characterize the stage in the words of the famous English football coach, Sven-Goran Ericksson: “First half good, second half not so good.”
We knew it was going to be a difficult stage, especially when one factored in the very hot weather. We elected to make an early start, departing at 6:30 while the temperature was below 80F. We strolled up through the quiet Sunday morning streets of Arezzo, down through the gate of the Holy Spirit, and then continued through the outskirts of town.
After about five kilometers of relatively flat land, the guidebook noted that we would make a steep ascent. It quickly became clear, as we hiked through the suburb, where the hill would come from. A large ridge loomed ahead of us, and, as it turned out, that was exactly where we headed.
It was not a bad climb. We were mostly on asphalt or a nicely-packed gravel road. The thick trees of a pine forest clustered around us, offering shade from the warming day. By the time we crossed over the top, ten kilometers into the stage, we were feeling pretty good.
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| Looking Back Toward Arezzo |
We descended past Polciano, heading for the town of Rigutino. As we approached it, the first half of the stage came to an end.
One of the things I have noted in earlier installments of this blog is the Via’s tendency to bypass towns on the route. I view this as a negative. If you are in the middle of a twenty-five kilometer walk, you might want a town where you can pull in, have a cool drink in a bar, take your shoes off, or use the bathroom. Nevertheless, the Via planners didn’t seem to understand this, and they appeared to plan routes that went around towns, even when their alternative courses would add kilometers to the stage, rather than go through towns.
So I was not surprised when, just before Rigutino, the route made a sharp turn to the east and began to climb a hill away from the town. I was surprised however, when, after having been led away from the town, we reached a junction with a mass of arrows all pointing further up the hill toward the Pieve della Sassaia, an old church that has been turned into a pilgrims’ hostel.
All of the waymarks pointed up the hill, although the guidebook seemed to suggest that we “could” visit the church, or we could go back down the hill to the other side of Rigutino.
We chose, after considerable agonizing, to follow the arrows. We hiked up the hill in the sweltering sun to the church. No one was there. We sat for a few minutes in the chairs overlooking the valley, and then strapped our packs on and continued.
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| Pieve della Sassaia |
Mary had seen a Via waymark even farther up the hill, past the pieve. We continued to climb, turned dutifully left to follow this new arrow, descended through an olive grove, along a tall stone wall, and then began to ascend a trail up the next ridge.
Problematically, none of this was on the map, it was not the course laid out in the guidebook, and my GPS showed us walking through a vast empty region completely devoid of known trails.
This was appropriate, as the trail we followed quickly split into several potential paths, all of which were quickly reduced by brambles and overgrowth to tiny wild boar trails. I aimed the GPS at the nearest known trail in the vicinity, and tried to convince Mary that we should just give it a little more time before giving up, turning around, and retracing an hour’s worth of walking.
Should it be this difficult? If you are going to send tired hikers on an overland, undocumented route, then you should have waymarks every 50 meters to let them know they are still on the right path. The path itself should be cleared of vegetation, wide, and the obvious way to go.
It was all very frustrating. Second half, not so good.
Eventually my GPS --- not the guidebook or waymarks --- led us out of the thickets. We found our way to a trail that descended from the ridge, and slowly trudged toward Castiglion Fiorentino. We were not happy.
We finally reached the town after nearly eight hours of hiking. We checked into our lodgings, showered off the trail dust, and then went looking for food. We (miraculously) found a pizzeria open on a Sunday afternoon. The kindly waitresses fed us, brought us a local drink to wash down our food, and when they heard that we were walking to Rome, they took a couple of pastries out of the display case, plopped them in a bag, and instructed us to eat them tomorrow morning before we began walking.
Sweet.
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| Typical Street, Castiglion Fiorentino |
Castiglion is an amazing Tuscan hill town. The streets wind up to the very top where the fort once stood. Today the peak is the home of the city museum, and we spent some time looking at the artifacts that have been recovered from the area. The city was established in the Etruscan era, and has thousands of years behind it. The museum did a nice job covering this arc of history.
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| Torre, Castiglion Fiorentino |
I would like to come back here when my feet don’t ache and it is not 97F in the shade.
Today’s Distance: 28.8 KM
Total Distance: 906.7 KM
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