Chuck's News: Day Nineteen - Walking Day Fifteen

Buonconvento to Torrenieri - Weather- Foggy morning Sunny with puff clouds - High 60, Low 42, On Route 8.05 miles, Total Distance 10.23 miles, 24,132 steps

To Date; OR - 111.18, TD - 135.10

The day started foggy and cold. The sun burned off about 10:00 to reveal gorgeous blue skies.

Our room was as described in yesterday’s post, but I left off a feature of the room, the smell. We were lucky to have a bathroom in our room, but the smell of sewer gas in the bathroom was severe. We closed the bathroom door and left the ceiling fan on. I put a towel over the shower drain. No avail. The smell was strong enough that Sally opened the window to the 42° weather outside to get some fresh air during the night. The one plus of this situation was that it got us up and out this morning a little quicker than usual.

It is Sunday, meaning everything in rural Italy is closed. In previous trips we have gotten caught by this fact with no food. We now know and buy ahead Saturday afternoon or evening. My pack was brimming with food. Pasta, marinara sauce, rolls, meat, cheese, chips, cookies, sodas, rice, muslix, chocolate bars, etc. as we left the apartment I carried yogurt cups in my hands, hoping for a bench to enjoy them on. We found three chairs on the street outside an apartment building and stopped there to enjoy our breakfast. The air was chilly, but we were dressed appropriately. Trash in a trash bin, we were on our way.

The route skirted the back streets of the newer part of town then headed out paralleling the highway. As it was Sunday morning and traffic was light we chose to walk on the highway, the dry pavement preferable to the dew soaked grass where the trail was adjacent to the road. Eventually the route broke with the highway at right angles and began the inevitable climb into the surrounding hills. A group of ten male cyclists passed us as we walked up this dirt road, gaining altitude and approaching three swanky wineries perched on the hill tops. They were impressive with their cypress tree lined drives, exquisite landscaping and impressive buildings. Of course, off season, Sunday morning, they were all shuttered. We did find a picnic table outside one and employed it to enjoy an early lunch, about 10:30.

A little further up the road we were sitting at a conveniently placed bench with a stunning territorial view when we heard female voices coming up the road below us. As we stood to greet them two Italian women walking the Via Francigena for three days approached. We chatted for 10 minutes, then realized we were going to walk together and started off up the road, Sally paired with one, I with the other.

For the next hour we each chatted with our companion in broken English and Italian as we walked nearly two miles up this beautiful stretch of hilltop road. My partner, Lorena was 54. She had been a nurse for 34 years and had decided to leave the rat race of a professional career and slow down a bit. She now does odd jobs when she needs money, house cleaning, fruit picking and the like. She says she makes less and therefore spends less but is a much happier person. She can take holidays such as this one. I enjoyed my walk and talk with her.

Sally was having a similar experience with her new friend. I could hear them laughing and chatting a 100 yards behind us.

The sun had now burned off the fog and was quite warm. I was till wearing a fleece and was getting hot, but had been loath to stop and interrupt our conversation. When I did stop to strip off the fleece Sally and Monica caught up with us. We took a photo and said goodbye. They were walking to the next town past ours and needed to get moving a little faster.

It is amazing how much information can be exchanged through the language barrier. We as humans have so much in common that through a few words and gestures ideas can be shared. But, any depth of ideas, thoughts and feeling are difficult to express so the conversation stays on a superficial level for the most part.

As soon as Lorena and Monica moved on we met a woman out for a walk from the town we were heading to. She joined us and we were once again emerged in “conversation” Italian-English style. Marzen was 73, although her bright eyes, enthusiastic smile and animated gestures spoke of a much younger person. She was retired from a career in Siena as a manager of student housing at the university. She commuted by bus each day from her home here in Torrenieri.

She turned out one a wonderful tour guide. Every bush and tree was explained to us. We ate blue berries off of roadside bushes, saw Italian rose hips, walnuts trees, apple trees, fig trees and much more. She was explaining the mountain we saw in the distance, a volcano that was the cause of all the hot spring we would encounter in the coming days. At one point, as she tried to explain something about the volcano she grabbed one os Sally’s trekking poles and scratched CaCO3 in the dirt road. Oh!! Limestone! She was very clever. We really enjoyed her company and lessons, although we rarely made it more than 20 steps before stopping to observe something. It made for slow going. The weight of the food in my pack was beginning to bear down on tired shoulders. I used my phone’s translator app to ask why all the fields were plowed and left bare for the winter. She told me they were all planted with winter wheat and that if I looked I could see some fields where it was beginning to emerge.

As it turned out, she lives right next door to the hostel we are staying in tonight so she was able to guide us to our destination. She stayed with us while we waited for our host to come open the door. Of course, in this small town she is great friends with him. When he arrived they chatted a few minutes before we said goodbye to her and followed him inside to learn the workings of our newest accommodations.

He spoke very little English, but was quick with a friendly, warm, smile, and made us feel very welcome. We have a large bedroom to ourselves, access to a large kitchen and a pink bathroom down the hall. We are the only ones here for tonight, although he said their might be one more. To Sally’s dismay, no heat.

Once settled in, we walked through town, hoping to find a place open for a Coke. Everything was closed, partly due to Sunday, partly due to 4:00 in the afternoon. We did find a bar on the far side of town and had a Coke. Sally also had a glass of the local wine. She saw spinach on the menu. We asked if we could have an order to go, figuring it would be good in our marinara sauce for dinner tonight. Plus, it would be our only vegetables for the day.

We returned “home”, cooked dinner, talked with Jeff and the kids and Andy via FaceTime and then retired for the night. Another amazing day.