I no longer had anywhere to go that required me to walk with purpose. We carried on walking on the sidewalks of Rome until we finally reached St. That’s just my opinion, but Steven agrees so there are at least two of us who believe that to be true. That called for gelato, of course, which we got at a gelateria called Lemongrass, which has the best pistachio gelato in the world. The via Francigena had one more painful downhill in store for us, another uneven, rocky road with switchbacks that took us forever to descend. It looked like it was just a hop, skip and a jump to get there, but no. At the overlook area in Monte Mario reserve we caught our first glimpse of the St. We did a bit of sidewalk and traffic walking, but also walked through two nature reserves, which was nice considering we were actually in Rome. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, we got up early and started walking before sunrise. On our last day, the day we arrived at St. There were a few times it felt like it was touch and go.
To be honest, when Steven’s Plantar Fasciitis first flaired up, I think we both had doubts whether or not we would be able to actually complete this pilgrimage. There is so much emotion wrapped up in a journey like this one that when I think about all that we had to do to make it happen and all that we have accomplished, it is overwhelming. The closer we got to Rome, the more teary I got. As far as we could tell, we were still the only Americans on the trail at this time, though we know others who will begin later in the summer. There were some folks we saw every day and others we saw only once or twice. This is a popular starting point for folks who only want to walk for a week and still receive the Testimonium in Rome.
I no longer had to wrap myself around a radiator to stay warm in the evenings.īeyond the town of Viterbo, we began seeing more pilgrims than at any other time during the trip. It was hot and sweaty on the trail and I was finally able to stay warm even as my body cooled once we stopped walking. We ate at the hotel restaurant and enjoyed a lovely Easter dinner.Īs we moved further south the weather warmed. Which honestly was fine with us, those things put way too much humidity into the room and what a waste of precious hot water! There was a modest-sized tub in the bathroom so we did get to soak, albeit one at a time. It was weird!! And there was a sign on the hot tub saying it wasn’t even hooked up and was, therefore, unusable. Other than the bed, there was no place to sit except one plastic chair. We ended up in an expensive 4-star hotel in Bolsena with a giant two-person hot tub sitting right in the room. Ultimately, by the time we made the decision, there were few options left. Although we spent hours upon hours finding and securing affordable accommodations on our walk, we just could not pin down exactly where we would be on Easter Sunday.
We did not do a very good job of anticipating Easter. We had to drag out the earplugs on this rowdy night. It was the Saturday before Easter and it seemed to us that all of Italy was out celebrating. The weather was warming and all the gelato stores had opened up, so after we sat in the town square and had a sandwich, we headed straight for a dark chocolate and pistachio treat! Since we were sleeping right over a pizza parlor we ate dinner there. Our first stop was Acquapendente, where we had reserved a room over a pizza restaurant. Lazio! We were both very excited to reach this milestone, the seventh and final region we would pass through on our pilgrimage on the via Frangicena! Leaving Tuscany and entering Lazio gave us a sense that there is light at the end of this very long tunnel, even though we still had over 160 kilometers to go.
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