I think I worked harder for this Compostela during the last two weeks, than in the two months I spent walking towards Santiago
.
Initially, I deliberately tried not to compare the Via Francigena to the Camino Francés.
I told myself stories about how ‘the comparative mind is the enemy of the beginners mind’, or thought about what Mary Oliver said, about “how the mind clings to the road it knows, rushing through crossroads, sticking like lint to the familiar”.
But the Tuscan hills looked a lot like the landscapes of Navarre, and the sweet-smelling yellow bushes reminded me of the walk from Viana into Logroño, and the poppies!
How could I not?
The Via Francigena is not like the Camino Francés.
Walking the road to Rome is hard.
It’s hard not only in terms of the distances or the impossibly steep climbs or the frequency of the hills or the slippery trails.
It is also hard underfoot.
This is the land of the Roman Empire, of marble and granite and volcanic rock, not that easily softened by pilgrim prayers and tears.
The infrastructure is not often pilgrim friendly. The stages are long, with few refreshment stops en route. Fountains run dry, and route markers are scarce.
There is no Brierly guide.
No nightly Pellegrino mass.
Few other pilgrims. A LOT of dogs.
The route cuts through both working farms and untamed thistle fields, under fences, over rivers and railway lines, onto busy roads – often straight into oncoming traffic without so much as a shoulder or a yellow line to hide behind.
There is no safe and boring senda next to the Via Cassia.
I think Patty best summed it up, a couple of days ago on the way to Sutri, when she said:
“I’m tired. And I’m a little hungry.
I miss Spain!”
This was supposed to be easier, a quick two week walk in Italy in the Springtime. But it wasn’t.
It was not a gentle stroll through the rolling hills of Tuscia.
It was a Pilgrimage, and I felt every step.
Mirrors, masks, fists and hearts 