La Giustiniana to Vatican City (walked)
Friday, July 28, 2023: We left Resort La Rocchetta in La Giustiniana on Friday morning at 5:10 a.m. I put my backpack in reception, with 180 euros attached in an envelope to pay Bags-Free for transporting my backpack today and for my suitcase they’d picked up in Lucca, stored in Rome and would deliver to The Beehive; this was where I would stay in Rome.
We went out to the Via Cassia, the main road, to catch the 210 bus to the entrance of the Insugherata Nature Reserve. We wanted to avoid walking along the busy road. We eventually started walking at 6 a.m.
The Riserva Naturale dell’Insugherata is basically the watershed of the Acqua Traversa stream. It is home to cork oak (Italian: insughera) and many other species of plants and animals, including apparently flocks of sheep (which we didn’t see). The area is just at the fringe of the apartments and cars of suburban Rome.
We walked for about 4km along a flat dirt path alongside the Acqua Traversa stream, at the floor of the canyon, with apartment blocks occasionally visible on either ridge. We could hear the stream but rarely saw it because of fencing on one side and thick bushes on the other. It was like walking in a long tunnel. Then the park opened up and we could see apartment buildings high on the ridge ahead.
Leaving the reserve, we climbed a very steep hill in the midst of cars and apartment buildings in the neighborhood of Sant’ Onofrio. Finally, at the top of the hill we turned left onto a commercial street. We made our first bar stop in Rome. An older gentleman with long white hair was nice enough to share his table with two tired pilgrims. Here I had a cappuccino and croissant and Darina had her hot milk 🥛 and croissant. As we left, the white-haired man called out to me. After 3 weeks of walking (& taking buses), I had left my hiking poles behind. Thank goodness he alerted me; to have lost my poles right at the end would have been a sad state of affairs.
After we left the bar, it was walking on city streets for quite a while. Somehow we got off the Via Francigena because in cities the path is never well marked. We had to backtrack and follow another road to the first gate of Monte Mario Park. We climbed the trail, sometimes steep and rutted, and at the top, amidst trash overflowing the bins and scattered all around, we enjoyed our first vista over Rome’s northern neighborhoods.
We descended and climbed again for a second vista, then we skirted a metal fence surrounding the Astronomical Observatory of Rome. We soon found ourselves back at the Via Trionfale, a quiet arterial road.
Eventually we re-entered Monte Mario Park, following a path to the first viewpoint over the southern neighborhoods of Rome. Here, again amidst a bunch of rubbish strewn everywhere, we caught our first vista of St. Peter’s Basilica.
At last, we followed a rough cobblestone path as it descended in switchbacks almost to the lower gate of the park. Suddenly, on one of the bottom-most switchbacks, the path was totally blocked by a thick wall of bushes and vines. There was no way though or around it. I said, “What the hell!? There is no way I’m climbing all the way back to the top!” Backtracking to the opposite end of the switchback with the dreaded Wall of Bushes, I saw a very steep path down to the next switchback and I spotted a man lying on a bench with no shirt on. I yelled to him, “Buongiorno! How did you get down there?” Luckily he spoke some English and showed us the steep path down and how we could hold on to trees as we went down the slope. I went mostly down on my butt, holding desperately to the trees along the way. I finally made it down and Darina soon followed, with her heavy backpack, holding on to the trees the whole way. It was crazy.
Stupidly, neither Darina or I thought to take a photo of the Wall of Bushes, but I found a post on a Facebook Via Francigena group by Paola Verando. She had written about this crazy wall of bushes and had taken two pictures, which she gave me permission to use. The first, below, shows the wall of bushes, and the second shows her going down the steep cliff-like path (with her bike, no less!) to the lower switchback.
Both of us were appalled at the state of this city park. Garbage everywhere and then that impenetrable Wall of Bushes almost at the bottom of the switchbacks, with no warning sign anywhere to indicate there was such a blockage. Don’t they hire anyone to maintain their parks? All someone needed to do was to cut that wall of bushes down with either machetes or a bulldozer or plow. And to have someone routinely clean up the garbage. This is Italy for you, in a nutshell.
So far, we had not been impressed with our approach to Rome.
Finally we escaped through the bottom gate of that pathetic city park and headed down a wide green boulevard, the Viale Angelico, for 2km, passing finally the tall Vatican City Walls and coming to the colonnade of St. Peter’s Square at the foot of St. Peter’s Basilica.
Surrounding us were imposing statues of popes, martyrs, evangelists, and saints carved by Bernini and his students. Hundreds of tourists lined up for either the Vatican Museums or the Basilica.
In front of us was St. Peter’s Basilica, still, after 500 years, the largest church building in the world at an astounding 15,000 square meters.
In the square is also the 4,000 year old Egyptian obelisk, brought to Rome by Emperor Caligula in 37AD to grace his Roman Circus, which stood to the left of the current basilica. The two 17th-century Moderno and Bernini fountains are also works of art.
We celebrated by hugging each other and taking lots of pictures. While most people were dressed nicely to come to such a place, we looked sweaty, tired and filthy after our 10 1/2 mile walk. Plus we looked pretty frumpy in our baggy hiking clothes.
Our first order of business was to get our Testimonium Completion Certificate. Our guidebook told us to go to the St. Peter’s Square Office of the Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi. Here was where people started passing the buck. They gave us a stamp for our credenciale but said they didn’t issue the Testimonium. We had to go the Sacristy of the Basilica. In order to bypass the long lines as pilgrims, we had to ask the police to let us go to the front of the line. We did that and asked a guard at the entrance where to get the Testimonium. He didn’t know but said it wasn’t in the Basilica. We went to the Sacristy but were told it wasn’t there but outside the entrance to the left and downstairs near the bathrooms. Sure enough, that was where we found it, at the bag check near the bathrooms.
The Testimonium was not as official as the Compostella in Santiago. We wrote in our own names and the guy barely looked at our pilgrim passports. He gave them to us in big cumbersome envelopes which would surely get crushed in our bags. I had managed to walk the required 100 km in total: 127.96 miles, or 205.4 km. My walk was about 60% of the distance I had intended to walk. Darina’s walk was much longer as she walked most days except for two.
my Testimonium
We then wandered all through the Basilica, wearing paper skirts because our shorts were too short. We admired all corners of its magnificent interior. Finally I couldn’t take any more. I found a sliver of shade outside the door to the coat check and sat and waited for Darina.
After happening upon the changing of the guard, we stopped on our way to the metro at Osteria Faruso. I had a pizza with fried zucchini flowers and anchovies and Darina had one with truffle sauce, cherry tomatoes and basil. I was starving after our long walk and getting the runaround at the Vatican!
We took the metro to Termini station and walked to The Beehive, where I was relieved and happy to find both my backpack and my suitcase had been delivered by Bags-Free. Darina and I had gotten separate rooms; of course I paid extra for air-conditioning. I went to my room in a separate building and showered, then napped for a while. I was exhausted.
Later Darina and I went to dinner at Trattoria dell’Omo, a great family restaurant where people were waiting in line to get in before it opened at 7:30. Darina and I both had the same thing: gnocchi with zucchini and crawfish, accompanied by wine and beer of course. We cheered each other for the completion of our journey. I had walked about 205km out of the 355km we had planned while Darina had walked about 335 km (about 94%). That was minor compared to the 790km I walked on the Camino de Santiago in 2018, but with an additional five years of age, the super long and tough stages without services, and the extreme heat, I was happy to have completed what I did. So many times, I was ready to give up altogether, so I’m happy I at least accompanied Darina through the stages, even by bus, and stuck it through to the end.
I do know that I will never again do a long distance walk unless it’s fully supported and I will never again travel to southern Europe in summer. And my lesson from this walk has been, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz discovered: “There is no place like home.”
Steps: 33,093 steps; Miles: 14.04. Day 13 Stage Walk: 10.5 miles, or 16.95 km.
Weather (Rome): High 88°, Low 67°. Sunny.
A day in Roma
Saturday, July 29: After sleeping in, writing in my journal, posting photos on Polarsteps, and doing a little shopping at Termini Station, I talked to the Beehive about arranging a taxi to the airport Sunday morning. I had a big suitcase plus my backpack and I preferred not to lug all of that to Termini on a train to the airport.
Darina wanted to do some touristy things today and I decidedly didn’t want to do anything touristy, so we went our separate ways, agreeing to meet later for our last dinner together before we both departed Sunday. Darina would leave Sunday afternoon for Padua and then on to walk a section of her Austrian Camino. She has a goal to complete the whole Camino de Santiago from her home in Slovakia, in segments each year.
Yuli at the Beehive told me to look on their app for places to eat and I found the fantastic Korean restaurant, Gainn, just two blocks away. I had a delicious Dolsat Bimbimbap, a nice change from the pasta and pizza I’d been eating for the last 6 weeks. Plus a bonus, the restaurant was air-conditioned. 😍😍🇰🇷🥢🍚
The only touristy thing I did was to visit Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, a Major papal basilica as well as one of the Seven Pilgrim Churches of Rome and the largest Catholic Marian church in Rome.
According to Wikipedia:
“The basilica enshrines the venerated image of Salus Populi Romani, depicting the Blessed Virgin Mary as the health and protectress of the Roman people.
“Pursuant to the Lateran Treaty of 1929 between the Holy See and Italy, the Basilica is within Italian territory and not the territory of the Vatican City State. However, the Holy See fully owns the Basilica, and Italy is legally obligated to recognize its full ownership thereof and to concede to it ‘the immunity granted by International Law to the headquarters of the diplomatic agents of foreign States.’ In other words, the complex of buildings has a status somewhat similar to a foreign embassy.”
Tonight was our last night in Rome. Who knew when I would meet Darina again? I hoped we would meet again because even though we are very different, we understand each other and share a similar sense of humor. I was going to miss her and our adventure. We ate at the same restaurant where we ate the previous night, Trattoria dell’Omo. I had meatballs and Darina had pasta with bacon and pecorino. Ever generous, she gave me a gift of a little change purse with a painting of the Colosseum; she used these kinds of change purses for her money on our trip and I thought they were a great idea. She gave me one with a picture of the Colosseum because I’d been to Rome twice and still hadn’t seen the inside of the famous place. Someday I might go back, maybe when I’m 80 or so, but it won’t be in summer.
I have much gratitude to Darina for putting up with my grumpiness & irritability, my long convoluted stories and my snoring! She was a great person to be on pilgrimage with. 🙏🏻🙏🏻
Steps: 9,618 Miles: 4.08.
Weather (Rome): High 91°, Low 68°. Sunny.
The long flight home
Sunday, July 30: Igor from Moldova picked me up Sunday morning to take me to the airport in a private car for 50€. He talked the entire time about which passports were the best, about family names, and about how he could go anywhere on a whim to work as a driver.
I arrived at Fiumicino Airport by 7:30 am and went through all the regular rigamarole. I had a cappuccino and egg sandwich at Caffe Kimbo. The plane was fully boarded. I was on my way to Washington-Dulles in 9 hours and 22 minutes. 4,491 miles. Lunch would be served and I really hoped I could sleep!
I only slept, as it turned out, for 2 hours, after watching The Book Club. I enjoyed the spicy lentil over rice lunch and watched continuous episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm, happily knocking off half-hour blocks of time.
My plane landed at Dulles in Washington at about 2:10 and I was home by 3:00. Mike had just made it back from a long weekend with his high school friends in Ohio, an annual event they call “Ohiolander,” to pick me up at the airport. It was a long day of travel but I was grateful to be home!
Steps: 6,780. Miles: 2.87.
The Via Francigena is an ancient road and pilgrimage route that runs from Canterbury, England, through France and Switzerland, to Rome and then to Apulia, Italy, where there were ports of embarkation for the Holy Land. In around 990, Archbishop Sigeric journeyed from Canterbury to Rome and back, but only documented his itinerary on the return journey, taken in 80 stages averaging about 12 miles (20 km) a day, for a total of some 1,100 miles (1,700 km).
This is the continuing saga of our attempt to walk the stages from Lucca to Rome, which are, in total, about 255.07 miles (410.5 km). Since we had to cut out stages due to time constraints, our actual goal was to walk 211.77 miles ( 340.8 km).
FINAL running tally: (Day 13/21 of walking): 127.96 /211.77 miles (205.94/340.8 km). (I walked 13 days out of the 21 we had planned to walk. I think Darina walked 19 of those days).
Overall, the Via Francigena is a very difficult walk mainly because Italians have very little interest in pilgrims. The stages are long and difficult without many breaks in the stages. There are few pilgrim accommodations and even fewer pilgrims; we rarely saw anyone on our entire walk. Of course, for me, the heat was the worst challenge. Apparently there were two heat domes from Africa that settled over Italy during our walk, making the days unbearable. Most churches were closed along the way, and for me, the walk felt all about survival, and not spirituality. Darina is a person of faith, so I believe she found it more rewarding in that way; all I could do was put one foot in front of the other, drink a lot of water, and hope that I didn’t perish along the way.
All of that being said, I will always have warm memories of the evenings spent with Darina, drinking wine, chatting about anything and everything, laughing and eating fantastic Italian food.
I walked the complete 790km of the Camino de Santiago in 2018 and loved it. This was an entirely different experience, and I wouldn’t recommend it unless a person really enjoys hardship.
This post is in response to Jo’s Monday walk: Alvor to Portimão.
~ wander.essence ~ 
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