Via Francigena day 22

Campagnano di Roma to La Storta

What a star. Cathie sees the light.

Today was pretty well executed.

We had breakfast at 7am and hit the road soon after.

The morning shadows made us look much older than we really are.

We’d noticed that the day’s profile revealed a lot of climbing early on, but we pumped our old legs and got through that ok.

There were some big forest views and on the whole it was pleasant enough.

We admired the cooperative efforts of these two little chaps (it’s hard to see the one on the shady side, but he was pulling for all he was worth), as they rolled a nice ball of something along the path. Hard to capture in a photo, but there’s a short video in today’s album.

We reached the little town of Formello at 9.35am. The temperature on a pharmacy sign read 35 degrees.

Celebrating Formello.

Now that the month of June has come to an end, there’s been a bit of analysis of the month’s weather.

Here’s an interesting story from the Guardian.

In Formella, we sought out a bar for a coffee and an ice cream.

After seeing almost no pilgrims this week, there were five in there taking advantage of the air conditioning.

One, a cyclist, staggered out as we came in. His shirt was absolutely soaked in sweat.

Another two couples left before we ventured out for our rendezvous with a bus.

We met one of the couples at the bus stop.

Sven and Karin (not sure of spelling) were a Swedish couple. Like us, they’d started in Lucca and very soon rationalised their journey as we have, with a bit of walking and a bit of bus tourism.

La Storta is a northern suburb of Rome. Our hotel is situated in something like a gated community, although there are no gates.

As we walked from the bus, at one point we passed an army vehicle and a bored guard at the entrance to the Tunisian embassy - it’s that sort of area.

Although we’d promised ourselves we’d be organised for what amounted to another rural hotel, it’s hard to be properly prepared.

This one doesn’t have a restaurant. You wonder why a company providing for walkers would put us in such a place without at least explaining the full situation. We’re a couple of kilometres from restaurants or supermarkets.

They do say they can contact taxis for guests, but we’re wary of such open-ended offers, fearing for our budget.

We arrived even earlier than our suitcases and were still in our stinky, sweaty clothes, so we set off immediately for a supermarket - which turned out to be 2km away, back along the busy Via Cassia.

Most Conad supermarkets have a cash machine outside and we need cash for the city tax.

It’s a weird system. All over Italy, in addition to other charges, hotels have to charge widely variable taxes on their guests.

Last night, there was no charge. Here in Rome, it’s €6 each. For whatever reason, most hotels collect it in cash.

We’ve been looking out for ATM machines for a couple of days, but haven’t spotted any, so our cash reserves have dwindled to just over €6 - not enough. There wasn’t an ATM at this supermarket.

Well, there we were. We risked life, limb and bucket of sweat walking along the busy Via Cassia without a proper footpath, hoping to come back with food and cash, but alas, no cash.

The supermarket was one of Conad’s more tired efforts, but we got what we needed.

Outside, there were a few dreary businesses, hairdressers, laundromats and … a sushi restaurant.

We needed somewhere cool to sit and we needed a minimum amount of lunch, so in we went.

As you’d expect, it was run by an Indian family and also offered Chinese and Italian food.

It was very cool and sophisticated. Each table had a flexible stalk with a touch screen to swivel around on the end of it.

You were expected to absorb this new cultural experience and order your heart’s desire from the indecipherable list of gustatory delights.

We just wanted a few bits of sushi.

Our friendly waiter ordered for us - we had no idea what.

It was all very inventive and surprising. We each had about eight pieces and that was plenty. The most surprising was a deep fried sushi roll topped in cream cheese and strawberry.

We walked briskly back in the traffic.

We’d walked 9km, then caught a bus, then walked a kilometre to our hotel. Then another 2km to the supermarket and another 2km back. Our walking is done.

Our bags had arrived, so we went through the normal ceremony of showers, clothes-washing, siesta and arrived at the ceremonial hour for beer, crisps and stories.

It’s rubbish really.

This is a story I haven’t mentioned much, but Italy is sinking under a mountain of it - at least along the roadsides and trails.

There doesn’t seem to be much effort to contain it, no signs, except at a highway underpass, where we found the biggest mountain of deliberately discarded household waste.

Along the highway, it’s disgusting. Plastic bottles are everywhere, but also the contents of car ashtrays, bags of household rubbish just tossed aside. It’s a disgrace.

Tomorrow we have 20km to travel. The heat in Rome is expected to rise to 37 degrees.

Blame the heat, blame the rubbish, blame the traffic - it’s not for us.

We have a plan to walk about 1km to the bus. When we’re in Rome, we’ll no doubt clock up a bit more, but it’ll be the end of our small adventure.

A very small photo album today.

As a footnote. To cut down on weight at the supermarket, we decided to try the wine in cardboard, which came in a one litre pack for €2.29, 22 percent of which is tax.

It’s really good. Not sure if we can work our way through it all, but we’ll see.

Interesting that all these plastic bottles of water and cardboard boxes of wine have non-detachable lids. I’m not sure, but it seems to be a small attempt to reduce waste by guaranteeing the lid stays with its container.