Some quick details:  We leave tomorrow,  8/6 for Florence,  spend 3 days there, then take the train to Lucca, Italy.  On Monday,  8/12, we start the walk to Rome, 250 miles and about 3 1/2 weeks of walking.  If you have really good eyesight, here’s a map of our journey:

All we have to do is connect the dots! Simple enough?!

Now, for the bags:  For this Camino we could not find a service to ship a suitcase to our final destination (Rome) and hold it until we get there. It’s more than just a nicety of fresh clothes at the end if the rainbow, it’s actually a necessity. Hiking poles are not allowed in carry on luggage and we do not want to put our backpacks into checked baggage. What to do?

We ended up buying a small suitcase at a Thrift store for $5 and put our poles in that.

We’ll check this bag, claim it in Italy, then donate it there. When we get ready to go home from Rome, we’ll buy a nice Italian bag there and use that as our checked bag (with poles). New Italian bag. CHECK. Poles shipped safely.  CHECK. All good!  Next post is from Italy!