Another year, another country and a few hundred more miles of walking. This is something we truly enjoy, but recognize that it might not be for everyone. That’s okay.

This year, we are walking the Via Francigena, an ancient walking path from England to Rome (and beyond). Our plan is to do a short section of it, from Lucca, Italy to Rome. About 250 miles.

This walk is a bit less supported than our prior walks in Spain and France. The impact to us is that we won’t be able to send a suitcase ahead to the finish line. There is no local service that will do provide the shipping and storage for us.  Everything that we need for the WHOLE trip must fit on our backs!

That suitcase has always been our “pot of gold at the end of the rainbow”; our chance to get out of the trail clothes that we’d worn for weeks on end. (While we wash these clothes every day, they DO need a break!).

Okay, so what do we bring for 6 plus weeks,  that fits entirely into a backpack and can be carried all that time?  Through the years, we’ve gotten pretty good at light-weighting our wares and keeping good track of what we need and don’t need.

We each have lists, and for instruction, I took a photo of Diane’s two-paged, single-spaced,  list. Now, it seems like a LOT of stuff (and it is), but you may want to check out the yellow highlighted number at the bottom, right (you’ll need to zoom in). Two pages worth of clothing, etc., including the weight of the pack, comes in at just over 12 pounds!

Not too bad! And that’s for 6 plus weeks in Italy!

More to come as Wirewalker ventures into the Tuscan hills of Italy!

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!

Day 2 in Florence, Italy. No formal miles walked, though we ran 4 miles and walked several tourist miles, visiting the Ponte Vecchio, and the Uffizzi Museum (unbelievable Renaissance art! ). Tomorrow, we’ll visit more museums (statue of David, etc.). Saturday, we take the train to Lucca where, on Monday, we start our walk to Rome!

Sophomore stumble?  What’s that? While we were cruising on our sailboat, the stories of shipwrecks would be heard a few times a season. Invariably, it was NOT the rookie sailor (Freshmen), nor the seasoned sailors (Seniors). Rather, it’s the sophomore class that gets into trouble!  They’ve had some success under sail and become a bit too cocky (hubris?). These guys are the ones who don’t double check the charts, the weather, local knowledge, etc. The result is, unfortunately, an unexpected grounding or a very rough ride … that could have been avoided if they were just a bit more cautious.

So, what’s that got to do with us? Remember that 2 paged list that we proudly showed in an earlier post? We should have read it better!

We arrived last night with about 40 € in our pockets, which is enough to get us to our hotel where we could search out an ATM to increase our cash kitty. Since several of the more remote locations we will visit on our walk are cash-based, having a supply of Euros is critical.

One more background note: On these trips, we don’t take our full wallets/purse. We use a money belt, instead, for security. Into the money belt we load ONLY what we need: 2 credit cards, a medical card, driver’s license, ATM card, passports and cash.

So, this morning it was time to get cash. And then I remembered; I forgot to pack my ATM card! Crud! Oh well, Diane has hers, right? Nope! We both forgot!

No ATM, but we have credit cards, right? We can get cash that way, right? Sort of. We never set up the cards for cash withdrawal … A call to Visa tells us that, with your passport and credit card you can go to any bank and they’ll give you a cash advance.  Not in Italy! We visited several banks and the answer was a consistent, No!

The last resort was the infamous money exchange booths! For only a 370 € charge, they will gladly give you 300 € 🤑! For those keeping score, that’s an instantaneous 23% interest charge! Ouch! Here’s that hard earned cash (and infamous money belt) :

Now to avoid that charge next time, we requested a Pin from Visa. Unfortunately, they only give new Pin’s by mail to the home address … in 7 to 10 days! We ordered one, nonetheless. Our most kind friend, Barb Raffee, has agreed to check our mail for this … every day until it arrives. She is a saint!

And we, we’re the called-out, cocky Sophomores who have been taught a proper lesson in preparation! There are always lessons to learn 🙄.

Chao!

Day 2. No formal miles, but 4 more miles run and several more walked as tourists.

Today, was another tourist day. A visit to the Accademia is a must! Not only is it jam packed with art from all the great Renaissance artists, it also houses Michelangelo’s most famous statue, David. In this statue, we see King David (before he was king) contemplating his battle with Goliath. Here’s the statue and a better explanation:

And the background:

We also toured the Duomo cathedral, a truly impressive cathedral in the heart of Florence!

Now, to the 50 year old dots. In the late 60’s, there was a popular singer named, Donovan. He had a few hits, including “Mellow Yellow”, and “Hurdy Gurdy Man”. Now, for 50 years I’ve known the words to Hurdy Gurdy man,  (“then comes the Hurdy Gurdy man singing songs of love”), but didn’t have a CLUE what Hurdy Gurdy meant!

In the Accademia museum, there is a section on musical instruments. In it, I saw this:

Yes, that is a 350 year old Hurdy Gurdy! Who would know?  Now, I know. It only took 50 years!

Ciao!

A day of commuting.  Tomorrow, we do the tourist thing.

Probably the most noteworthy item from today was the heat. Upper 90’s. It may hit 100 F on Monday, our first hiking day. Welcome to Italy 😎! By Tuesday, it’s expected to start cooling to the mid-80’s. Much more agreeable.

We’ll give the lowdown on Lucca tomorrow, after we tourist.  Ciao

No official miles walked (we start tomorrow), but 5 miles running. So,  speaking of running, running really is a great way to get an overview of a town. The outer walls of Lucca are just over 2.5 miles in circumference. We ran two laps this morning providing an excellent overview of the city within. Here’s part of my Strava post, and one of the runners I saw there!

(By the way, she had an excellent run today! )

We tracked our tourist miles inside the city and we were surprised that we’d covered over 10 miles, between yesterday and today. Not a bad “day off”!

I only snapped one tourist photo, as I’d hit my limit in Florence. Lucca is a very beautiful town and deserved more photo space,  but …

Okay, it’s a small world … With frequency, we’ll stay in a rental flat that is a restored centuries-old structure. Sometimes, these restorations are palacial; opulent. Sometimes, they’re just old and cramped. Our accomodations in Lucca are quite nice, but they didn’t manage to get the bathroom right.

Apparently here in Europe, they sell shower boxes for the size- challenged!  These showers can be 24″x24″, and sometimes smaller! Really, you cannot turn around in these units! Our shower here was probably 27″x27″, big enough to turn around in, but … don’t drop the soap! You won’t see it until you step out.  Here’s Diane modeling the shower:

Continuing our Small World, we found our next car! It will fit in our garage (for sure), and maybe even our backpack.  It’s a Renault Twizy car:

It’s electric, for those who wish to reduce fossil fuel, and has room for two, but not side-by-side (not for the romantics, here).

Enough for today. Tomorrow we hit the trail!

1. Our journey has begun. 12 miles of walking, with only 200′ of climbing. There were mountains to be seen, we just didn’t have to climb them!

For a first day out, the course was not especially demanding.  And an early start kept us out of the worst of today’s heat (96 F)

We were given a head’s up from friends who had done this walk (from Switzerland to Rome) that this stage out of Lucca was perhaps the most boring of the bunch; industrial, mostly on roads, and very flat. Their description was pretty accurate.

This morning, before the hike, I was reading in Ecclesiastes (5:19), that “God gives the bounty and our ability to enjoy it”. Its our job to get off the stick and actually enjoy what we’ve been given. We did our best to enjoy today’s journey, exactly as it was!

Some days will be flat and industrial, others mountainous, or vineyards, or forests, etc. There’s a time for every purpose (or topography) under heaven. For those keeping score, that’s from Ecclesiastes 3, but also from the 60’s rock group,  The Byrds, “Turn, Turn, Turn”. I think that Hurdy Gurdy from Florence has locked me in a 60’s music mode!  Maybe we’ll sight a disco ball and my thinking will advance to the 70’s. Perhaps not 🤔!

Enough for now, showers, laundry and foraging await!

Today was another 12 miles, with about 500′ of climbing. The most noteworthy thing about today was the absence of road miles. Roughly 90% of today’s journey was on trails, a very pleasant departure from yesterday’s journey of a thousand roads!

In each of our journeys, a key first step is learning how the path is marked. For the most part, the Via Francigena is the best marked trail we’ve been on! You rarely go 100 yards without seeing a trail sign. It almost spoils you! Today we had a stretch of about 3/4th’s of a mile without a sign. Surely, I’m in the wrong path! No, it is just that there wasn’t a convenient place to put a sign.

So, what do they look like? The first thing to note is that “many signs look alike”. There is a Via Francigena for hikers, for bikers, and even for cars. You need to make sure you’re on the right version.

Here’s a bike and walkers sign:

More often, small stickers are used, as:

We have also seen many of these more permanent, tombstone-esque signs:

Pilgrims: Today was the day for meeting  pilgrims.  Most are Italian, though we’ve met a Hungarian woman, an Irish woman (both solo hikers), a British youth,  and two or three Italian couples. So, even in the dog days of summer, people still do this walk.

Now for showers, etc. We hope each of you are doing well.

Greetings! Today was 7 miles, bringing our total miles walked to 31. So much to talk about, so little time!

We were forewarned about mosquitoes being a problem in Florence, but really didn’t see too many there. Yesterday in Fucecchio, we learned that  the little nippers were all on vacation in Fucecchio! Seriously! While touring the town and reading a sign, Bill looked down to see a swarm of mosquitos dining on his legs. About 8 bites later, we were running back to our place where a bottle of 30% deet awaited us. After spraying, we went back out and thoroughly enjoyed the town. We had our best pizzas yet in Italy!

Lost Tippers: We use hiking poles. When on pavement, we put rubber tips on our poles for better grip and less clacking noise. Almost immediately after starting today, Bill found a metal drain grate where the tip popped right off! So, for the rest of the  walk, Bill sounded like: step-click-step-click, etc. Somewhere in the Adriatic sea, Bill’s lost tip is floating along …

Found Money: Last week we talked about our “Sophomore Stumble”.  We forgot our ATM cards and never bothered to set up our credit cards for cash withdrawal. That forced us to visit the money changers and their remarkably high service charge.  To avoid that in the future, we requested a cash withdrawal PIN for our credit cards, and metered our cash expenditures very carefully!  Yippee and Hallelujah! Our very, very gracious friend,  Barb, kept checking our mail and reported to us, this morning that our PIN number came in! A trip to the local bank later confirmed that everything works! We’re in the money! Thank you, Barb!

The view: We’ve just arrived in San Miniato, located at the top of a hill. The view is stunning! Just a couple shots:

Tomorrow is a longer one, but the scenery is promised to be spectacular. We can’t wait!