Day 47: Stage 37: Pontremoli, 30 km, sun, 25°

Ups & Downs And Bridges!

I’m sitting here at the end of a very long day enjoying a cold beer as I try to rehydrate (I have lots of water too) before having dinner in an hour at 7:30 PM. Costanza has gone off to try and see the fortress, but I have a blog to create. I’ve seen enough ups and downs today so I don’t feel the need to climb up to see another fortress. I’ve seen a few in my 67 years. A couple of photos from last night. 

We had a great pizza and some really nice red wine last night at the little pizzeria on the right side of the picture.

After a nice breakfast at our a ostello we started to climb almost immediately. Today would prove to be a very tough day.

That said, it was also a beautiful walking day with perfect temperatures and wonderful scenery.



The early trails were beautiful and as always the trees were a delight. The only issue with the trails was that they were covered in a lot of loose stone, that large angular type of rock that makes walking extremely tedious and uncomfortable at times. Many of the trails today it would be like that, a real danger to ankles and knees. We survived.🙂

We stopped for photos at the famous sign where all the stickers had been attached. I must say it was a special moment, but we were to climb even higher.

Much of the walk today, unlike yesterday was on trails and thankfully all the bicycles and particularly the motorcycles were gone! After all it was Monday.

At the top of the past there was a bar, and in the bar they had a very nice stamp for my credential. I was pretty pleased to get one there. Just across the highway there was the most amazing little church.

Inside it was very simple, and yet extremely beautiful with stain-glass windows and hand carved chairs. For me, this is an example of the little gems one finds during this sort of travel. Places pretty much off the beaten track of todays tourism. 

And then just like that we entered Tuscany, Toscana! After performing a little dance to celebrate crossing the border, we entered one of 12 districts in Tuscany.

Much to our surprise, because we noticed that the cyclists got to go downhill from the pass, we continued to climb.

The forest we travel through today was really beautiful. At this elevation fall has already started to show itself with the leaves beginning to fall.

At some point the path levelled off a bit and we just sort of went up and down for a while. We were anticipating a major descent, almost cliffs like according to the profile, and it became a running joke when we always seemed to be climbing! We thought that each descent was the big one. 
Nope, just more climbing followed. 

We wondered if this was this going to be the great dissent? It wasn’t. 

As I sit here the church tower just rang out the 7 PM bells. It’s a good thing we’re a little ways away from the tower because the bells usually start early in the morning. What am I thinking? We are staying in a church ostello tonight and we will have the bells early in the morning. Sigh. It’s OK, part of the charm of travelling in Europe. Besides we will be up at 6 anyway. Costanza is a slave driver, and I told her so today, after explaining the meaning. Language can get in the way!

I must say it’s a little bit weird when you look down below you as you cross a ridge line and on both sides there’s an auto strata with traffic passing underneath you. Marvellous engineering!



After crossing the ridge line we thought we might finally get our steep downhill. Nope, sigh. 

But then it finally began. So much loose stone it was amazing that neither of us had an injury. We caught up to four Italian pilgrims who are moving very slowly with obvious blisters on their feet and other injuries. They had been walking less than a week and they were struggling big time. Not unusual. 



Occasionally it would level out for a few hundred metres and then it would just drop like crazy. I have no pictures from the steep descents as I was too busy practicing my downhill technique. 

A few no name villages along the way. 

The first bridge was a modern suspension bridge. It really bounced!





Then a series of medieval bridges. A joy for the eye. 



The bridges just kept on coming!



One after another. 

About here we caught up with a NZ couple. He was carrying both packs, and he wasn’t particularly young either. He must have owed his wife big time! Don’t get any ideas Annemarie! I’ve never seen that before and I felt badly for him. 

We then caught up and dropped Suzanne from Quebec, but first we had a nice reunion. I didn’t know it until later, but Stefan was also close by and it was great to catch up with both of them at dinner. Nearly have the old cohort together again. There are one or two a day ahead who I’ve kept in touch with. A matter of time at our current pace until we catch up. 

Pontremoli is a very old town going well back into medieval times. 

Cool little streets everywhere. 

At about the 20 km point I started asking Costanza why she hadn’t arranged gelato shops in the small towns. She made excuses, but I knew she’d simply slipped up. I let her mistake slide, but as soon as we were in town I told her that I was stopping, no excuses! 



Two more great old stone.bridges in Pontremoli which is how I suppose the town got its name!



Our dinner place tonight. 

It took forever to us to check into our ostello today. We didn’t get in until a while after five and we’d arrived in the city at 3:30 after a 7 1/2 hour trek. All the pilgrims we met today had stayed at the pass last night and were surprised when they heard that we started from Berceto and actually caught them. I think we were too!

Tomorrow is another long, tough stage of over 30 kms. We have an interesting place for the night. More about that tomorrow. It’s late, I have no wifi for the second night in a row and I’m living on my data! Good night!