Day 70: Stage 57: Sutri, 26 km, 23°

Nutella! 

Day 10: the usual coffee thing!🙄

With a decently long stage ahead of us we set off in good time this morning. There was a fairly steady climb out of town for about the first 10 km. Early on we came across this really nice mural someone had painted on a quite large wall showing the pilgrims on the VF. 

The big pocket on the left side of my shorts blew out for the second time today. I repaired it in a slightly different manner and hope that it will get me all the way home a week from today.

The stage was really nice. Most of it was spent walking on trails, through orchards and along beautifully treed pathways like this one.





We bumped into three Italian pilgrims and we left them debating the correct route as we moved onwards. We didn’t see them again.

As I said, the small country roads and pathways were a walkers dream.



We had to cross a couple of really busy highways and Rob caught me just after I’d run across in fairly busy traffic. I guess I found a little bit of a hole and dashed across.

We started to pass through some beautiful hazelnut orchards. I could’ve easily called this post NUTS, but because hazelnuts are used to make Nutella that’s how the title came about. 

Nutella is all over the place in Italy. You see it in the grocery stores in many forms and it also makes up a big part of our chocolata croissants. I know my own kids really love it, but I’ve never really spent any time nibbling on it before. That is, before this particular journey.



After crossing through one orchard we bumped into two hazelnut farmers who were having a nice chat. They spoke no English, but we managed to have a really interesting discussion with him about hazelnuts, Nutella and our journey so far. They informed us that it was 7 km to the next town and we are once again set off.

It was a day of nuts. I could’ve easily focussed on the chestnuts that were strewn along much of the walking route outside the orchards. Later on in the walk we bumped into a Doctor who was harvesting chestnuts and was taking them with her to Roma where she lives. Apparently someone was going to prepare something for her, but she wasn’t quite sure what was going to be made because she doesn’t cook. She was very friendly though and as we stood there speaking with her we watched the chestnut fall from quite high up, and I was afraid they were going to hit us at one point. We survived! 

She was quite concerned about the state of Italy today. She said that Rome has changed incredibly in the past years, and we had heard this from another German woman we met who also lived in Rome. I haven’t been back to Rome since 2005 so it will be very interesting to see what sort of changes we find given the information she provided us. I think it’s like any of the other major cities in Europe that have become very crowded. With significant immigration arriving from Africa and the Middle East these past years, and more recently the Ukraine, it’s put some pressure on some of these cities. 

We passed several towers on our way through one of the orchards today. My guidebook says these are called the Orlando Towers built by one of Charlemagne‘s generals and are the subject of the epic 11th century poem The Song of Roland. However, apparently historians suggest that two of the towers are funeral monuments from the Roman period, and the other is the remains of a bell tower from the 10th century. So you can believe whatever story you like. I kind of prefer the original story attached to the poem. 



We are coming in contact with more and more of central Italy‘s beautiful pine trees. I’ve always love these trees with their huge broad crowns.





It was warming up nicely as we entered the beautiful mediaeval town of Capranica. 

We took our time wandering it’s Main Street and poking into the narrow tunnel like sidr streets. 





We were looking for a healthy snack,

but we ended up with these to help hydrate ourselves. 

We climbed out of town. 

Then started a long walk beside a creek through a beautiful ravine. 







We had this part of the trail all to ourselves. We could tell because I was breaking through spiderwebs all the way! I did startle a good size snake today. I initially thought it was almost a metre long, but it was probably about half that long. I had read that there are a number of snakes species in Italy, some of them poisonous. However, my research indicated that most of the time you would never see one and that they would avoid human contact. That’s exactly what this fella did. He slide off into the forest as quick as he could, but I was only about three boot lengths away from it. 





We arrived on the outskirts of Sutri and discovered that it was a beautiful mediaeval town that has a history dating all the way back to the Etruscan times. 





There’s a Roman amphitheatre here as well that’s cut into the tuft rock. There are also quite a few ancient tombs dating back to the Etruscan period cut into the stone (above photo).



We climbed up into town looking for lunch.

We found it in a beautiful little restaurant on the left side of the Piazza. The family that runs the small restaurant served us an amazing bowl of mushroom soup. I’m rediscovering mushroom soup on this trip. I found it prepared in ways I couldn’t even imagine. I’ll have to talk about this with Annemarie when I get home as she makes spectacularly good mushroom soup. 

The grandmother of the family was sitting almost just like this when we came in. I was afraid to ask her for a photograph so I took this picture of a photo of her that was hanging on the wall in the exact same position.

Rob and Geoff after a most successful lunch!😂



We’re staying in a very beautiful little apartment tonight and we have already walked out of town and bought groceries. Rob is taking it upon himself to again make us dinner while I repaired my shorts yet again and now write this blog post. Rob thinks I’m falling apart!😂

This is the view from my window, part of the town wall. The view is out towards the Roman settlement area and the Etruscan tombs.

We had a most excellent day! Rob is holding up quite nicely after all the walking, and tomorrow is an even longer stage. We are almost in though. There is a varying chance of significant rain tomorrow, but I recently checked my app and it shows considerably less rain that was earlier predicted for tomorrow. Fingers crossed!