Day 5: Stage 4: Pieve Santo Stefano, 17 km, windy/wet/cool, 12°

🎶Trouble! 🎶

It rained all night.😑. I knew what this meant for the stage. I texted with Annemarie and Caitlin in the middle of my night. Me: “I could fly to France or Spain to walk because it’s hot and dry there. My favourite distance stuff”. Them; “Go to sleep!”🤣 

I tried to sleep a bit, no luck. Then lounged in bed reading the news, then some stretching and yoga on the floor and finally at 8:30 I pulled the last of my gear together and headed down for a light Italian breakfast and tea. I set off late by my standards at nearly 9am. I knew that no matter what I did I was going to get muddy and wet, so I wore my walking shorts a t-shirt and my light Gortex jacket. Everyone else was geared up in rain gear to the max, but I’ve learned that unless the rain is pouring it’s better to travel quickly and light knowing that I’ll heat up on the trail. 

I stepped out into howling winds and rain and for a moment I again asked myself, “What am I doing here?Where is the sun the brochures promised? Neil has hot sun just across the Med in Spain on his walk, right? Annemarie’s cousin Fran texted me saying it was wonderful in Holland.” 

I put my earbuds in and turned on some music for the first time on this Camino. I usually only do this on tough days for distraction, to take my mind somewhere else. The very first song that comes on is “Trouble” by Lindsey Buckingham. If you know the song then you’ll know that one of the repeating lines in that song is,  🎶 “I think I’m in trouble”🎵. It repeats over and over. He has no idea🤣

I set off. 

It was just as I’d imagined it laying in bed. 
One thing that became almost immediately apparent was that I brought the wrong boots. Not really the wrong boots, but I brought old boots that did not have a great deal of tread left on them. They are the same model of boot that I wore last year and they served me really well on the VF. Those boots had about the same amount of tread on them when I crossed the Appennini mountains with Costanza. I naturally assumed that Italee would be warm and fairly dry as it usually is at this time of year. Obviously, I got that one wrong. The mud is so slippery on the slopes that it’s very difficult to get a good purchase on the climbs, and on the dissents. This became very evident today. Fortunately, I have my sticks with me, which helped when things were really challenging.

The route today follows a mountain ridge line, and if you look at the video at the end of this post, this becomes quite evident. However, this leaves the hiker pretty exposed when there’s high wind as I experience today.

I’m not saying that I am not prepared for these types of conditions. Far from it. I always carry my Gore-Tex and I’ve walked in rain on many occasions through higher mountains than these in worse conditions. As a matter of fact, once I am underway, I usually find these experiences to be a lot of fun. It’s the getting out the door that’s the hard part! I couldn’t help but think of the two pairs of brand new boots sitting in my closet at home. It would’ve made all the difference, but it is what it is.
I could see were others had slipped and slid as they had passed. It’s always nice to know that one has company in these types of conditions though I saw no other walkers today.
I’m sure that on a sunny warm, beautiful day that this stage is quite amazing. That said, there’s just something about walking through the clouds and along windswept trails that’s also extremely beautiful and intoxicating. It brings a rather edgy feel to the journey that I really enjoy. Is it possible that I am beginning to really like this stage? That seemed to be the case and in fact it was. As the wind blew harder, I sang louder. It changed my mood in a heart beat. The rest of the walk was a joy! 

Even this didn’t seem too bad. It must have been quite a blast. I counted over 20 trees downed. 
I’m not sure if you can really see the ridge line, but it drops away precipitously
It was stunning up here! 
The wind continued to blow, but most of the rain had stopped.

🤬🤬 That’s steep for these slippery conditions! 
It maybe doesn’t show it, but it was still pretty dark behind me where I’d been an hour or so earlier
This is looking ahead to tomorrow’s climbs.
I’ve been looking for horses and cows for days. I make videos of all the animals I find and send them to my three grandchildren because I know they enjoy them endlessly! In my daily videos to the kids, I’ve been telling them about other things, and that I was looking for animals. Today I delivered! Jackpot!!
Home for tonight.
Civilization! Sort of. 
By this point I’d dropped over 800m or 2,600 ft and it was warming up! Rain stopped too!
Was I in a good place? Yup. A great day! No one forced me to do this. I do this because I love it and everything that comes with it. 
Time for a glass of wine as I write this. I’m making dinner tonight in my tiny Airbnb and United are winning at half time! ⚽️ Sorry Ariel (not really)🙂 I’ve just met my landlords a nice couple, he from Italy, she from Germany. Handshakes and kisses followed by a nice conversation. 

Anyway, as I get lower towards town I come across this stunning field of long grass and poppies! Wow! 

I decide to film in RAW and when I return home I think there may be a photo worthy of our wall (I took about a dozen shots). The wind played a special part, or is it just me? 
Only while walking through the countryside do I ever really find opportunities. 

I arrived into town to find a huge motorcycle race happening. I could hear it as I came down the mountain and then I began to watch it as I got closer. I took some videos and some stills and sent them off to the grandkids to watch. Avery is particularly interested in cars these days, so I thought he might like this. The motorcycle maintenance tents are literally just outside my front door! I spent a couple of hours wandering through the bikes and shopping for groceries in the little store down the street.


Tomorrow is Sunday and most everything wraps up for the day, so I have my supplies in my pack for a longer stage. I’ll be stretching things out from here on. I’ve decided to walk a different variant tomorrow as I don’t think my boots will serve me well on a high climb. I’ll wait for drier trail conditions which I see are coming soon. 

Knowing I’d be in the mountains lots I trained hard for this walk. While I haven’t yet found my sleeping rhythm, I have found my walking rhythm after four stages. I feel just like I did seven months ago on the Via Francigena. So I’m feeling ready to enjoy the rest of this Way. 

This is my working desk tonight. As usual the laundry is all done and hung, my boots are drying and the wine (a very decent Montepulciano) is open! 🙂 I know my cousin Gord would approve!

United have won! Time for dinner! 🍷