October 5, 2018

We departed our room at 6:45 to go directly across the street to the local bar for breakfast and out of town by 7:30. We are not the speediest! I had a ham and cheese sandwich today – felt I needed the protein!

The early morning trail was fairly flat with a climb snuck in here and there. We made good time at 2 miles per hour. That might be a record for us to date! The landscape was breathtaking!

Up a long steep hill past gorgeous vineyards we saw a sign for a pilgrim break at a wine shop only 800 meters away. We walked and walked because 800 meters is a long way, but finally arrived.

Caparzo wine shop offered a glass of Sangiovese, bottle of water and a sandwich for 7 euro. We will take 2 please!

The young man behind the counter had me fill out a form, took my money and poured our wine. He gave us a generous pour, reminded me of my husband!

I asked if I could take his photo and he smiled and said 30 euro because he is an actor. Ha! I took it before he gave me the price…

The sandwiches were fresh and tasty. Our own butter graced the bread as it’s the custom to serve meat and/or cheese on plain bread. Cough cough!

Up the hill we go again but this hill is a bear! Long steep and just when you think you’ve reached the top, there’s a tease and then a little more incline.

We can see what we think our days end destination is further ahead, and it’s even higher. Craziness I say! We were wrong about the town. What we were seeing was Monticino and we did not go there.

The cloud cover today is so very welcome. There has been very little direct sun today and a nice cool breeze blows. I love this type of weather. Even with hills to climb the temperature makes it ease the day and the attitude!

Then those darn clouds started dripping! It didn’t last long but we got out what we had of our rain gear. Most of it we had packed in Suzanne’s bag which was not with us because the forecast showed no rain, nada!

Before the wine!

We got into Ponte d’Arbia and as we came down the street towards the bakery stop, Sue’s knee started giving her grief. After sitting for a while we decided to once again take a bus the final distance.

If the point of the journey is to keep trying to make it to the finish, then this is what we do. When we get to the point of 100 km remaining we have to walk every step, pain or not. I think she’ll be good by then.

Roma or bust!

Taking the bus is always a new experience even if you’ve taken it before. This stop was small and two older men directed us to the proper side of the street based on where I said we were heading. Then we were informed by body language that we need to wave our arms at the bus driver so he will stop. Otherwise they roll on past.

The one man who lived across from the bus stop actually crossed the street to make sure the bus stopped. He waited until we waved the bus to stop and climbed on board. Once on the bus we learned the fee was 3 euros. The drivers’ son, maybe 12 years old, took our money and insisted we wait for a ticket. Suzanne was teetering on the edge of the step and just wanted to take a seat. Must follow protocol!

We got our seats and rode for maybe 8 minutes and arrived in San Querico. It’s a very old cute town with at least 3 churches that I found.

Love the whimsical design

We went to the bar in the piazza near our bnb to wait for check in at 4. We didn’t have to wait long and were greeted by our very exuberant hostess. She made me an espresso and offered us more sweets. Yikes! I can’t do this every day…

We entered our room and it was quite girly. Decorations can be so interesting.

Our hostess made dinner reservations for us and dinner was quite good. We had pasta of course along with grilled veggies consisting of eggplant, zucchini and bell pepper. Neither of us like eggplant but we both took a piece which was sliced very thin and ate it with our pasta. That was doable.

We went for dessert and my stracciatella ice cream and cake was delicious. It was more like whipped ice cream with a half-inch base of cake. We are going to try to keep dinners more simple aka cheap going forward. Spending 20 euro a night on dinner adds up!

Early to bed and early to rise.

#enjoythejourney #viafrancigena