LA VIA FRANCIGENA                5. 5 -11. 6. 1999 cycle pilgrimage           by John & Shirley Snell

 

            .  This diary concerns a cycle ride my wife and I made in 1999 from Canterbury to Rome following an ancient route known as the Via Francigena , or French Road.  It has been used for many centuries by countless merchants, travellers , pilgrims as well as invading armies.

            The route was first recorded properly by a man named Sigeric. He was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 990 after spending some time as the Bishop of Wiltshire. It was the custom in those days for the Archbishop to visit the Pope in Rome to receive his pallium - a richly embroidered stoll and part of his vestments.  What was special about Sigeric’s journey was that he recorded in the form of a diary all the places he stopped overnight on his return to Canterbury.  This document still exists in the British Library in London and shows 80 stages. Stage 1 being from Rome whilst stage 80 was from Dover to Canterbury.

            We have been interested in medieval pilgrimage for many years and in the middle ages the most important destinations for European pilgrims were Jerusalem , Rome and Santiago de Compostela. Whilst we had cycled to Santiago on several occasions and had visited Jerusalem with a group from Sherborne Abbey in 1995  we had not yet been to Rome and to cycle there seemed a good idea whilst our joints allowed us to do so. Some friends had walked there and one , a monk, had done so to take up an appointment in the Vatican. We picked the brains of these friends and gained much valuable information about accommodation and interesting places to visit on route.

            Planning our journey then started and we obtained from the Italian Tourist Office a useful free booklet in English about the route and some large scale maps of Italy from Stanfords in London.  We made ourselves so called pilgrim passports in which to collect stamps from abbeys and monasteries etc as a record of our journey and our Vicar kindly arranged for the Bishop of Salisbury, to authenticate them with his signature.

            We have several bikes each but decided to make the journey on our Bike Friday folding American machines in the event of us having to use public transport.  This turned out to be a wise decision.

            On the 5th May 1999 we set off with laden bikes to Sherborne station hoping to leave town as quietly as possible.  It was not to be however. When we had visited our daughter the previous day to say our farewells she had been particularly keen to know the time of the train we planned to catch.  We were soon to know why.  Sitting quietly waiting for the train to arrive we were suddenly confronted by our daughter with 2½ year old granddaughter holding one hand and in the other a broomstick bearing a notice for the whole world to see reading : ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME SAY INTREPID CYCLING PENSIONERS. - all highly embarrassing and amusing for the other people on the platform.

            We were soon on the train though and with only one change at Waterloo were in Canterbury in good time.  Although there were no more trains due for quite some time the rather officious porter wouldn’t let us wheel our heavily laden bikes across the lines  - he insisted that we carried them down one long , steep, flight of stairs , wheeled them under the track and then carried them up the stairs the other side.  Railway companies are not particularly cycle friendly! Fortunately my brother lives in the city so we were assured of beds for the first night. We visited the cathedral and were made very  welcome in the pilgrim office where we received the first stamp for our passports. The ride the next day to Dover was not very pleasant as we tried to avoid the busy A2 trunk road by keeping to the lanes but none of them seemed to go in the right direction and many changes of direction were necessary. It was very hilly as well but we still managed to catch an earlier ferry to Calais than we had planned.

            The tourist office in Calais found us accommodation in an auberge a few miles along our route and we reached Arras in a couple of days.

Terrible battles took place in the region in the Great War and very moving war cemeteries are everywhere. The weather was windy and showery but we were told by the B&B owner in Trefcon that the next day would be fine according to the TV weather man. He was wrong. Instead we had a very strong head wind and it rained even harder! At LAON we stayed in the Maison de la Jeaunnes (like a youth hostel) next to the cathedral and took a photo of the interesting looking Templar Commandery.    

            The route we took was rather longer than it need have been as we tried to avoid the busy RN44 by keeping to smaller quieter roads. Our next stop was at REIMS and we stayed the night in the youth hostel where we had a 2 berth room.  Youth hostels have changed a lot over the years and large dormitories are things of the past. Our route then took us  through champagne country to Challonnes en Champagne (formerly sur Marne). We visited the church and were invited to breakfast the next morning by a lady whose house was on our route. There was a continuing 

headwind which made cycling rather heavy work.  We visited the little church at Rosnay-l-Hopital with 2 fine 16C windows depicting the lives of Thomas a Becket and the Virgin Mary. The crypt was consecrated by Thomas a Becket. The next night stop was at Brienne where a coq au vin festival (of all things) was taking place.  We partook of this in the hotel restaurant and despite having a healthy appetite I found the portions far too large to finish. If we had been visiting Clairvaux on a Saturday instead of on a Friday we could have seen the abbey (which is within the walls of a prison) but it is only open on the one day each week. After 50 miles (our longest day yet) we reached Chaumont and then next day we were at Langres - where we were robbed of our cycle computers and a cycling helmet - our fault for leaving them on the bikes. Lessons are often learned the hard way.                                      

            We were now getting close to Switzerland and stayed in a hostel for two nights in Besancon. The rain was very heavy and we decided to move on to Pontarlier by bus with our bikes folded and in their bags. We arrived in torrential rain and although the youth hostel was not yet open we were allowed in by the friendly lady warden.

The next stage of our journey to Iverdon was again very wet and the most frightening we had ever experienced.  It was uphill to the Col des Etroits(1153m) and then downhill for some 10miles with continuous hairpin bends. The road surface was a torrent of water, the traffic was heavy and it was foggy as we were above the clouds as well as being bitterly cold . Our wrists ached through continuous use of the brakes to check speed. However, we eventually reached Iverdon shivering with cold but soon warmed up with mugs of hot chocolate in a café. We  stayed in Iverdon for 2 nights and our hosts were quite charming . Our host, M. Reichenbach, offered to take us and our bikes in his van to the highest point of the next day’s stage where he had to tend his bee hives and we eagerly accepted. From there it was mainly downhill to Montreux by lake Geneva. We had not appreciated that Switzerland had a wine industry and the vineyards on the north side of the lake were quite extensive. We were able to sample some Swiss wine at our next nights stop in Bex and the landlady gave us a half bottle to take on with us. At this point we had good views of the Alps towards Martigny.                                       

            One of the reasons for riding our smaller wheeled folding cycles was to facilitate the use of public transport should that be necessary.  As we suspected, the Grand St Bernard Pass was still closed due to deep snowdrifts so we had to put our bikes onto a bus and cross into Italy using the tunnel. We boarded the 8.10am bus in Martigny with only 3 other passengers and by the time we reached Aosta at 10.00am we were the only originals left although a few others had boarded en route.  The journey through the tunnel itself only took about 4 minutes - a far quicker way to cross from Switzerland to Italy than going over the top.  We were not really sorry although we had liked the idea of staying overnight in the monastery at the top. Aosta seemed an interesting town and we would have liked to have seen more but time was getting on and we had many miles to cycle before our next night stop.

            Donnas is an interesting town with many Roman remains including  a section of road with wheel tracks, an arch and a fine bridge.

The next major stop on the route was Ivrea where a gear problem on my wife’s bike was attended to by a very helpful cycle shop owner. We were lucky in that we suffered no punctures on the journey and the only attention our bikes needed was to constantly loosening headset bearings due to the shocking cobbled road surfaces in most towns and a gear change problem on my wife, Shirley’s, bike. As usual I was blamed for not maintaining it properly!!  Ivrea has a fine cathedral (duomo) and we also photographed the old cloisters.                                                                                                   

            We were now in the Po valley in an area devoted to rice growing.  At Tornello we crossed the rivers Po and Ticino by the 1040m long bridge which appears to be pre-war and not a post war rebuild.

In this area we saw the first signs of a little pilgrim indicating that we were following the Via Francigena.                                                                      

            We were spending a great deal of time finding accommodation as tourist offices were badly signed. Even the local police often didn’t know if there was one in their town or where it was.

            Piacenza has an interesting Gothic Town Hall together with a fine Duomo and just past here we saw another sign indicating our route.

Fidenza Duomo has a marvellous 12th C font  and in the tourist office we met a young man who was involved with the Sigeric Society which was planning to resurrect the ferry across the river Po where Sigeric crossed in 990AD. In subsequent contacts with the group we were invited to be present at the celebrations. The cathedral has much exterior carving although the presence of  builder's hoardings rather spoiled the photos we took. The church at Fornovo of Santa Maria Asumpta has a beautifully carved scene of hell guaranteed to keep folk behaving themselves!!

            At Ghiare we had a problem escaping from our hotel the next (Sunday) morning. We had a long hill to climb and had wished to make an early start. It taught us to make a point of paying the night before. Eventually by phoning the bar someone came and released us. It was very hot and the hill was very long and we found later that it had been used for a section of the Tour of Italy cycle race the previous week. It had taken us over 3 hours to walk uphill -a distance of 12.3 miles and 1 hour to descend 11 miles with frequent stops to let the wheel brake rims cool.

            On a bike you see far more than you do from a car window and it was in this area that we saw our first women of ill repute. Having lived a rather protected life I failed at first to recognise them for what they were but I did think it rather strange to find a beautiful scantily clad young lady perched on a stool , with a bottle of water , and often a parasol, tucked into the bushes miles from anywhere!! Then we saw more , sometimes in pairs. Some were of a rather dusky appearance and I did so want to ask them what business was like but my Italian was not up to it and my wife urged me to keep going!!

            Our next night stop was at Massa di Marina where we stayed in the Youth Hostel with our room overlooking the beach. A delightful situation and again we had a room to ourselves. 

            Near the top of Monte Quiesa we found a wayside shrine with a spring which reputedly had virility improving properties. Whilst we were there several elderly gentlemen arrived to fill up containers with the water.  Evidently if a baby results then either a pink or a blue bouquet is attached dependant on the child’s sex. Viagra Italian style.

            We found Lucca crowded with tourists and very hot but managed to find a room for the night. We cycled round most of the perimeter of the city wall next morning before leaving.                                                                          

            This area of Italy was short of accommodation and several people went to a great deal of trouble to help fix us up for the night. We were even taken to a convent where they often billeted pilgrims. We finally found a room in the hilltop town of San Miniato.

This quite often happened when we were hot and tired after a day’s cycling and the only place available was on the top of a hill requiring yet more cycling .

            The date was now the 3rd June and we had been on the road for over 4 weeks but our next stop was to be our twin town of San Gimignano where we were to stay with our friends, and planned to have a rest day.

The town now has only 13 towers remaining but in the middle ages there were over 30 and the more important you were the higher could be your tower. A sort of status symbol but in any event you could not have one taller than the mayors.

            Onto Siena where we took several photos of Il Campo where the horse races take place and of the cathedral - beautiful gleaming white marble and of the Roma arch.

            The small village of Cuna just off our route had to be visited as it had a church dedicated to St James. Inside there were some striking 15th C frescoes which we were given permission to photograph even though the Sunday service was about to start.

            Beyond Siena our map indicated the route going through a tunnel which worried us. The police at first said there wasn’t one then told us it was dangerous. We had planned to bypass the tunnel by going uphill to a little village but by good fortune we managed to get a lift through the tunnel by a helpful Englishman. In the event it proved to be quite wide, well lit and fairly short and we could well have ridden through it.

            We were now in volcano country and took a photo of Lago di Bolseno - filled volcano crater.

            The town of Sutri has a history going back to Etruscan times and we visited the Porta Vecchia, the Amphitheatre (carved from solid tufa),and the  underground church of Santa Maria del Parto,which was formerly a shrine to Mithras and before that an Etruscan tomb.

            We arrived in Rome on the 11th June and had cycled on 32 days. We had covered 1116 miles - an average of just under 35 miles per day which gave plenty of time for sightseeing. We found beds in a hotel which  was owned by a convent on the Via Aurelia and it seemed rather incongruous to see a nun serving behind a bar!

            Rome was very hot and full of tourists and we had great difficulty obtaining a stamp for our pilgrim passports. Even the Pilgrim Office wouldn’t help . We were finally successful in St Peter’s sacristy

            Most of the important buildings were covered in scaffolding as they were being smartened up in readiness for the Jubilee the following year. We spent 4 nights in Rome  and took the usual touristy photos to prove that we had been there but we were not really sorry when the time came to leave for home. It was very hot, noisy and crowded.

A 20 mile ride to the airport and in 2 hours or so we were at Gatwick. We stayed the night with friends in Chichester and the next day we arrived home in Sherborne to a mountain of mail and a garden desperately needing to be weeded.