Also picked up my Via Francigena credentials which with the appropriate stamps enable the pellegrino to access wayside hostels.
These examples of the biennial show a Costa Rican and English born artists' work respectively.both cardboard creations that I thought really worked and ricocheted off their surroundings in an interesting way.
And here are the all import and credentials - me a card carrying pilgrim at last. I did reflect that I have participated in four pilgrimages to date but this the fifth is my first Christian one! As an Italian paratrooper said to me you are on a soul journey which I thought put it perfectly.
Having used up the morning in Lucca I set out just as it began to rain on the walls but didn't let that distract from a lovely ride across the valley of the Arne downstream from Florence who of course were a superpower back.I'm the day and therefore best avoided on the pilgrim trail. Superb information boards do nothing to downplay the importance of the Via Francigena suggesting it's creation around the 10th century by the Lomn
Bards and it's maintenance through the early middle ages with associated hospice/hospital networks to aid the travellers was instrumental in creating a peaceable network allowing Tuscany hill towns to flourish - remember western Europe was coming over with wool and in pursuit of bank loans from the Lombardy bankers! It wasn't just monks on the road to Rome. However one prelate, English as it happens, wrote about it.In 990 AD, Sigeric, Archbishop of Canterbury, travelled to Rome to meet Pope John XV and receive the investiture pallium. Along the way, he recorded the 79 stages of the journey in his diary.
Nice to know I'm not the first and certainly won't the last. This route is now positively oozing history. This bridge across a swampy outlet known as the black arms was commissioned by Cosimo Medici the famously power duo clan that ran Florence and therefore it's clear resemblance to the Ponte Vechio is no coincidence. I pass an info board.telling about LeonardLeonardoo da Vinci 's interest in the marine fossils to be found in the hills above the Arne causing him to speculate on a pre-existing geological marine phase....not for nothing labelled the last man to know everything that could be known!
I arrived in San Miniato clearly visible well before from an impressively tall tower perched on a hill South of the Arne valley. What a prospect and as the my first attempt to stay in a pilgrim hostels was thwarted as it was full I used its facilities but camped on the hill above a cool little hill too bar run by the lovely Alissio and her boyfriend lamenting having left their great time in Stratford, London E17! That night the thunder and lightning to the North were impressive as I bedded down as the last of the local hippies cleared the area.
No comments:
Post a Comment