Marco The thirty stop on the Via Francigena crosses the hills between San Miniato and Gambassi, wind-swept meadows and ridges drawn by cypresses. We walk through the provinces of Pisa and Florence through the route traced by pilgrims from the early Middle Ages.
The Via Francigena is becoming very popular since 2001, when the European Association of the Via Francigena (AEVF) started promoting and arranging the ancient route of the Archbishop Sigerico who in 990 AD traveled from Rome to Canterbury noting the 79 stages in a diary. Since then the Via Francigena has been one of the routes of European pilgrims going to Santiago de Compostella, to Rome or Jerusalem. In recent years it has been restored and enhanced, now it is a 1800 km route that, through secondary roads, shows us places that are invisible to cars. The purpose of the association, supported by a limited liability company, is to enhance and spread sustainable tourism along European roads by supporting the concept of Slow Tourism. The Via Francigena is perfectly marked, from the website (wwww.viefrancigene.org), and the relevant app, it is possible to have all the information for overnight stays, water points, agreed activities and the GPS tracks of all the routes. We recommend staying in hostels, parishes or convents, you have the opportunity to meet other travelers, you will spend evenings with people who have chosen to walk for a few hours or for several days. The reasons are multiple and personal, ranging from the professional who has reached the human limit possible for work and he needs to looking for himself, to simple trekking enthusiasts. We meet people of all nationalities who have walked on the trails of half the planet or tourists in groups who enjoy a walk of a few hours before taking advantage of the extraordinary tastes of Italian cuisine.
I have spent a week and 4 stages, from San Miniato to Monteriggioni, yes I love to take it easy. I’m not in a hurry and I do not have to race, professional walkers pass me, I pass tourist groups. I love to have a chat with people that I probably won’t see in my life anymore, an impromptu sharing with strangers, often alone, these are the real reasons for traveling for me: sharing and slowness.
I start from San Miniato, province of Pisa, I have a whole day’s journey ahead, the stage up to Gambassi Terme is about 24 km and I take plenty of time all day to enjoy the scenery, the walk, the chatter, the food and the sun. I arrived in San Miniato the night before by train and with a convenient local bus we reached the hostel where I will stay the first night. It is advisable to call the structures on the phone, or to write an e-mail, often these places do not exist in the normal booking channels of websites or hotels.
Many structures accept pilgrims only with the Credential, but what is it? The Credential is a small passport that can be bought in many tourist offices or reception facilities, find the complete list on the site (www.viefrancigene.org/it/credenzialiaffiliated), this document allows you to have discounts in facilities, on train trips in the regions of the Via Francigena and, more importantly, it allows you to stay in the structures of the parishes and monasteries. Often they are very small and welcome only pilgrims with credentials, during high season it is difficult to find a place, but outside the major tourist peaks they are fantastic places to meet the few people who walk along the paths of Archbishop Sigerico.
Let’s go back to San Miniato, in our hostel, for one night, with a terrace on the Tuscan hills. We are alone in the room, the hostel is new and very clean, they welcome us, we record the documents and we are ready to walk to the tower of Federico II. The time is that of the sunset of the last week of solar time, the sun is hiding behind the Apuan Alps, the wind is tense, it is just a warning of what awaits us tomorrow, the wind will be our inseparable companion. The air is clear and the view extends for several kilometers in all directions, the colors of the sky change rapidly from yellow to red to violet to the intense blue of darkness, the night descends on us, it is time for dinner and for prepare for the journey.
I am not a professional hiker, in the morning I am quiet and slow, coffee and biscuits, stop at the local shop for sandwiches, at 9:30 my journey begins. An hour after of descent along the paved road I took the path to the left, I will walk all day along the ridges of the hills that surround the Val D’Elsa, the views are the Tuscan classics, the wind accompanies me and the sun is unusually hot for this time of year, at the end of the day I will have already taken the typical color of the pilgrim. The first stop is under a fantastic, solitary holm oak, at the edge of a field, majestic and imposing. Along the way there are small boxes with the necessary for first aid, gauzes, disinfectants, syringes and plasters are available for pilgrims free of charge, no one asks for anything, there are no keys, there are no locks, if you need them take it or respect it. At the bottom of the tree I fond two pots inside, a smaller inside a bigger, there is a book inside, closed in a plastic bag, it is the pilgrim’s diary. I can write my wishes or our thoughts, this little notebook will collect all the writings and it will be a collective book that someone will read one day, or not. There is a phone number with a name: if you need help between the San Bernardo in Rome call me, I’m there. I wrote my thoughts and continue my walk.
The landscape changes, the woods become small and thick, oaks and hazels create a tunnel above me, the wind accompanies us throughout the day without ever letting us feel the heat of the sun, a help during the bare and sunny ridges of the Tuscan territory , the shadow is rare and the water is not frequent in these territories. I arrive at the Pieve di Coiano, and I met a group of students from elementary school who, after a short walk in the woods around the church, return home with their school buses. At the Pieve there is a small refreshment point, water and benches, I can enjoy my sandwiches with mortadella purchased in the morning in San Miniato, have a chat with a person from Udine, a man with whom we started speaking in English and only afterwards we recognized ourselves as both Italians. I will not say names or references, people are not recognizable, it is not important, they are moments of our life, men or women with whom we share a few moments or at most a few hours, extemporaneous sharing, we for them and them for us. Three other girls arrive and take advantage of the benches, water and lie on the wall in the sun. Normally, along the way, the stopping points are few and you always find yourself all, everyone walks with their own times, but everyone passes by the same places. We take the usual photographs but we cannot visit the church, unfortunately the Pieve is closed, under restoration, almost unsafe. It is one of the original stopping points of Archbishop Sigerico during his journey back to Canterbury.
I continue my journey across farms surrounded by cypresses, wheat fields, sunflowers, rapeseed. Everything is light green, the buds are swollen ready to explode, the spring flowers announce themselves first with their perfume and then with the delicate colors of their petals. Stretches of Iris accompany us all the way while asparagus is very common in the woods, the leaves of large trees have not yet sprouted and the undergrowth enjoys spring light. I see Gambassi Terme behind the hill and I grant myselves a coffee with a homemade cake in a cafe just before the town and I earn another stamp on my Credential that attests our passage. I arrive at the place booked for the two nights, as I said, I take it easy and I must also test the thermal waters along the route. I wait in the square for the door of our room to be opened, after I will spend the evening eating wild boar, pumpkin flowers, fried sage and vin santo, we deserve it. The next day I spend it savoring the atmosphere of the small village of the province of Florence, we know the bartender, the food shopkeeper, the cashier of the supermarket, we briefly chat with everyone for a chat and discover that there is also a salt route, which Gambassi Terme was the salt customs during the Etruscan period, that we are on the border between Etruschia and Etruria, in short, generic chatter while buying oranges and finocchiona and breathing the typical Tuscan rivalry, or better to say Italian, among neighbors.
The next stop will be up to San Gimignano, we’ll tell you in another article.
