Città della Pieve – Ficulle May 22

Today’s walk started with a descent down from the town to the valley below.

The path took me for a while next to the main north-south high speed railway line . A train must have passed every 5 minutes showing just how important rail travel is in Italy.

These trains travel up to 300km/hr – about 60 times as fast as I’m travelling!

This road went completely straight for many kilometres.

A dog appeared out of nowhere , walked with me for a while, then disappeared.

About this time, the indefatigable Franco caught up with me in his car after I’d sent him images of where I was.

His friend Barbara was visiting from Liguria on a week’s holiday and we spent a pleasant day walking together.

I was fascinated to see these traditional brooms for sale. They must be made in Italy?! They look like something from Harry Potter.

The old farmhouses around here resemble little castles. I guess that’s a sign of what life was like centuries ago.

Some old olive trees look like works of art.

This was a very unusual looking tree.

These storage rooms are cut into the soft rock. This one even had a chimney.

The rows of grapes in this vineyard had artichokes growing at the end of each row of vines .

More poppies .

We reached the little town of Ficulle mid afternoon.

The town has quite a few water fountains, so important for pilgrims.

The town has a beautiful medieval centre.

Just outside of the walls is the church of Santa Maria Vecchia dating from the 12th century.

There are some interesting fragments of 14th century rescoes.

In a corner is a altar to the god Mithras dedicated to the son of the the Emperor Tiberius from the first century. What layers of history there are in Italy!

I’ve had to organise accommodation at 41 places for this walk . It’s nothing like Spain where you just arrive at a town or village and there’s a pilgrim hostel waiting for you. Ficulle was the hardest of all. I rang. I sent emails . I sent Facebook messages but no one ever replied .

Eventually I asked Franco if he could help and after a bit of work he found someone who had a room to rent in this little town.

It’s a very quiet place. When we arrived just about the only place open was a women’s hairdressing salon. It’s one of those places where people say hello but they stare at you because they don’t get many strangers in town.

This afternoon I found out that the nearest restaurant was some 3km away and another 6km walk didn’t seem very appealing .

I bought some bits and peices at the local baker which I thought would be nice heated up for dinner. Then I discovered that the kitchen where I’m staying is non-functional🙄so here’s dinner.

Tomorrow I walk 25km to the beautiful town of Orvieto.