Cammino verso Assisi (Via del Volto Santo) Day 13: Barga - Diecimo

It was raining heavily this morning while we breakfasted in Barga. When the rain stopped we headed out, but it soon started again. Luckily, the first part of today's route was on a paved road, so we didn't have to worry about mud or slippery rocks (any of the previous legs of this walk would have been pretty impossible in wet weather). Luckily again, it was Sunday morning and there was little traffic on the road. We left the road at the Pieve di Santa Maria a Loppia. The sound of organ music issued from the medieval stone church, but it wasn't Sunday morning mass, just a lone organist practicing Bach. We crept in and sat in the back pew, dripping on the stone floor and listening for a few minutes, before creeping out again unnoticed - the organist was so absorbed in his music he didn't see or hear us. We passed through the churchyard and crossed an ancient stone bridge, then climbed uphill on a path through the woods paved with slippery flagstones, past a lavatoio, an ancient wash trough.

Leaving Barga in the morning mist

Pieve di Santa Maria a Loppia

After a quick stop at the church and a coffee in Piano di Coreglia, we carried on along paved roads, still in a light drizzle. The rain had stopped by the time we reached the fortified village of Ghivizzano, where we met two ladies on their way to a fiftieth wedding anniversary party. 

From Ghivizzano we descended back into the valley and walked along another straight stretch of paved road before crossing over the Serchio River and heading uphill through the woods, coming out at the chapel of the Alpini above the village of Rocca. From there we descended to the Pieve di Cerreto, another country church which appeared to be abandoned and in need of repair, though there were people living in what was presumably originally the parsonage. 

From the church, we continued downhill on the southern slope of Monte Agliale, which was not wild and forested like the northern slope but cultivated, planted with olive trees, terraced and inhabited. We walked along the deserted main street of the village of Cerreto and came to Borgo di Mozzone, where we backtracked for half a kilometre to see the famous "Ponte del Diavolo", constructed around the year 1000 on the orders of Matilde di Canossa to allow pilgrims to cross the river on their way to Lucca. The modern-day pilgrimage route does not cross over the bridge, however, because the road on the other side has been taken over by vehicle traffic. So we contented ourselves with taking pictures of the bridge before returning to Borgo a Mozzano, passing the linea gotica, the Gothic Line defences from World War II, and continuing along a gravel road between olive groves and vegetable plots in the river valley for another hour, under threatening skies. It was just beginning to rain when we arrived at our bed and breakfast in Diecimo, a pretty village so named because it was ten miles up the Roman road from Lucca. 

Borgo a Mozzano 

Borgo a Mozzano 

The Gothic Line

Diecimo

The church in Diecimo (by night) 

Toad in Diecimo (by night) 

Barga - Diecimo 27.5 km

Only ten Roman miles to go!