We made it to Lucca!!!
We had to wait a few minutes for breakfast at our B&B, a pleasant place which goes by the cheesy name of Franco's Friendly Villa, as the breakfast lady at was stuck in a line-up at the bakery - a common occurrence now that only one or two people are allowed into a shop at the same time! She arrived in a huff bearing fresh croissants and savoury pastries, and even offered to make us sandwiches for our lunch. After settling our bill and getting our pilgrim credentials stamped, we left the village of Diecimo behind and headed off along the side of the provincial highway.
Diecimo is one of those places you would not be likely to stop at if you were driving through: all you see from the highway is a few roadside bars and pizzerias. You would think there was nothing of interest in the town. But parallel to the highway is a beautiful old street lined with colourful houses, and behind that, a lovely medieval pieve, or Romanesque country church. As it was raining when we arrived in the town yesterday, we only saw the church closed, in the dark. A good reason to go back! As was the veggie burger at one of the roadside pizzerias... the best I've had in Italy! (Veggie burgers not being exactly an Italian specialty!)
Fortunately, the route taken by the Via del Volto Santo on the way out of Diecimo has been updated since my guidebook was written, and now passes through the grass behind the industrial estate, so we didn't have to walk on the shoulder of the highway. The morning dew in the grass wiped the remains of yesterday's mud off our boots and soaked our trouser cuffs. But they soon dried off in the sun - there were no signs yet of the rainstorms forecast to begin today!
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Diecimo: the Pieve di Santa Maria Assunta and our B&B (the yellow villa)
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We emerged from the industrial estate and turned down a side road and then began our daily climb - no day on the Via del Volto Santo is complete without a climb! - up to the hamlet of San Donato, where we discovered another beautiful pieve.
From San Donato we took a paved country road downhill among olive groves and gardens to the valley floor. Here we walked along the roadbed of the old highway, used only by infrequent local traffic now that a wider new highway has been constructed on the other side of the river. Vegetation has gradually invaded the roadbed from either side, while vines have grown up the old road signs and equipment rusts away in abandoned mines and quarries along the route.
At one point the valley narrows so much that the railway, the new highway and the old highway all overlap. It then broadens out again at Sesto Moriano, sesto being a reference to its location six Roman miles from Lucca. We took a short break on a bench by a fountain in the town before detouring a short way to see the tenth-century church, Pieve di Santa Maria, unfortunately closed.
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Sesto Moriano
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Sesto Moriano, seen from the bridge over the Serchio River to Ponte a Moriano
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We crossed the river at Ponte a Moriano, where we picked up the cycling and pedestrian path along the river bank, following it all the way to the outskirts of Lucca. It was a rather long and monotonous walk along the gravel road by the river under the hot sun, and we were happy to turn off the river and toward the town. Heading straight for Porta Santa Maria, one of the gates in the city walls, we passed a copy of the Volto Santo on the wall of house, with an inscription reporting that "one month's indulgence would be granted to anyone reciting the Act of Contrition before the image of the Volto Santo in Lucca". We passed through the city gate and took the most direct route to the cathedral square, pleasantly empty at this hour of the afternoon in this largely tourist-free summer!
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The ramparts of Lucca
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Porta Santa Maria
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Coming into the city
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Torre Guinigi
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We made it! Chiavari - Lucca 285 km
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The Cathedral of Lucca: San Martino
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Labyrinth on the cathedral wall:
a metaphor of pilgrimage (and of life)
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Inscription on the cathedral façade warning money-changers not to try and cheat pilgrims
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St. Martin giving his cloak to the beggar, on the inside of the façade
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We entered the cathedral to contemplate the Volto Santo, the Holy Face which according to the legend miraculously appeared in the cathedral in 782, and is in any case the oldest surviving wooden sculpture in the western world, radiocarbon dated to between 770 and 880 AD.
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| Il Volto Santo |
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Diecimo - Lucca 21.5 km
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Total from Chiavari to Lucca: 285 km!
Thus ends the first part of this Long Walk towards Assisi. I will now return home for a few days to rest, do some of the kind of work that doesn't involve walking, make some plans and a few changes to my gear, and wait for the forecast rainy weather to pass over.
Getting away from home along the Via della Costa, walking a day and a half up the Via Francigena and then spending a week walking the Via del Volto Santo to Lucca has been quite a Long Walk in itself, and if circumstances prevent me from going any further this year, I will be quite happy with this achievement! But if they don't, I will continue along the Cammino di San Jacopo in Toscana as far as Florence, and, if they still don't, from there along the Via di San Francesco to La Verna and Assisi.
Ultreya!
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