Non si può andare più veloci o più piano del proprio passo, se lo si fa ci si stanca. Il passo è come il respiro, ognuno di noi ha il suo, ma mentre il respiro va in automatico, il "proprio passo" é da cercare e, una volta trovato, essergli fedele.
You cannot walk any faster, or any slower, than your own pace. If you try, you will only tire yourself. Walking is like breathing: each of us has our own pace, but while breathing is automatic, you need to find your own pace and, once you find it, stay true to it.
- Angela Seracchioli, Compagne di Cammino
Our pace today was a leisurely one, after our relaxing evening at Il Ritmo dei Passi, a bed and breakfast exclusively for pilgrims, where Norma mothered us, cooked our dinner and even made us sandwiches to take with us for lunch. We walked for two hours to the Hermitage of Montecasale, after which it was only another hour and a half to San Sepolcro. A leisurely pace indeed! But after all, it is Sunday, the day of rest!
We walked through the hamlet of La Montagna, through the trees and around the side of a pyramid - shaped mountain of crumbly schist-like rock. Then we descended to the hermitage of Montecasale.
Located on the road that once connected the Tiber valley with the Adriatic Sea, Montecasale was a castle until 1187, then a pilgrim hostel for pilgrims headed for Rimini to embark on ships bound for the Holy Land, with an adjacent leper colony, from 1190 to 1211. The Benedictines donated it to the Franciscans in 1212, and Saint Francis himself stayed there on his way to Jerusalem in 1213. The legend is that he converted three brigands here, serving them food and taking good care of them instead of chiding them for their evil ways and thereby convincing them to turn over a new page and join his order. The skull of one of these brigands turned friars is preserved in the chapel constructed on the spot where Saint Francis slept in his hut made of branches (unlike us, he never liked to sleep in a proper bed under a real roof, so he left the cells of the monastery to his brethren). We took a look around the monastery, not all of which is open to visitors at the moment, and then attended the 11 o'clock mass.
Just down the hill from the hermitage is another "Sasso Spicco", a protruding rock like the one at La Verna. This one also has a waterfall.
A steep descent through the woods took us to a dirt road leading to San Martino d'Afra, where we stopped at a pilgrim rest area to eat the picnic Norma had prepared for us before tackling the final hour of walking along the side of the paved road to San Sepolcro.
The town of Sansepolcro was founded by two pilgrims, one Greek and the other Spanish, on their way back from Jerusalem bearing a number of holy relics, who stopped overnight on the spot where the city now stands, at that time a small village called Noceto. One of them was told in a dream that they should build a city on the spot in honour of the Holy Sepulchre of Christ. They began to build the city, word got about, and many of the people who lived in the castles in the hills around the area began to come down and build new homes for themselves in the town. The truth behind this legend, emblematic of the transition from feudal times to the age of the communes or city-states, has been objectively confirmed by historians.
The city is home to an image of the face of Christ that dates back to the eighth century, making it older than the image venerated in the cathedral in Lucca, end point of the pilgrimage way known as the Via del Volto Santo, which I walked last year, on the first part of my way to Assisi.
But San Sepolcro is best known as the town of Piero della Francesca, and even before checking into our accommodations we headed directly to the museum to see his famous Resurrection and Madonna della Misericordia.
Paintings I used to admire in my mother's art books as a child; it's hard to believe I walked all the way from my own home to see the originals!
Having seen the highlights of San Sepolcro and bought a chunk of cheese and one of panforte (the original Tuscan energy bar, first made for departing crusaders) from the market as emergency rations for the next few days, we retired to our accommodations in a former convent next door to the church of Santa Maria dei Servi, venturing out again for a dinner of Tagliatelle ai funghi featuring a particular local variety of mushroom.
La Montagna - San Sepolcro 16 km
La massima di oggi vale anche in bicicletta, ecco perché andare da soli é spesso meno faticoso. Tuttavia, rompere il respiro, scattare, cambiare il passo e interrompere il facile è un allenamento necessario per migliorarsi rapidamente e per alzare l'asticella del facile
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