Laudato si', mi' Signore, per sora nostra matre terra, la quale ne sustenta et governa, et produce diversi fructi con coloriti flori et herba.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Mother Earth, who sustains us and governs us and who produces varied fruits with coloured flowers and herbs.
- Saint Francis, Cantico del Sole
We set off early from Sansepolcro along with two other pilgrims who had been staying in the former convent, Franco, who is from Massa, and Khalil, originally from Syria but living in Cesena. It was good to have company for the first part of the walk, on the pavement through an industrial zone including the Buitoni pasta factory and for a short stretch along the shoulder of a busy highway. Then we left the concrete and walked amid fields of "coloured flowers and herbs": the upper Tiber valley, in which Sansepolcro is located, is famous for its herb gardens. The husband of our hostess the previous night in La Montagna grows medicinal and aromatic herbs, and his brother has a plant for drying them to make herbal teas (Accademia della Tisana brand). We walked through fields of coriander, mint and other herbs we could not identify either by sight or by smell.
Another of the guests from our accommodations last night caught up with us on his bicycle. Samuele is travelling around Italy, working his way down the boot from his home town of Como right by the Swiss border, stopping wherever takes his fancy, with no particular plan. He has a tent and bedroll and his fully laden bicycle weighs 44 kg - not good for riding up Tuscan hills!
The morning passed pleasantly in company and we soon found ourselves climbing to the hilltop town of Citerna.
Built in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Citerna was partially destroyed by an earthquake in 1917, but many of its original buildings survived. We stopped at the bar and alimentari (miniature grocery store) under the tower and then proceeded on to the information office in the town hall, where a kindly volunteer opened the church of San Francesco, next door, just for us. The church contains treasures of art including a fresco by Signorelli, a large and very lively canvas by Pomarancio and a terracotta Madonna and Child by Luca della Robbia the Younger - we have been seeing a lot of the della Robbia family over the past few days - and, best of all, a newly discovered and restored terracotta Madonna and Child by Donatello.
The custodian would have loved to show us around the underground cisterns below the town hall, but tours are temporarily suspended due to covid restrictions. So we left a tip for the volunteer association, had our pilgrim credentials stamped and continued on our way, stopping briefly to admire the covered walkway atop the city walls.
We caught up with two more pilgrims, a couple from Bergamo, and walked with them for another hour and a half, down the hill from Citerna and then up to the top of another ridge, where Flavia and I stopped for the evening at Agriturismo le Burgne, which rents rooms to tourists as well as providing more basic accommodations for pilgrims in the attic. Though it was supposed to rain all day today, it was actually only partly cloudy and we even had some sun so we could enjoy the swimming pool! Until a small snake decided it also wanted a cooling dip, causing us to leap out of the pool at record speed.
Learned something else new today: snakes can swim!
Sansepolcro - Citerna (Agriturismo le Burgne) 19 km
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