Via Francigena nel Sud Day 25: Ruvo di Puglia - Bitonto

Road to from Rome Day 25: Ruvo di Puglia - Bitonto

22 km

This morning I left my comfortable bed and breakfast on the outskirts of Ruvo di Puglia at 7 am and walked back to the town centre, as I hadn't explored it the previous evening. I love to walk around a town in the early morning, when everyone is just getting up, having their cappuccino at the bar, sweeping the streets, taking the children to school, opening the shops... I arrived at the cathedral just as the sacristan was opening the doors, and he took me to see the crypt while we waited for the parish priest to arrive and stamp my pilgrim credential.

The crypt was rather creepy, especially imagining all the people who would have been buried there, before the practice of burying the dead underneath churches was ended and cemeteries were opened outside inhabited centres. But when I resurfaced the priest had arrived and he was very friendly, asking about my walk and proudly showing me a brand new statue recently installed outside the cathedral, carved by an artist in Peru. The block of marble was shipped all the way over there, and the sculpture shipped back again! You'd think it would have been cheaper to fly the sculptor to Italy... But maybe this was not possible, in Covid times. 

I set my kilometre counter going and walked through the streets of Ruvo back to my bed and breakfast, which was right on the Via Francigena on the edge of the town, to pick up my backpack. After walking on an overpass to get across the obstacle presented by a four-lane highway, I followed the dirt road that now covers the ancient Roman Via Appia Traiana, a variant on the original Via Appia built under the Emperor Trajan. Like all Roman roads, it was perfectly straight. All day. Olive trees on the left, olive trees on the right... Only occasionally punctuated by a caseddhu, a round stone hut originally built as an emergency shelter for farmers out working in the fields, should they be surprised out in the fields by a storm, or by the fall of night. Some of these constructions are now used as tool sheds, while others are abandoned, filled with trash, or allowed to crumble and collapse.

Olives

Roadside memorial

16th century roadside property marker

Roadside shrine

More olives

When I found that olive trees to the left and olive trees to the right were no longer sufficient entertainment, I put on my new headphones and listened to music until I was approaching the outskirts of Bitonto. Here the Via Appia Traiana flanks the highway, turning into a service road used by trucks to and from a quarry and a road construction supply store. The road passed the cemetery and came into the town. I continued following the Via Francigena through the historic town centre to the 12th century Convent of San Leone, where I surprised the nuns, who were not expecting me until later in the afternoon; by now I can easily walk 22 kilometres before lunch time, and on today's stage there were no distractions to take up time along the way!

Bitonto Bariese city gate

Lanes of the historic city centre of Bitonto 

The lanes of the city centre in Bitonto are a labyrinth, and probably the sort of place you wouldn't want to wander around alone at night. In the middle of the day, though, they were pretty much deserted - there are no places of business in the medieval lanes, and if there were, they would be closed until 5 pm anyway! 

When things finally began to reopen at five I went to see the cathedral. I had to wait a while as there was a funeral taking place - just as there was at the church of the convent where I am staying. Clusters of people stood around the doors of businesses with blue lights which I thought at first were bars - they were actually funeral parlours! Adding to this the skeletons on the façade of the church of Purgatory, the town seemed a rather macabre place! 

But the 12th century cathedral was really worth waiting for! I was unable to visit the paleo-Christian basilica below the cathedral as it did not open today due to the funeral. But I did stop by the office of the parish priest to get my pilgrim credential stamped with the official stamp of the cathedral of Bitonto. 

Convent of San Leone 

No-frills pilgrim accommodations at San Leone