J'étais si heureux en contemplant ces beaux paysages et l'arc de triomphe d'Aoste que je n'avais qu'un vœu à former: c'était que cette vie durât toujours.
- Stendhal
Very happy to be back in Aosta and ready to start walking again! Two and a half months is a long time to take a break... but the weather was too hot to even consider walking, until recently. Last week a big storm swept across Italy, bringing temperatures down by fifteen degrees Celsius literally overnight! And now that the heat and the storms are both behind us, the temperature is perfect for walking.
Especially in Valle d'Aosta, where the cool mountain breeze makes walking comfortable even in the warmest hours of the afternoon, despite the bright sunshine and the mini heat wave we are currently experiencing!
So yesterday I took the Flixbus to Aosta to meet Adriana, my friend, walking buddy and hostess for the day. Adriana and I first met at the opposite end of the Via Francigena in Italy, walking in Puglia with the Road to Rome 2021 project. We shared a room at the end of the trail, behind the lighthouse in Santa Maria di Leuca. And now here we are walking together again, at the opposite end of the country!
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| Road to Rome meets Road to Home |
Adriana had some things to do this morning, not surprisingly considering I had only given her a few days' notice of my arrival! So she dropped me off at the edge of the city centre and I started walking through Aosta on my own. It took me quite a while to get across the city because I kept getting distracted by all the amazing shops selling hiking gear 😄! As well as an ice cream parlour where I stopped for a "second breakfast" of fior di latte ice cream topped with espresso 😋. And the tourist office, of course, to get another Aosta stamp on my pilgrim credential!
Then there were cultural attractions to distract me from the Way, too! I had already toured most of them during the weekend I spent in Aosta after arriving from France and Switzerland in June, but just passing by on my way out of town I walked through Porta Praetoria, the eastern gate to the Roman city of Augusta Prætoria Salassorum, built in the year 25 B.C., then in front of the house where Saint Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109, was born in the year 1033.
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| Piazza Chanoux |
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| Porta Praetoria |
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| The birthplace of St Anselm |
I then exited the old city through the Arch of Augustus, also erected in 25 BC on the occasion of the Roman victory over the Gaulish tribe of the Salassi, and crossed the Roman bridge over the Buthier river - standing high and dry since the eleventh century, when the river changed its course following a catastrophic flood.
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| Roman bridge |
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| Without any water! |
Leaving the old city centre behind, I followed the Via Francigena along the road for about an hour to Saint-Christophe, where Adriana joined me to walk the rest of the way to Nus. I had decided to split this first stage out of Aosta into two manageable parts rather than attempt to walk thirty kilometres on my very first day back on the road. A good idea, because though the Via Francigena in Valle d'Aosta is downhill overall, with a net descent from the mountain pass to the lowlying plains of the Po Valley, there are plenty of ups and downs along the way, so it's not one of the easiest sections of the Via Francigena! But the views across the valley to the mountains on the other side make all the climbing worthwhile.
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| Arriving in Nus from above |
Aosta - Nus 18 km
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