Road to Home 2023 Day 77: Santa Cristina - Corte Sant'Andrea

To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.

- Anatole France, quoted on a bookmark found in the grass by the trail

It was a good thing the nuns gave us our own room last night because we were up and dressing by 6:30, and I don't think the students and schoolteachers would have appreciated that on a Saturday morning! 😄

After fixing our breakfast in the hostel kitchen and losing and finding a sock or two, by 7:30 we were out the door, crossing the covered bridge of Pavia, this time before sunrise (the sun rises late at the end of September!).

We crossed the city of Pavia to the train station and took the 8:06 train back to Santa Cristina. An hour's walk on a dirt road took us to Miradolo Terme, where we had a second breakfast stop at a café on the edge of the town. We then followed a cycling and pedestrian track by the road to Camporinaldo. After this village, a dirt road took us around the edge of a dirtbike track, literally buzzing with activity on a Saturday morning, and a field where a tractor was plowing. 

We passed in front of the 17th-century castle of Chignano Po and walked on the edge of a paved road to Lambrinia, where we found a playground with benches in the shade where we lunched on the food we had in our backpacks... and the mosquitoes lunched on us! 😅

After a long rest in the shade we ventured out into the afternoon sun to walk through Lambrinia to the highway bridge, the only way to cross the river Lambro.

Railway bridge over the Lambro, seen from the road bridge 

We walked on a footpath beside the highway, but on the safe side of the guardrail, and crossed the bridge on the sidewalk,  then left the highway to pass underneath the railway bridge and walk along the top of a dyke through the fields, with the town of Orio Litta on our left and the Lambro river on our right, toward Corte Sant'Andrea, by the river Po. 

Corte Sant'Andrea is the historic location of the Transitum Padi, the only point at which the river Po can be forded. This meant that anyone travelling between Rome and northern Europe had to cross the river here: Roman legions, Hannibal and his elephants, Archbishops of Canterbury, merchants and pilgrims... Archbishop Sigeric recorded this as his 39th stop on his way back from Rome to Canterbury in 990, "XXXIX Sce Andrea". 

Sigeric's record of his itinerary in 990

Corte Sant'Andrea was once part of the territory of the abbey of Santa Cristina. It now has a population of ten, including a Knight Templar, Giovanni, who takes care, with his wife Caterina, of the pilgrim hostel behind the church, in what used to be the home of the parish priest. 

Giovanni's sword

Daniel, Eva, me & Mariella by the hostel laundry

Tomorrow morning at 9 the four of us have an appointment with Danilo, the legendary ferryman of the Via Francigena, who takes pilgrims to the other side of the Po - and into the region of Emilia Romagna!

Santa Cristina - Corte Sant'Andrea 18.5 km