Joanne's long walks: Road to Home 2023 Day 78: Corte Sant'Andrea

La Via Francigena non aspetta. È una strada inquieta, da troppo tempo sepolta dal sonno della memoria, dimenticata da questo tempo che corre verso quel muro dove sbatterà infine più forte la testa.

La Via Francigena se è destata. Ha ascoltato i passi di chi, solo e solitario, camminava su di lei, nel lontano ricordo di cammino verso una meta sacra.

- poster on the wall at Corte Sant'Andrea

Transitum Padi

We took it easy this morning, as we had plenty of time before our 9 o'clock appointment with Danilo the ferryman at the dock on the river Po. We said goodbye to Cristina, the hospitalier who had been taking care of us at the pilgrim hostel in Corte Sant'Andrea, who lives in a rather ancient camper with her partner and their three rescue dogs for several months of the year in order to give Giovanni and Caterina a hand running the hostel. I asked her to take a photo of the four of us outside the hostel.

Then we walked the short distance to the dock, where an Austrian walker, Heidi, was already waiting. Danilo's boat soon drew up and we all climbed aboard.

Danilo the ferryman is a well-known character on the Via Francigena. He has ferried 12,000 pilgrims across the Po since 1998, 830 so far this year alone. He takes them from Corte Sant'Andrea on the Lombard bank of the Po 3.6 km downstream, disembarking by his home on the Emilian side. Then he explains a bit about the history of the Po crossing or Transitum Padi, stamps pilgrim credentials and has everyone sign his register. At the end of each year he compiles statistics, producing a complicated and very detailed chart which he illustrated to us.

Today Danilo had to go back and fetch another group - he normally only does one trip a day, but as his boat can only carry ten, he sometimes has to make two trips! So off he went with a jerrycan of fuel for the boat, while the five of us headed along the embankment of the river and across the fields to Calendasco, where we stopped at a café to discuss our transitum padi experience over a coffee and doughnuts.

The rest of the walk into Piacenza was pretty unexciting. More flat farmland, more small villages with a café or two.

We crossed the river Trebbia by a column commemorating the Battle of the Trebbia, the first major battle in the Punic Wars, fought on December 22 or 23 of 218 BC, in which the Romans were soundly defeated by the Carthaginians. Each of the two armies had about 40,000 men; 20,000 men perished in the battle, along with all but 5 of Hannibal's elephants.

After the bridge over the Trebbia we walked straight along the Via Emilia, or Aemilian Way: the Roman road built beginning in 189 BC to connect Rimini with Piacenza. The Roman method of expanding the Empire was to build a brand new road straight through newly conquered territory and then establish a string of colonies, in which the settlers, either civilians or military veterans, would be allocated plots of fertile land confiscated from the defeated native peoples. This was exactly the function of the Via Emilia, and in fact as it was constructed Roman colonies were founded along its whole length at Bononia (Bologna) (founded in 189 BC), Mutina (Modena), Regium (Reggio Emilia), and Parma (all founded in 183 BC).

This ancient Roman road has however been taken over by cars, asphalted over for the convenience of people who feel the need to take half a tonne of steel with them wherever they go. Those of us who wish to return the ancient road to Rome to its original use are relegated to a narrow strip of concrete along its edge.

A walker in the land of cars

We caught up with Daniel just coming into the centre of Piacenza and walked together to the main square, Piazza Cavalli, centring around the town hall built in 1281, now known as Il Gotico.

We sat down for a drink and a sandwich in the square until the cathedral reopened at 3:30. Piacenza has one of Italy's most beautiful Romanesque cathedrals, constructed between 1122 and 1233.

High up on the columns just inside the doors are bas-relief carvings illustrating ordinary craftsmen at work, including a shoemaker, a weaver and a carpenter.

The crypt has 108 Romanesque small columns

Saint Christopher

Mariella and I spent a weekend in Piacenza in February, attending a seminar organised by our volunteer pilgrim host association, on which occasion we also visited the Basilica of Sant'Antonino, originally built in the year 375 and renovated in Romanesque style to repair damage from the barbarian invasions. There is a lot more to see in Piacenza too - definitely enough to keep you busy if you take a day off from walking the Via Francigena here - but on this occasion we contented ourselves with walking across the city enjoying its lovely warm colours in the afternoon sunshine.

Then we were back on the busy Via Emilia again, heading out of the historic city centre and into a district of light industries and shopping centres. We had an appointment to meet the parish priest at the church of San Lazzaro in between a christening that ended at five and the start of six o'clock mass - Sunday is a busy day for priests! We waited outside the church until all the well-dressed congregation there for the christening had gone, then went in to pick up the key to the pilgrim hostel another half hour's walk along the road. On the way we stopped for provisions at a massive supermarket, where the three of us miraculously managed not to lose one another, and walked across a roundabout with a prominent "no pedestrians" sign on it! 😄

San Rocco / Saint Roch

Tonight we are housed in the pilgrim hostel of the church of San Pietro in Montale, just outside Piacenza, which has been receiving pilgrims on the road to Rome since 1032.

We opened the door and found ourselves catapulted from a world of speeding vehicles, shopping malls, gas stations, Macdonald's and Ikea into the world of the Knights Templar and the thousand-year-old tradition of pilgrimage to Rome.