Road to Home 2023 Day 79: Montale (Piacenza) - Fiorenzuola d'Arda

Anyone can walk. It’s free, like the sun by day and the stars by night. All we have to do is get on our legs, and the roads will take us everywhere.

- Edward Payson Weston, after walking from New York to San Francisco in 105 days at the age of 70, quoted in Physical Culture Magazine (1910)

Stepping out the door of thousand-year-old pilgrim hostel in Montale, we were catapulted back into what passes for the real world today, on the Via Emilia, an ancient Roman road now transformed into a modern highway at rush hour on a Monday morning. We walked along the edge of the highway, facing the slow-moving rush hour traffic, to Pontenure, where I opted to take the longer way into the town via a cycling path rather than continuing straight along the highway. The Via Francigena avoids highway walking wherever possible, but on the way into and out of Piacenza it is unavoidable. Between Montale and the outskirts of Pontenure there is, at present,  no alternative, also because it's necessary to cross a stream on the road bridge.

Highway walking

After a restorative stop at a café in Pontenure the three of us ended up going separate ways. I chose not to follow the official Via Francigena route, but take a shorter route marked with the good old do-it-yourself trail markers: arrows with the letters VF in white paint, in the direction heading toward Rome, or yellow paint in the direction heading towards Canterbury or Santiago. 

The shortcut required another 2.5 km of road walking on the Via Emilia after Pontenure, but it was not too bad because we could walk on the grassy strip between the roadside ditch and the ploughed fields. It was safe, but not particularly pleasant, so I was happy to turn off the highway and follow a succession of paved and gravel roads that zigzagged across the fields the rest of the way into Fiorenzuola. 

Fording the Chiavenna stream was easy because there was no water at all, only a few mud puddles! 😄

Stepping stones not necessary

At the ford I rejoined the official Via Francigena track. I was ready to sit down for a break and a snack by this time, but there was absolutely nowhere to sit in the shade! It was shady down by the stream, but the stagnant pools attracted swarms of little flies, possibly including mosquitoes. After the ford there were a number of abandoned buildings that kind of gave me the willies, so I kept trudging on under the hot sun. It must have been another hour before I found a spot where I could sit down in the shade - in the ditch by the gravel road! It was actually quite comfortable because I sat in the lowest part of the (dry) ditch, leaning against my backpack, and put my feet up on the higher part toward the road. 😄

In this undignified position I sat for a while recovering from the heat, drank some water and ate my apple and cheese.  Then I walked the last half hour into town, where I found Mariella and Daniel already seated at the bar in front of the church of San Fiorenzo in the main square, Piazza Molinari; they had taken an even shorter shortcut. I ordered a beer and messaged Francesco, who runs the local pilgrim hostel; a few minutes later he appeared on his bicycle and accompanied us to our accommodations around the back of the church.

Fiorenzuola d'Arda 

Originally Florentia, the city was renamed Florentiola, which evolved into Fiorenzuola, to distinguish it from Florentia (Florence) in Tuscany. D'Arda is a reference to the valley of the Arda river, which I crossed on a footbridge on the way into town, though it too was dry.

The area has been inhabited since Neolithic times. By the year 222 BC it was a part of the Roman empire, handily located exactly one mansio (a day's ride) from Placentia (Piacenza) on the Via Emilia. 

The town's principal attraction is the church of San Fiorenzo, built between 1300 and 1485 on the site of the former church of San Bonifacio dating back to AD 364. Because it took two centuries to build the church, it incorporates styles ranging from Romanesque to Renaissance, in a mish-mash referred to as "Lombard transitional" style. The artworks in the interior are mostly later, from 16th to 19th century. The church is dedicated to San Fiorenzo, or Bishop Florents of Orange, who was born in Tours, France in the second half of the fifth century. On his way to Rome he stopped for a night in Fiorenzuola, like us, and miraculously brought back to life the deceased little daughter of a prominent local family; the church celebrates this miracle. The clock tower beside it is an adaptation of the one remaining tower of the town's medieval castle.

15th-century Palazzo Grossi

We spent some time wandering around the streets of the town and stocking up on provisions. Unfortunately most of the town's restaurants are closed on Mondays, so we had a glass of wine with snacks at a bar and finished off our meal with cheese, bread and fruit at our hostel, which does not have cooking facilities. The hostel manager Francesco offrs to cook a simple dinner for an additional fee, and we probably would have taken him up on that offer if we had realised that all the restaurants in town were closed! 😄

My route compared to official VF route and the Via Emilia highway

Montale (Piacenza) - Fiorenzuola d'Arda 22 km