Road to Home 2023 Day 88: Bibola - La Spezia

Follow your dreams; they know the way.

- Kobe Yamada

Totally exhausted, I slept almost ten hours in my little house at the top of the hill in Bibola. When I awoke, a mist was rising from the Magra river valley, and by the time I was ready to leave, the world was shrouded in fog, with only my hilltop village rising above the ocean of white!

I followed the well-marked trail to the village of Vecchietto, which took a while to get through, behind a tractor that was delivering a whole winter's supply of pellet to a house in the village, at a snail's pace! Lots of time to take photographs. 

The trail then entered a thick forest of chestnut trees, climbing high up over the aptly named Monte Grosso to cross the border from Tuscany into Liguria!

After almost ten kilometres I finally arrived in my first Ligurian village, Ponzano Superiore; I was glad I hadn't attempted to come this far last night! 

The brightly coloured houses and sunshine of Liguria welcomed me back to my home region, and I sat on a bench in Piazza Immacolata looking out over the territory I would be walking through next.

At Ponzano Superiore I parted ways with the Via Francigena, my constant companion for the past 1800 kilometres or so. I followed path number 343 from Ponzano Superiore to Madonnetta... and was surprised to find that it too was waymarked as the Via Francigena! Or Via Francigena of the Valley.

This trail emerged onto the main road in Ponzano Magra right by a trattoria serving a workman's lunch, and as it was noon and I was feeling the effects of a walker's appetite - another constant companion of the past 1800 kilometres! - I walked right in. I didn't feel at all out of place in my sweaty T-shirt and boots, as all the other patrons were similarly dressed, though for working rather than walking! The logos on their t-shirts suggested they were plumbers, builders, gardeners, road maintenance workers...

After this quick and inexpensive lunch, I followed the route mapy.cz had devised for me, on demand, between Ponzano and La Spezia. After a false start heading toward a trail that was overgrown with brambles, I followed a gravel road along an irrigation ditch that allowed me to pass underneath the railway tracks and the motorway, and then join a cycling track that crosses the Magra river on the motorway bridge of the A15, thus overcoming the three major obstacles to connecting the Via Francigena with the Via della Costa on foot! 

It was pretty funny walking over the motorway bridge with all the cars and trucks zooming past on the other side of the barrier! 

The view from the bridge was fantastic!!

On the other side, I continued to trust mapy.cz for the route, though it took me under the motorway and over a stream, and then back again... in this particularly pedestrian-unfriendly corner of the world it seemed to be necessary. Similarly, my route crossed under the railway line and then back again. But it soon left behind the chaos of the valley - with the two motorways, railway lines, river, container port and industrial zone - to climb into the hills above La Spezia and join the AVG or Alta Via del Golfo, a U-shaped walking route around and above the city. I walked this route in 2015, and you can read about it at this link; today I only did a small portion of the AVG, climbing up to San Venerio at an elevation of 150 metres and then back down to sea level and into the city of La Spezia.

View of the port city of La Spezia as seen from the AVG trail 

San Venerio glimpsed through the olive trees

In San Venerio

I came into the urban area of La Spezia by the Pieve di San Venerio,  a little medieval church I had never seen before.

It was a bit of a shock to be in a big city after so much rural hiking.... but cities do have their advantages... such as ice cream!! 

Bibola - La Spezia 27 km