Via Romea Germanica Day 92: Forlì - Cusercoli

Basterebbe una passeggiata in mezzo alla natura, fermarsi un momento ad ascoltare, spogliarsi del superfluo e comprendere che non occorre poi molto per vivere bene  

(All you need to do is take a walk in nature, stop a moment and listen, get rid of everything superfluous, and realise that you don't really need much to enjoy life)

- Mario Rigoni Stern 

Up before dawn, we went straight back to the bar where we had our end-of-stage beer last night, but this time for cappuccino and croissants. The bar had been open since 5, and was already hopping: it was surprising to see how many people were out and about so early in the morning! We had to watch out for traffic while crossing the road, and for bicycle commuters while crossing the cycle path beside it!

We eventually made it to the other side of the road and headed down Via Lido, following the directions in the guidebook - only to come up against a fenced-off construction site, right away! But it was easy to see where people had climbed up the embankment to the path at the top. So we scrambled up there too, and found ourselves on a gravel trail beside the river Ronco. 

There are two Via Romea Germanica routes from Forlì to Cusercoli: one starts in the city centre and follows roads, passing through San Martino in Strada; the other starts right by the pilgrim hostel in Ronco, follows the river and is, according to the guidebook, more of a nature trail. That sounded great!

But, we discovered, you can have a trail with too much nature! 😅

Here's the thing: the guidebook was written in 2022, before the disastrous floods of May 2023. The fenced-off construction site turned out to be a former park and football field, damaged in the flood and since abandoned, awaiting repair. I guess the authorities had more important things to fix first; the park and the trail along the embankment did not seem to be their top priorities! Both were abandoned and overgrown. 

The trail was, however, practicable; you just have to duck here and there to pass under the arch of bamboo canes! They were wet with dew, and so was the grass; my boots ended up getting soaked through. 

After walking along the embankment path for several kilometres, we left it just before the ford over the river, where hiking guide Lorenzo had warned us we might run into problems. No problem: mapy.cz devised another route for me, which not only avoided the river crossing but saved a couple of kilometres. Just after circling a small lake, we walked a grassy track across a field to reach a minor road, where I stopped to take off my wet socks and put on waterproof socks under my wet boots! Then we followed a minor road for various twists and turns, eventually joining a cycling track and then a considerably busier road into the town of Meldola. 

A town of almost 10,000 inhabitants, Meldola was historically a centre of silk production. Nowadays, it is renowned for its hospital, specialising in the treatment of cancer. Because of the hospital it is practically impossible to find a room in a bed and breakfast in Meldola, I learned - I had originally thought of stopping here. In any case, it was still early in the day - the Tuesday morning market was still open, and was in fact sprawled all over the town centre, making it difficult to take pictures! It is a very pretty town, if you can ignore the market stalls blocking the view of it, with arcades over the sidewalks and unusual stone-paved sidewalks. 

We went into the first church we passed and were lucky enough to find a sacrestan (or perhaps a priest in plain dress) who had a stamp handy for our pilgrim credentials. On the way out of the town centre, we stopped in at the pretty little Oratory of the Stigmata of St. Francis. Then we were back out in the countryside for the next section of the Via Romea Germanica, featuring something new after two weeks of walking in the plains (three weeks, including the last week of walking in June): hills!!

We didn't actually go up many hills today, but they were there, all around, and getting closer! 

After a brief rest on a park bench by a drinking fountain in Gualdo, we had to walk for almost a kilometre and a half on the side of the highway; it wasn't too bad, as the highway was wide and had a decent amount of shoulder. Several buses drove past us, going exactly where we needed to go, but we resisted the temptation - even when one pulled up at a bus stop right in front of us and opened its doors! 😅

We were only on the highway for about twenty minutes, after which we turned off onto a small road, passing between houses, gardens and vineyards - and met the first loose, barking, territorial dog I've met so far on the Via Romea Germanica. Welcome to central Italy.... 😬

Right after the house with the dog, we crossed a bridge over the river Bidente and then followed a riverside path/dirt road the rest of the way to Cusercoli. We missed a turn-off and ended up in a vineyard, but managed to walk around the end of the vines and get out of the property and onto the road, finding ourselves among the first houses in the village of Cusercoli (population 1200), where we met Alberto, the man with the keys to the castle. 

That's right: we are spending the night in a castle! The pro loco tourist office of the village has set up a pilgrim hostel in the castle at the top of the town.

Walk the Via Romea Germanica, and you can be lord or lady of the castle for a day - for only twenty euros!

A bit of history - and a lot of legend: the castle of Cusercoli 

Built in the 9th century to guard a strategic narrow curve in the river valley, Cusercoli comes from Clausum Ercolis: the narrow point in the river was created when Hercules, whose twelve labours included cleaning the Augean stables in a single day, got fed up and threw a big rock down from the mountain into the river, so that the resulting tide of water would do all the cleaning for him. At least this is what Alberto told us, as we laboured our way up the hill to the castle together! 

Mythology aside, Cusercoli castle was built in the 12th century over the foundations of an older, late Roman construction. In 1269 Beatrice, daughter of Count Uberto, lord of the castle, was given in marriage to Paolo Malatesta, who was however in love with his brother's wife, Francesca: Paolo and Francesca, the famous lovers of Dante's Inferno. 

Paolo and Francesca, as depicted by another Dante: Dante Gabriele Rossetti

So here we are spending a night in Paolo's castle - where he fell in love with Francesca, and (possibly) where her husband discovered the lovers and murdered them both.

Hmm, not sure I'll sleep so well tonight, now that I know that....

Mariella in the castle gardens

Views from the castle

Forlì - Cusercoli 27 km

Via Romea Germanica Day 91: Ghibullo - Forlì

If you go to a place on anything but your own feet you are taken there too fast, and miss a thousand delicate joys that were waiting for you by the wayside.

– Elizabeth von Arnim (1866-1941)

My ground-floor room at the bed and breakfast in Ghibullo was conveniently located right next to the kitchen, where I made myself some porridge and a cup of coffee. I was out the door by seven and walked a couple hundred metres along the side of the highway to the bridge, then crossed the river and reached the embankment just in time to see the sun rise over the fields.

I followed the embankment until just after Coccolia, where a sign warned of a road closure in 1600 metres. Assuming I would be able to walk through or around it as a pedestrian, an opinion shared by a local woman I met on a bicycle, I kept going; but the fencing of the barrier turned out to be impenetrable, with a dense thicket of canes on the side facing the river and a very muddy plowed field on the other. So I walked the road detour, adding a couple of kilometres onto today's stage. The best solution would probably have been to cross the bridge at Coccolia and walk along Via del Canale, but I didn't think of that at the time!

I rejoined the Via Romea route in Borgo Sisa, where it leaves the river, crossing over and then taking country roads, paved and unpaved, the rest of the way into Forlì. 

Pumpkin patch

Shortly after a sign indicated that I was entering Forlì city limits, I turned off the route slightly to take a lunch break in a park with a small lake, geese, swans and, more importantly, benches and a drinking fountain.

I then walked the rest of the way into the centre of Forlì. 

A bit of history: Forlì 

Forum Livii was founded by the Roman Consul Livy in 188 B.C., but the area was settled well before that: remains of Paleolithic villages have been found. Byzantine in the sixth century, Forlì was the scene of bitter battles in the Middle Ages; the Ordelaffi family dynasty held the city from the end of the 13th century to the beginning of the 16th; it then became part of the Papal State until 1861, the year of the unification of Italy. 

Benito Mussolini was born in nearby Predappio, and his government invested in development of the area, which is why so many buildings in the Rationalist style of the 30s may be see in Forlì. This was the time of establishment of numerous factories and the airport.

The town's most significant religious building is the Basilica Abbey of San Mercuriale, completed in 1180, with one of Italy's tallest bell towers, 75 metres high: in the Middle Ages this was considered one of the great wonders of Italy.

The weekly market was just about to close in the square in front of the church when I arrived, making it hard to take decent pictures of the piazza!

I crossed through the market to visit the cathedral, where I stopped the kilometre counter for the day. I was also hoping to get a stamp, but there was no-one around to ask. 

I walked out of the town centre towards the park, where I had an appointment to meet Franco, a pilgrim friend of Rita, the ospitalera I met for lunch in Ravenna. The two of them met at the airport on their way to walk the Camino de Santiago, and ended up walking the whole way together - plus some more Long Walks in the years that followed. Franco drove me to the train station to pick up my friend and walking buddy Mariella, who will be walking with me from here on. Then he took us back to his apartment, where we met his wife, daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter. 

With Franco in his study and shrine to Mina ❤️

After enjoying a glass of wine and a snack together, and upsetting the family equilibrium be preventing the granddaughter from taking her afternoon nap, we accepted Franco's offer of a lift to the church in Ronco, four kilometres east of Forlì, where the parish provides a room for pilgrims. Don Giovanni, the parish priest, showed us the room and instructed us to call him if we needed anything.  He even left us each a copy of a booklet he wrote about a local saint, Beata Benedetta Bianchi Porro. And he called his parishioner Lorenzo, who is a local hiking guide and expert on the upcoming section of the trail; Lorenzo met us at the bar down the road to give us some advice about tomorrow's route, which is different from the one shown in the guidebook because of damage caused to the river banks by flooding two years ago. 

So now we are well prepared to head into the next part of the Via Romea Germanica: the Apennines!

The pilgrim room in Ronco

The pilgrims!

Ghibullo - Forlì 21.5 km

Via Romea Germanica Day 90: Ravenna - detour to Classe - Ghibullo

Quando voglio capire la storia d'Italia prendo un treno e vado a Ravenna.

(When I want to understand Italian history, I take a train and go to Ravenna.)

- Arnaldo Momigliano, historian

Today let's start with...

A bit of history: Ravenna 

Legend has it that the city of Ravenna was founded by the Greeks, though there is no evidence to support this theory. It is known that the city was inhabited by the Umbri, an ancient people who lived alongside the Etruscans for many centuries. The Romans took over the territory around the third century B.C., and in the days of the Roman Empire Ravenna was a cosmopolitan city, home to between 6000 and 10,000 sailors and their families from all over the Empire lived in the city.

Artist's impression of Ravenna in the first century after Christ 

...and of the sixth-century expansion, with the districts of Cesarea and Classe

In A.D. 402 the 18-year-old Emperor Honorius made Ravenna the capital city of the Western Roman Empire, easily connected with the heart of the Empire, Constantinople, by sea. The city was surrounded with defensive walls, and the fifth to eighth centuries saw Ravenna's golden age, when the monuments for which it is renowned today were constructed, many of them incorporating columns and other components manufactured in the Near East. This is when the nearby port city of Classe was founded, consisting of rows of warehouses along a canal connecting it with the sea and with the city of Ravenna, which was also connected by road, and a town with homes, infrastructure and monuments of its own. Foodstuffs, olive oil, ceramics and other goods were imported from Carthage in northern Africa; wine was imported from the Near East and from Palestine - particularly valuable for use during Mass, because of its origin in the Holy Land.

Late fifth-century amphorae for importing Garum (fermented fish sauce) from Tunisia

By the middle of the seventh century the port was silting up due to sediments carried by the river, and was abandoned along with the rest of the city of Classe.

Classe had a great basilica of its own, the last and one of the largest to be built in the Ravenna area: the late sixth-century Basilica di San Severo a Classe, built over the ruins of a Roman villa, featuring complex floor mosaics depicting animals and geometric patterns which must have been truly fantastic to see.  A Benedictine monastery was founded beside the basilica in the late 9th century, by which time the town of Classe had been largely abandoned. An inhabited monastic community for hundreds of years, the monastery passed into the hands of the Cistercians in the 13th century, and was unfortunately abandoned and dismantled in the 15th century. It was only rediscovered during excavation of the area in 1965. Fragments of the mosaics are displayed in the archaeological museum in Classe, along with floor mosaics from a number of Roman domuses. 

All this I learned, and saw, at Classis Ravenna Archaeological Museum in Classe, 5.5 kilometres from my starting point in central Ravenna. A two-kilometre detour from the Via Romea Germanica route towards Forlì, following the alternate route that leads to Cervia - but well worth the extra distance!

Let's backtrack for a moment: happy to be back on the road, but also to have spent a fruitful day touring Ravenna, I was the first up in the morning and had the hostel kitchen all to myself; I had put some overnight oats in the fridge for a hearty breakfast. I left my keys and donation in my room as instructed, and set off out of Ravenna. After crossing the bridge over the Fiumi Uniti, a 12-kilometre long river formed by the confluence of the rivers Montone and Ronco south of Ravenna, I detoured down the cycling path beside the road to Classe, where I hoped to visit the Basilica di Sant'Apollinare in Classe. 

But I had not done my homework: the Basilica is closed on Sunday mornings! 🙄

No problem: I had all day to get to Ghibullo, only 12.5 kilometres south of Ravenna, where I had found the only inexpensive B&B close to the route, to break up the 35-kilometre stage between Ravenna and Forlì. So I sat in a café in Classe, completing yesterday's blog post over a cup of tea, until Classis Ravenna Archaeological Museum opened at 10. The museum is located just behind the basilica, in the former Eridania sugar mill, constructed in 1899-1900 and in operation until 1982.

After touring the museum and writing up the above notes on the history of Ravenna and Classe, I still had an hour before the basilica opened at 1:30. Time for lunch! Right across from the museum entrance is a small park, with a kiosk selling piadine romagnole, the traditional local flatbread, with a variety of fillings. I chose a delicious if unconventional one with a filling of hummus, red cabbage and sun-dried tomatoes, with a German Weiß beer - in keeping with the theme of the Via Romea Germanica - and sat inside the sheltered veranda of the kiosk, as it was rather windy out. 

Right next to the kiosk is the small train station of Classe. So an easier way to visit Sant'Apollinare in Classe would be to spend an extra night in Ravenna, and take the train one stop from Ravenna to Classe and back. And if you take the variant of the Via Romea Germanica leading to Cervia, further along the coast, you will pass through Classe anyway, on your way. 

The Basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe was consecrated on 9 May, 549 by the bishop Maximian and dedicated to Saint Apollinaris, the first bishop of Ravenna and Classe. 

After visiting the church, and obtaining a stamp for my pilgrim credential and a few knick-knacks in the gift shop, I retraced my steps along the cycling track toward Ravenna for about a kilometre and a half before turning off and cutting through the settlement of Ponte Nuovo, on a route along the road that Mapy.cz assured me would save two kilometres compared to going all the way back to the bridge and then along the embankment of the river Ronco. When I rejoined the river near Madonna dell'Albero, the road bridge was being repaired and I had to walk through a construction site to get up onto the embankment; it being Sunday, there was no work going on and no-one to notice, so I walked around the barrier. Out of the construction site and on the narrow, paved embankment road, I stopped for a short break at the base of a column commemorating the Battle of Ravenna, involving Spanish and Papal troops aligned with Romagna fighting French troops on the side of the Duke of Ferrara, in 1512. 

From here on, it was the now-familiar landscape: the river on the right, often hidden from view by tall bamboo canes; fields, apple orchards and the occasional farmhouse on the left. This has been the common denominator of the Via Romea Germanica ever since Padova - though I believe that is about to change, as we get into the Apennines after Forlì!

Ten kilometres after leaving Sant'Apollinare in Classe, I crossed a bridge over the Ronco into the town of Ghibullo, which is basically just a strip of houses along the highway, and where there is absolutely nothing to see and do - fine with me! I can rest my eyes after all the sparkling mosaics of Ravenna, and my ears after the Bach cello suites. I checked into my room at La Vecchia Stazione R&B - not Rhythm & Blues, but Rest & Breakfast. I have a triple room, which for some reason cost less than a double, and comes with - a bathtub! The plug has been removed, so they presumably want you to use it only as a shower - but I have my handy universal silicone plug with me! Hah! 

The owners also, I discovered, have a roadside piadina stand - so I probably should have had something else for lunch, and a piadina for dinner, and saved myself the trouble of carrying food all the way from Ravenna!

Ghibullo 

Fancy room

Shared kitchen

A bathtub!! 🤩

Ravenna - Classe - Ghibullo 17 km