et a man destra la palude immensa:
viene e fuggesi Argenta e 'l suo girone
col lito ove Santerno il capo pone.
- Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando Furioso (1516)
Today's stage has been all about water. Starting first thing in the morning: when I emerged from the seclusion of my apartment in Monestirolo, surprise! Rain!
The rain was supposed to come yesterday afternoon, so I cut yesterday's stage short, adding more kilometres to today's stage... but then it rained today, instead! 😩
I was up early and out in time to catch the 7:02 bus from Monestirolo back to the Via Romea Germanica route. No point in adding even more kilometres to the day by walking back! In fact, I skipped a little further ahead, because of the rain, staying on the bus up to San Nicolò, the next village south of where I left the route yesterday in Marrara. I had walked an extra two kilometres off-route to get to Monestirolo, so I figured that made up for it!
In the shelter of the bus stop in San Nicolò, I donned my waterproof trousers and bright orange, tent-sized poncho, much to the amusement of the high school kids waiting for their bus, I'm sure. Then I went striding confidently off - in the wrong direction! In these flatlands it's hard to tell which way is which, on a cloudy day... and my phone with the gps track was tucked safely away out of the rain in a waterproof pouch. I soon realised that I was heading north instead of south, and turned back - fortunately the students' bus pulled up just as I was about to walk past them again - but then I headed east instead of west! 🤦♀️
I eventually got orientated, found the bridge, crossed the Po Primario and followed a small road heading south beside the river. A few kilometres later, I crossed the river again and briefly followed the highway before turning off onto a beautiful section of grassy trail under an archway of trees. The rain slowed down, the sun peeked out from behind the clouds, and a rainbow appeared: suddenly everything was perfect! 🌈
Almost everything: my t-shirt was wet, as I discovered upon stopping for cappuccino at the local ARCI bar in Ospital Monacale. I went into the washroom and changed into my long-sleeved hiking shirt, which turned out to be a good idea anyway, because after the rain, the mosquitos came out! Later in the day I amused myself for several minutes watching them attempt to bite through my plastic waterproof trousers 😄
While drip-drying in the café, I messaged Alberto, my host for the evening, to agree on an estimated time of arrival. I told him I had decided to take a shortcut and not follow the official Via Romea Germanica route all the way down to Traghetto, the traditional crossing point on the river Reno. I didn't need to cross the river, or stay at the B&B there, so why not take a more direct route and save five kilometres? Alberto suggested I stop on the way and say hello to his friends Max and Alda, who live right where my shortcut rejoins the official route.
So I left Ospital Monacale on a quiet road past the cemetery, briefly joined a minor highway, and then cut across the fields on a gravel road, Via dei Due Ponti, marked PRIVATE ROAD, NO TRESPASSING. Virginia Woolf once said, when you see a sign that says "No trespassing", trespass at once! People don't usually mind when you're on foot, and in fact the official track of the Via Romea Germanica route had already taken me along several such private roads where pedestrians are allowed. This road passed through an apple orchard. I refrained from stealing an apple, even though they looked delicious, so as not to give the owners of the property reason to further restrict access! In any case, I was hoping that Max might give me an apple when I got to his house, and in fact he had an apple tree of his own, and gave me three apples!
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| Resisting temptation |
The apple orchards were covered with nets to protect them against another kind of theft, by the birds. When I came out of the orchards and fields onto a small road on the top of an embankment, I had to backtrack a little way to get to Max and Alda's house. I walked warily up the drive, wondering if this was the right house and if the BEWARE OF DOG sign had any truth about it. There was indeed a dog, and a large one too, but it was luckily up on the top floor of the barn with Max and didn't notice my arrival; Max's daughter Cloé, in the kitchen doing her homework, let me in and went to call her dad.
Max and Alda have three teenaged children, who are home schooled - their mother and grandmother teach them. I didn't get to meet Alda, who is a teacher in an alternative school which the kids also attend on certain days of the week. The couple used to run a B&B called Sole Sereno, but now that their family has grown they host only walkers and cyclists on the Via Romea Germanica.
I hadn't considered this as a place to spend the night, and it wouldn't have fit with the way I divided up the stages, but it definitely would be a great place to stay! I spent an hour or so chatting with Max over a cup of coffee and and distracting Cloé from her homework. We exchanged contact information, signed each other's guestbook and pilgrim credential and took a selfie, and then I tore myself away and proceeded on my walk.
A few more kilometres along the little-used, paved road, and then the road became a grassy path with trees on either side, much like the one I was walking on when the rainbow appeared in the morning. Along the path were sculptures inspired by the nests of birds that live in the area, but on a human scale.
Just before arriving in Argenta I took a little detour that is definitely worth the extra few hundred metres. I crossed a bridge - actually two bridges, one over the Reno river amd another over a canal - to the Pieve di San Giorgio, on the edge of the marshlands of Campotto: the oldest church in the region, built in the year 569.
The carved marble portal was added much more recently - in 1122. Like the one removed from the Pilgrims' Door of Ferrara cathedral, it depicts the months of the year, in the form of human figures carrying out the activities characteristic of each month.
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| August |
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| July |
Two thirds of the original church from 569 is now underground - covered over as the river Po silted up over all those centuries!
I left this enchanting spot and walked into the centre of Argenta, which is almost entirely modern as it was destroyed by Allied bombs in the spring of 1945. The tourist information office was closed, but the town hall was open so I went in to ask for a stamp. The office was busy with people doing more important things such as renewing their ID or getting their immigration papers in order, with a friendly lady herding them about and directing them all into the right queues. She kept me waiting for a few minutes but gave me a chair, and then ushered me into the office of her boss, who applied her stamp to my pilgrim credential, complete with date and signature, as on an official document!
Having obtained this formal acknowledgement of my presence in Argenta, I proceeded to the home of Alberto, a long-distance walker himself, who hosts pilgrims in a tiny house his family built on the site of a former chicken coop/pigsty in their garden. Alberto keeps bees - not here, in the middle of the town, but out in the country, including some on Max's land. He showed me his honey-making workshop.
Some crates of newly made honey are currently being stored in the tiny house by the pond in the garden, where I have been using them as a bedside table. 😄 The house has a sleeping loft and a pull-out sofa bed, though for just one person the sofa itself is a sufficient sleeping space. There's even a wet room/sauna with chromotherapy lights - which I couldn't figure out how to turn off! Alberto switched them off when he came back to take me out for dinner at a local restaurant. We spent a very enjoyable evening discussing pilgrimage routes and pilgrim hospitality over tuna steaks and then ice cream at a fantastic local gelateria.
And thus ends another day on the Via Romea Germanica!
San Nicolò - Argenta 24 km
Important note for pilgrims walking the route in 2025: the bridge to Campotto was destroyed in the floods of October 2024 and is currently being rebuilt. Do not attempt to walk to the hostel in Campotto! There is no notification of this on the Via Romea Germanica website.
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