Benedicat tibi Dominus et custodiat te; ostendat faciem suam tibi et misereatur tui. Convertat vultum suum ad te et det tibi pacem. Dominus benedicat te.
- Saint Francis, blessing of Brother Leone (1224)
After morning prayers in the Basilica, all pilgrims on foot - for everyone calls themselves pilgrims at La Verna, even if they come as part of a bus tour - were called to the altar to receive a special pilgrim blessing.
We received a baptism, too, on our way to the breakfast room: the morning was cold, wet, foggy and windy, all at the same time!
There were fifteen pilgrims in our dormitory last night, plus others who had booked private rooms in the monastery guesthouse and more who hadn't been able to find accommodations at the monastery and stayed at hotels in Chiusi della Verna, the village below (including the six we had met at Casa Santicchio the previous night). All of them are headed for Assisi; some will be continuing on from there to Rome, but not by our itinerary. It seems the Way of Saint Francis is becoming very popular! And will perhaps be even more popular next year, marking the 800th anniversary of the saint's death.
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| Annunciation by Andrea della Robbia |
The others had a long way to walk, on the first stage if their way to Assisi; but we had only a short walk (by pilgrim standards) to get back onto the main route of the Via Romea Germanica. So we packed up our backpacks and moved into the guesthouse lobby, planning to wait there until the rain eased up. In the meantime, we took a look around the monastery museum, where what impressed me most was not the fine paintings, reliquiaries and ceremonial robes but the hood of a habit worn by the Blessed Giovanni of La Verna in the late 13th century. The fabric had been sewn and patched so many times, it was basically just one big agglomeration of patches upon patches. Yet it has survived for more 700 years!
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| Hood of the Blessed Brother Giovanni (c. 1290) |
We were ready to go when the rain was forecast to stop at noon - but it didn't stop! Dripping wet guests came in from mass, or from tour buses, filling the restaurant to capacity and crowding into the little lobby to eat their packed lunches.
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| A busload of Polish women accompanied by a Franciscan friar - and a lot of wet umbrellas and packed lunches! |
At 1:30 the rain finally stopped and the sun began to shine. We donned our raingear in case of residual showers, but there were none. We followed path number 50 through the woods known as "Bosco delle Fate", heading steeply but safely down to Chiusi della Verna in only two kilometres (it would have been five by road).
From Chiusi, we decided to walk on the road for the remaining ten kilometres to Chitignano, as it was not much longer than the path, and the path was described in our guidebook as somewhat challenging due to uneven terrain requiring good hiking boots: in short, not the sort of trail you want to walk right after a significant rainfall! There was very little traffic on the mountain road, which took us safely to our destination in less than three hours.
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| Wild cyclamen by the roadside |
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| If we'd taken the trail, we'd have been up there |
Chitignano is renowned for two things, the first of which is its "sulphurous and ferrous waters", which were freely available from a roadside fountain on the way into the town, but which we declined to taste, preferring to drink from our water bottles, which we had filled in the morning at the blessed spring of La Verna, said to have been created by Saint Francis himself by simply striking a rock with his staff. The second thing the town is known for is its history of contraband trafficking in tobacco and illegally manufactured gunpowder: also along the road into town is a "Contraband and gunpowder museum", unfortunately shut - it would have been interesting to see such a curiosity!
We proceeded on into the village, passing the church and an old washing fountain and heading straight for our B&B.
B&B Olimpia is the ideal stopping-place for pilgrims in Chitignano. Run by a young couple who inherited a grandparent's home next door to their own and converted it into an apartment rental, it is a bit of a secret because, as they explained, they both work other jobs and don't have much time to spend on the B&B, so they don't advertise it at all. And in fact we had no idea what kind of place we were going to, because there was no information about it on the internet. It is, however, on the list of recommended accommodations for the Via Romea Germanica, and it is very reasonably priced and offers everything pilgrims could need!
The apartment includes a fully equipped kitchen, but we had nothing to cook, and the grocery store just down the road was of course closed on a Sunday afternoon. I enquired about restaurants and learned that one of the town's two eateries had just closed down, and the cook at the other was currently on holiday... our hostess rescued us from a dinner of reconstituted soup mix by bringing over a generously sized bowl of her own homemade spinach and ricotta ravioli! Complete with fresh parmesan cheese to grate over it, and a big chunk of cake which, after polishing off the ravioli, we decided to save for tomorrow's breakfast!
La Verna - Chitignano 12.5 km
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