Let us walk, let us read, and let us dance; these three amusements will never do any harm to the world.
- paraphrase of Voltaire, posted along the path
Awoken by the church bells ringing next door to the cosy pilgrim hostel in Lamporo, we breakfasted with our hospitalier Luca, signed the hostel guestbook, popped our donation into the box, and set off.
Lamporo is a long, narrow village consisting of two rows of houses, on either side of its one and only street. At the end of the street and out of the town, we turned onto a dirt track through the fields. We crossed over the Canale Cavour, the 83 kilometre long canal built by order of Count Camillo Benso Cavour in 1861-1862 to permit irrigation of the rice paddies. Though on this stage we saw more cornfields than rice!
Walking into the first town on this stage, Saluggia, was particularly difficult for Mariella. Her nephew, disabled by Huntingdon's disease, a heriditary neurodegenerative condition, lived his final years in a care home in Saluggia. Andrea, whom I met in 2019, fought the disease with great courage and will to live, until it overcame him last year and at the age of 41 he followed his younger brother Simone, who had passed away only months earlier.
As we came into Saluggia, we stopped at a chapel to remember them.
Saluggia is know as the "town of beans", and later in October it will be hosting an annual culinary festival in honour of the humble legume. But today, I settled for a custard-filled croissant from the local bakery instead, and ate it sitting on a bench in the main square. Not many pilgrims come through the town, judging by the number of locals who stopped to talk to us, and ask where we came from and where we were going!
We made our way out of the town and then walked along the side of the highway for a bit in order to cross the Dora Baltea river on a road bridge right next to the railway bridge.
 |
| Crossing the Dora Baltea |
We ignored the Via Francigena signs pointing off into the fields and stayed on this road right through Borgoregio, 12 kilometres from our starting point, and into Torazza Piemonte. Here we paid a visit to Graziella, one of the founders of the lovely pilgrim hostel in Lamporo where we spent the previous night. Graziella broke a leg in July and is spending some time undergoing rehabilitation in a care home until she is able to walk again. The care home was right on our route, and in fact Graziella can watch for passing pilgrims from the window of her room: how appropriate for a laid-up pilgrim hostess!
 |
| With Graziella in Torazza Piemonte |
At noon we left Graziella to her lunch, and ate ours picnic-style in a field just outside the town. Then we continued along a service road beside the railway tracks to Castelrosso and followed the canal from there to Chivasso, the end of today's stage.
 |
| Water over water: a smaller canal crosses over the Canale Cavour |
 |
| Flowering plants... |
 |
| ... and power plants on the way into Chivasso |
 |
| Chivasso |
Chivasso is a pretty town, worth exploring, but we put off further exploration until tomorrow morning, as we were tired and ready to call it a day. There are no accommodations specifically for pilgrims in Chivasso, only hotels. But there is a train station, and it's only a half-hour ride to Vercelli - the distance it has taken us three days to walk! So we caught the first train back to Vercelli to spend a final night at Mariella and Antonio's house and pick up some things that we had left there - such as warm jackets for wearing in the mountains!
Lamporo - Chivasso 22 km
No comments:
Post a Comment