This is the road of the Gods to the abode of thundering Jupiter, to his palace
- Ovid, Metamorphoses, 168–171 (1st century BC)
From Sant'Ambrogio di Torino, a steep path paved in stone climbs to the rocky summit of Mount Pirchiriano, 962 metres above sea level. Here a Roman fortress once kept watch over the road from Gaul. Between 983 and 987 a Benedictine monastery was built on the site, over top of and incorporating three small early Christian churches dedicated to the worship of Saint Michael the Archangel.
By the twelfth century the Sacra di San Michele had become an important centre of spirituality, culture and hospitality for nobles and pilgrims from all over Europe, situated exactly halfway between the sanctuary of Mont Saint-Michel in northern France and the sanctuary of Monte Sant'Angelo in Puglia, on the diagonal axis of sites sacred to the Archangel Michael extending from Ireland to Turkey.
We walked the stony road up to the Sacra with our hosts Giancarlo and Betta.
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| Setting out from Sant'Ambrogio with the Sacra high up on the mountaintop behind me |
After a coffee break at the café to recover from the steep climb, Giancarlo and Betta turned back to walk back down the same path, while Mariella and I visited the former monastery. One of the artworks of greatest interest, the intricately carved portal, was covered in scaffolding and blocked off from view for restoration work, and a large school group on a guided tour occupied much of the church, making it difficult to perceive the place's supposed aura of sacredness. Yet the monastery, a source of inspiration for Umberto Eco's The name of the rose, is a very impressive construction, perched atop the rock like an impenetrable fortress.
After visiting the monastery we descended along a steep, rocky path on the opposite slope of the mountain, where we crossed paths with Éléonore, a young Belgian pilgrim on her way from Grenoble to Rome. I gave her some advice about lodgings for the next few days. The stone pavement on this side was very uneven, slippery and covered in leaves and chestnuts; the forest, which was owned by the monastery and leased out to members of the local population for a rent of 12 chickens a year, has been planted with chestnut trees since 1778. Chestnuts were in the past a very important source of nourishment as well as timber for building homes and furniture. In woods like this one, the traditional practice of coppicing was used: cutting down the main trunk of the tree so that new trunks from the shoots around it would grow, providing timber that was much straighter and with fewer knots and branches.
At the bottom of the mountain, we emerged into the village of Chiusa di San Michele and walked along a flat road on the south side of the valley floor to Vaie, the next village, where we stopped for a short break and a snack before continuing on to Sant'Antonino di Susa, in the middle of the valley. The road through the town centre was blocked off for construction work, so we followed the highway through the outskirts of the town, walking along the cycling track. Tall mountains towered above us on either side as we walked westwards through the middle of the flat valley floor, parallel to the Dora Riparia river, the motorway, the railway and the highway.
We walked along the embankment of the river, passing by an interesting sight: a facility for training dogs to search for earthquake survivors among the rubble.
Coming to a road bridge, we crossed over into the town of Borgone, where we stopped for an end-of-stage beer before catching a train for a fifteen-minute ride back to Avigliana and another convivial evening with our hosts there, Giancarlo and Betta.
Sant'Ambrogio di Torino - Borgone 18.5 km
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