Cammino verso Assisi (Via del Volto Santo) Day 14: Diecimo - Lucca

We made it to Lucca!!! 

We had to wait a few minutes for breakfast at our B&B, a pleasant place which goes by the cheesy name of Franco's Friendly Villa, as the breakfast lady at was stuck in a line-up at the bakery - a common occurrence now that only one or two people are allowed into a shop at the same time! She arrived in a huff bearing fresh croissants and savoury pastries, and even offered to make us sandwiches for our lunch. After settling our bill and getting our pilgrim credentials stamped, we left the village of Diecimo behind and headed off along the side of the provincial highway. 

Diecimo is one of those places you would not be likely to stop at if you were driving through: all you see from the highway is a few roadside bars and pizzerias. You would think there was nothing of interest in the town. But parallel to the highway is a beautiful old street lined with colourful houses, and behind that, a lovely medieval pieve, or Romanesque country church. As it was raining when we arrived in the town yesterday, we only saw the church closed, in the dark. A good reason to go back! As was the veggie burger at one of the roadside pizzerias... the best I've had in Italy! (Veggie burgers not being exactly an Italian specialty!)   

Fortunately, the route taken by the Via del Volto Santo on the way out of Diecimo has been updated since my guidebook was written, and now passes through the grass behind the industrial estate, so we didn't have to walk on the shoulder of the highway. The morning dew in the grass wiped the remains of yesterday's mud off our boots and soaked our trouser cuffs. But they soon dried off in the sun - there were no signs yet of the rainstorms forecast to begin today!    

Diecimo: the Pieve di Santa Maria Assunta and our B&B (the yellow villa)

We emerged from the industrial estate and turned down a side road and then began our daily climb - no day on the Via del Volto Santo is complete without a climb! - up to the hamlet of San Donato, where we discovered another beautiful pieve.  

From San Donato we took a paved country road downhill among olive groves and gardens to the valley floor. Here we walked along the roadbed of the old highway, used only by infrequent local traffic now that a wider new highway has been constructed on the other side of the river. Vegetation has gradually invaded the roadbed from either side, while vines have grown up the old road signs and equipment rusts away in abandoned mines and quarries along the route.  

At one point the valley narrows so much that the railway, the new highway and the old highway all overlap. It then broadens out again at Sesto Moriano, sesto being a reference to its location six Roman miles from Lucca. We took a short break on a bench by a fountain in the town before detouring a short way to see the tenth-century church, Pieve di Santa Maria, unfortunately closed.  

Sesto Moriano

Sesto Moriano, seen from the bridge over the Serchio River to Ponte a Moriano

We crossed the river at Ponte a Moriano, where we picked up the cycling and pedestrian path along the river bank, following it all the way to the outskirts of Lucca. It was a rather long and monotonous walk along the gravel road by the river under the hot sun, and we were happy to turn off the river and toward the town. Heading straight for Porta Santa Maria, one of the gates in the city walls, we passed a copy of the Volto Santo on the wall of house, with an inscription reporting that "one month's indulgence would be granted to anyone reciting the Act of Contrition before the image of the Volto Santo in Lucca". We passed through the city gate and took the most direct route to the cathedral square, pleasantly empty at this hour of the afternoon in this largely tourist-free summer! 

  

The ramparts of Lucca

Porta Santa Maria

Coming into the city

Torre Guinigi

We made it! Chiavari - Lucca 285 km

The Cathedral of Lucca: San Martino

Labyrinth on the cathedral wall:
a metaphor of pilgrimage (and of life)

Inscription on the cathedral façade warning money-changers not to try and cheat pilgrims

St. Martin giving his cloak to the beggar, on the inside of the façade 

We entered the cathedral to contemplate the Volto Santo, the Holy Face which according to the legend miraculously appeared in the cathedral in 782, and is in any case the oldest surviving wooden sculpture in the western world, radiocarbon dated to between 770 and 880 AD.

Il Volto Santo

Diecimo - Lucca 21.5 km

  

Total from Chiavari to Lucca: 285 km! 

Thus ends the first part of this Long Walk towards Assisi. I will now return home for a few days to rest, do some of the kind of work that doesn't involve walking, make some plans and a few changes to my gear, and wait for the forecast rainy weather to pass over. 

Getting away from home along the Via della Costa, walking a day and a half up the Via Francigena and then spending a week walking the Via del Volto Santo to Lucca has been quite a Long Walk in itself, and if circumstances prevent me from going any further this year, I will be quite happy with this achievement! But if they don't, I will continue along the Cammino di San Jacopo in Toscana as far as Florence, and, if they still don't, from there along the Via di San Francesco to La Verna and Assisi. 

Ultreya!

 

Cammino verso Assisi (Via del Volto Santo) Day 13: Barga - Diecimo

It was raining heavily this morning while we breakfasted in Barga. When the rain stopped we headed out, but it soon started again. Luckily, the first part of today's route was on a paved road, so we didn't have to worry about mud or slippery rocks (any of the previous legs of this walk would have been pretty impossible in wet weather). Luckily again, it was Sunday morning and there was little traffic on the road. We left the road at the Pieve di Santa Maria a Loppia. The sound of organ music issued from the medieval stone church, but it wasn't Sunday morning mass, just a lone organist practicing Bach. We crept in and sat in the back pew, dripping on the stone floor and listening for a few minutes, before creeping out again unnoticed - the organist was so absorbed in his music he didn't see or hear us. We passed through the churchyard and crossed an ancient stone bridge, then climbed uphill on a path through the woods paved with slippery flagstones, past a lavatoio, an ancient wash trough.

Leaving Barga in the morning mist

Pieve di Santa Maria a Loppia

After a quick stop at the church and a coffee in Piano di Coreglia, we carried on along paved roads, still in a light drizzle. The rain had stopped by the time we reached the fortified village of Ghivizzano, where we met two ladies on their way to a fiftieth wedding anniversary party. 

From Ghivizzano we descended back into the valley and walked along another straight stretch of paved road before crossing over the Serchio River and heading uphill through the woods, coming out at the chapel of the Alpini above the village of Rocca. From there we descended to the Pieve di Cerreto, another country church which appeared to be abandoned and in need of repair, though there were people living in what was presumably originally the parsonage. 

From the church, we continued downhill on the southern slope of Monte Agliale, which was not wild and forested like the northern slope but cultivated, planted with olive trees, terraced and inhabited. We walked along the deserted main street of the village of Cerreto and came to Borgo di Mozzone, where we backtracked for half a kilometre to see the famous "Ponte del Diavolo", constructed around the year 1000 on the orders of Matilde di Canossa to allow pilgrims to cross the river on their way to Lucca. The modern-day pilgrimage route does not cross over the bridge, however, because the road on the other side has been taken over by vehicle traffic. So we contented ourselves with taking pictures of the bridge before returning to Borgo a Mozzano, passing the linea gotica, the Gothic Line defences from World War II, and continuing along a gravel road between olive groves and vegetable plots in the river valley for another hour, under threatening skies. It was just beginning to rain when we arrived at our bed and breakfast in Diecimo, a pretty village so named because it was ten miles up the Roman road from Lucca. 

Borgo a Mozzano 

Borgo a Mozzano 

The Gothic Line

Diecimo

The church in Diecimo (by night) 

Toad in Diecimo (by night) 

Barga - Diecimo 27.5 km

Only ten Roman miles to go!