St. Francis' Way - Page 7

Montefalco - Patrico

Today was a long stage on the plan, but the most beautiful accommodation. So quickly had breakfast at the B&B, then it's downhill out of Montefalco. Field paths, small roads, it went over meadows, past farms, through small towns, always straight. Shortly before Spoleto it's annoying, for a long time our way ran along main roads, one had to be always vigilant, also it stank here. Not in the best of moods, we walked uphill into the city. We tried to absorb some of the charm of this city before we took a break in the park near the cathedral. Individually, we went into the beautiful Cathedral Santa Maria Assunta.

After that we walked through a gate towards the gigantic bridge Ponte delle Torri. When photographing unfortunately fell my faithful pilgrim stick in the depths, after the Ponte but I found a replacement right away, was just a little heavier 🙂. Immediately after the bridge began a steep climb through the forest, sometimes on the way thought one must take the hands to help. Feeling eternities later, we reached the monastery Monteluco and a picnic area. Here we first had the deserved Capuccino. Some Italians arrived here by bus, they love to picnic in beautiful places with their family. Only it rained lightly, so the number was manageable. We had to continue, for us the rise was not yet over today.

Quiet roads meandered upward for the last few miles, the rain eased, and the views were hard to top. Only the last meters to Patrico it went slightly downhill, once we had to stop one of the rare cars to ask, then we had arrived. In the middle of a mountain is here an idyllic farmhouse (Agriturismo Bartoli, 55 € per person HP), already Richard Gere and others knew, why they had come here. We were a bit tired today and went first to our beautiful room. Only then we could enjoy the panoramic view fully enjoy, including sunset. Dinner was in the evening together with the host, some courses and good house wine, liter bottles, provided for best mood. Also other pilgrims were here, Germans and Dutch, all nice people.

Patrico - Polino

Breakfast was also taken together, but the host was already gone, at work. So we left this beautiful place. One should not think, because we spent the night on a mountain, it would now go downhill. Far from it, a few kilometers went slightly uphill, then came another enormously steep climb up Monte Fionchi. With good weather we had again a brilliant view of surrounding mountain flanks. Only now it went steeply downhill, at first over meadows, then over hardly to be found paths cross-country. Sometimes skull bones of cows were lying around here, which caused some jokes 🙂. Later, a path ran through increasingly higher forest. After a rest area was a note on the ground, from other pilgrims before.

It said, "We can't go on here because the forest is being cleared, we tried. We'll try the bypasses." Unconvinced, we tried it anyway, and climbed over cleared trunks, but soon realized that it took us half an hour to walk 20 meters. And there were still about 500 m to go. We didn't have the time today and so we turned back. This made our route even longer today, but we got out of the forest. An hour later we landed on the quiet road to Ferentillo, which meandered forever in switchbacks into the valley.

In the town itself with the famous mummy museum we took a break in a cafe. We knew that we had to go back up the 1000 m we had descended before. had to go up again. A bit along the road, through a wide gap in the rock, the path ran first past small houses, later in the forest steeply up to the Carpio pass. It was very humid, at the top we had to rest.

Less steep, but steadily uphill, the path continued around Monte Petano. We overtook the pilgrim from the first day, he walked extremely slowly. I wondered the rest of the day where he will spend the night and how he got here. Later we continued along the road, up and down, past the mountain village of Polino and already quite exhausted we reached after more serpentines uphill the hotel (Hotel Don Bosco, 60,00 € double room with breakfast).

Only three pilgrims stayed overnight here, otherwise everything was empty here. It was already dawn, we took our nice room and had dinner in the hotel. There was nothing nearby, it was lonely and idyllic on the edge of the forest.