I’m sitting in the waiting room in the hospital at Cittadella. I had a brief glimpse of the intact medieval walls before turning into this large modern brick structure. Yesterday a watched a blood engorged tick backing out of my leg after a good feed. I could almost see the satisfied grin on its face. The area is still red and looks a little like ... Read More
After a 34 km walk and half a tub of ice cream Gord was still up for a walk around Treviso. Italy is amazing; step into a Cathedral and stumble upon a painting by Titian. In Treviso it’s his Annunciation. We also were treated to some frescos in the crypt from the 13 or 14th century. Gord and I love this stuff. It’s great being ... Read More
We are staying at a lovely house with our host Lilica in a small community halfway between Portogruaro and Treviso. I offered to cook spaghetti carbonara and she laughed and said that’s what she was going to make. She insisted on making us dinner and we had a lively conversation through the meal. We toasted Google Translate, that allowed us to talk freely about everything ... Read More
Yesterday was a rain day. It was only the fourth soaker on the trip so far. It feels like something magic when the rain stops. Suddenly an overcast day is fantastic and a small square of blue, or a ray of sunshine makes me feel jubilant. Today we had a number of these moments after being chased across the landscape by occasional thunder storms. It ... Read More
Before we departed for this Camino I had a casual look at our route across Italy on our mapping app. Zooming into one of the many undulations on the track, I was surprised to see a perfectly symmetrical nine pointed star. This is the town of Palmanova, which we passed through this morning.Palmanova has an interesting history. It is a city fortress founded by Venice ... Read More
Gordon: Have you ever heard of the city of Aquileia? Neither had I, but in the second century AD it was the second largest city in Roman Italy. Attila the Hun gave it pride of place in his depredations in Italy, almost completely destroying the city in the middle of the fifth century. It never recovered as more than a small city thereafter. What has ... Read More
Today we left Slovenia and walked across the border into Italy. We made our way across Slovenia on the Jacobova Pot between the Hungarian and Italian borders in 13 days and 323 kms. We have now come 751 kms from Budapest. The Camino in Slovenia is well signposted for walkers and cyclists and is enthusiastically supported in person and on line by the Jacobova Pot ... Read More
Tomorrow we climb out of the village of Podraga in the beautiful, deep Vipava Valley and say goodbye to Slovenia. It was our first time in the country and certainly won’t be our last.When we first crossed into Slovenia in stormy weather, one of the members of the Jacobova Pot pilgrim association warned me, through their Facebook page, that the ferry crossing of the Mura ... Read More
Gordon: We met Maja, a Slovenian pilgrim, on the Camino Francés in 2011. In the intervening years I have accumulated wrinkles and Arctic blonde hair (to use Mary’s euphemism) but Maja has been considerably more busy. She has acquired a charming Spanish husband, José, and three energetic and affectionate sons. Ruth has maintained Facebook contact with Maja and when Maja learned that we would be ... Read More
Gordon: We are spending a couple of nights in our second capital city of this pilgrimage: Ljubljana. It’s hard not to like, particularly as we are staying in a palace. No, really, it is an upper suite in a palace built for a count in 1755. Of course it’s not cheap, but as in all European capitals, nothing is. In fact, it was only about ... Read More