Tuna and Cheese? From Monte Romano to Marradi

A short walk today ended in a disaster when one of my hiking poles broke, and I made a faux pas ordering fish with cheese.

I woke up for breakfast at 7am and was thrilled to meet Enrico’s wife, Daniela, who had returned from saluting the late Pope in Rome. After setting off early at 2am, she had only had to wait two hours in line. I thought of when the Queen had died and the epic queues I had witnessed on TV. David Beckham had spent a day among the plebs waiting to pay his respects to her. 

I secretly wanted the Beckhams to become to new Royal Family. Though, in an early communist rebellion perhaps, I had cut Posh Spice out of my posters, she was now my favourite Spice Girl. I admired their family and the way she and David shared a mutual work ethic.

Enrico and Daniela explained to me that their dog, Mia, with whom I’d shared cuddles the evening before, had been named after the song ‘Romagna Mia’ which had become a hit during the floods of 2023 to give strength to the local people. Their other dog, Cillian, meanwhile, was named after the Gallic for warrior.

The Romagna people are definitely proud of their heritage. Their territory spans half of Emilio Romagna towards the sea and their language, or dialect, is quite specific. 

Dante was sensitive to these vagaries in language as he wrote in his Latin treatise on language, De Vulgari Eloquentia. Written between 1303 and the first months of 1305, his work was perhaps the first published European socio-linguistic research.

Over breakfast, Enrico and Daniela revealed that they were seasoned travellers who had visited over 100 countries, often to chase a solar eclipse. They had been to Sudan, Libya… I thought of the way my own parents had taken me travelling to exotic locations as a child. This was a real home stay alright. I couldn’t have felt more at home if I’d tried.

I drank nearly a whole family pot of espresso and ate a banana at Alina’s recommendation to alleviate the cramps in my feet. I had a Zoom meeting with a student whose dissertation was on Chinese, UK and US medical care models which felt somewhat discordant from this place of Paradiso. Then I did some gentle yoga stretches and massaged my feet. Today was a relatively short day of walking but I still felt my feet resist.

I slept for another hour.

At 11 o’clock, outside, me, Enrico and Daniela took pictures. 

‘The sky is so huge it can reduce the pain of everyone,’ counselled Enrico.

‘You feel tiny and so do your problems. It is a tiny comfort for us to see the stars.’

I hesitated, then went for it: I asked about how the two of them reconciled their love for science with religion.

‘Something was put it in motion,’ came Daniela’s reply.

Although I was not collecting stamps in a passport on my Dante journey, Enrico gave me one along with a pretty star decoration that I would put upon my Christmas tree. 

I was grateful beyond belief.

Enrico walked with me the first kilometre to the Dante trail with his two dogs. At one point Cillian started barking in a frenzy and then, there it was, a deer! 

Enrico identified it as a female as it had no horns.

How wonderful. I’d only ever seen them in the wild in Salmon Lake in California. She skitted across the hills gracefully as if she were aboard my nephew’s pogo stick.

It was nice to walk alongside Enrico. The family had two pilgrims expected that night and also a family who were returning. They had come last year during the cammino and were coming back to see the stars. I knew I’d also be back. Hopefully with my mum.

There was the patch of woodland where he collected mushrooms, indicated Enrico.

And here was the crest I would traverse today.

At the crossroads, I turned left towards Florence and saluted Enrico. I put on my waterproofs and covered my bag thinking, suspiciously, that then it wouldn’t rain.

I’d made the right decision to sleep a bit more. I would follow the crest and then descend into the valley of Marradi.

I passed the church and I was back on the Cammino de Dante. A familiar cuckoo sung its heart out, seeking to attract the midday sun.

I stopped to meditate on the view and sent my French friend Marie a Happy Birthday message. It had been too long since we’ve been in touch. 

After 3 kilometres I stopped to dry the sweat off of my forehead. Had my face ever been this red? It had. At 15 I had been national karate champion and one of my unintentional tactics had been to scare the opponent with my red, sweaty face. Now my niece, at 12, was a green belt, taking on the mantle. It had been agonizing attending her recent karate competition. 

‘Don’t you dare cheer, Auntie Jenny.’ She’d warned.

I’d had to put my hands in my mouth. As it was, she had come out with a gold and I had had a little happy cry in the carpark. 

Kelsey sent me some videos from the lesbian conference she was attending in Rome. A gaggle of women were singing Bella Ciao and the chant, We Are All Antifascist!

I thought back to singing Bella Ciao at my old school on one of the many occasions I had gone to visit to give talks to aspiring pupils. Lord Grey Could, went the motto. If I had got into Oxford, they would too. 

I was relieved that my feet seemed OK. I would take it slowly and I had the delightful knowledge that, tonight, I would be staying at a pizzeria. 

After an hour of walking, I stretched out my feet as my nurse mother had advised me (yes, she had practiced as both a geologist and a nurse). I was determined to avoid cramps today, ready for tomorrow’s epic hike. I had to make it to Florence, I had to. Now it was written in the stars.

A guy passed on a mountain bike coming full force up the hill. I was impressed, I signalled.

I reflected, as I walked, of how Enrico had told me that his daughter had done her thesis on the French writer, Flaubert. I had loved Madame Bovary. I thought about my relationship to France. When had Italy taken over as my soul place?

I recalled the quote I loved so much from his famous novel,

‘Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.’

La parole humaine est comme un chaudron fêlé où nous battons des mélodies à faire danser les ours, quand on voudrait attendrir les étoiles.

And with that thought I realized I’d gone wrong. I went back up the hill, annoyed at the 10-minute detour.

On the woodland path were mounds of excrement full of seeds. A broad-leaved anemone, neon pink, shot up from the verge.

The puddles of sunlight on the path appeared briefly then disappeared again, a kaleidoscope of light.

From a prairie, I descended to flat vertical rocks which looked like lava slipping down the hill.

I ate some bread, cheese, and tzatziki in the tentative sunlight.

There were three different types of purple flowers. A yellow butterfly with orange tips saluted me. An ant ran across my bag and a bee buzzed.

The sun felt great on my skin, though I had left my moisturizer at a previous B&B. The bee who hovered around my lunch was a really fluffy light brown.

The view of the Apennines was striking.

I enjoyed the crunch of the crisps with the soft cheese and bread. The spectre of work was haunting me, but I tried to focus on the soft buzz of the flies.

Oh, I could lie here in the sun all day.

But I was only about halfway. The sun momentarily went in and I took my leave.

I felt steady on my feet today, maybe tomorrow I’d be OK.

After another 2 kilometres, I cracked open the pistachio nuts that I’d been lugging around. Then there were five cereal bars, and some trail mix, that had accompanied me from the start. I was wary of slipping on the hazardous vertical rocks and wanted to make sure that I was strong. I stuffed them into my mouth.

Two bees were mating, tumbling over one another on the ground in a cartwheel of evolution.

The shadow of the leaves decorated the rocks.

I turned the corner, past an abandoned house, and rolled my socks down. My black leggings were calf length and the wind felt good against the inch of leg that was bared. Why on earth had I been heaving around two pairs of shorts, I wondered. Only one had even seen the light of day.

I lightly twisted my ankle as I descended the uneven terrain which led to more derelict houses. These ones were for sale. I stopped again to massage my feet. A. black beetle crossed the path before me.

I exited the woods into a panoramic landscape with 180 degree views of the beautiful rolling mountains. The sound of birdsong warmed my heart.

Then, fuck.

One of my hiking poles had got stuck in the mud and had broken half way down. The expandable mechanism had completely detached.

I thought of what I had in my pack to repair it – the sellotape Alina had left me – nope, not strong enough. Some plasters? Again, too weak.

I would have to continue today’s gentle walk with only one stick, but what on earth would I do tomorrow which was famously one of the most difficult days of the trail?

I tried not to cry, recalling how when I was hiking with Alina for the first four days I hadn’t used them. And I’m quite sure Dante hadn’t had silicone hiking poles.

I was now starting the descent. I used my one stick to navigate the hard tug of the mud.

It was a steep rock path down and, without two sticks, my knees were taking the full thrust of the incline. There was a quarry to my right. I late some dark chocolate and listened to Romagna Mia on repeat to lift my mood.

I was struck again by the ubiquity of white snail shells on the path. Were they made that way or had their shells been bleached like my hair which was ever more blonde with every day of the cammino?

There was moss snuggled between slabs of rock.

I pulled my socks back up to cover my legs as I traversed a patch of brambles. In the distance, I could see Marradi. There was still quite a descent.

Without my pole I felt weak. It was like losing a limb. I’d been a four-legged insect this whole time. Perhaps at the B&B they’d have some superglue.

I let a cyclist past and continued on my downwards route. The path had been reinforced by wooden logs like staggered steps. A thin arch was constructed at one junction which I found it impossible to fit through. I jumped the fence.

And here was that hideous orange netting again, signaling a landslide.

Now there were also troughs in the road to catch the water.

I was nearly there.

I walked sideways for the last bit. It was steep and treacherous, and I’d already fallen once today – the incident where I’d broken my trail stick. 

Then a winding path led me into the town where I heard the hum of cars and the roar of the stream. There was a sign boldly featuring a lily – I was back in Tuscany, alright.

Marradi was an old medieval city that had been decimated in 1616 by an earthquake. 1775 had heralded the start of its neoclassical architectural reconstruction.

A house to my left was decorated with pretty succulents, stone sculptures and shells, and poetry was displayed upon the wall next to a sign that read,

‘Here live anti-fascists!’

I thought of Kelsey at her conference and how I should make more of my front garden back home as a kind of public art exhibition. As it was, I had decorated it with some of my mosaics and a fuchsia or two.

There was the smell of a plant I struggled to identify – it was sweet like grapes – and vegetable gardens were staggered to my right.

One poem, by Bruno Baracani read:

Good Day

Good day to those who pass by
This street to breathe the scents of
Spring as if it were speaking.
The air, in the shade of those leaves
From the song of the birds makes
Cheerful the day, the first
Leaves turn from green, to yellow.
In the middle the chestnuts fruit
From the tree, and the first
Petals white as roses
Cover the ground, in that
Magical splendor that the mountain breeds.
I send you wishes of a good day in peace
Of so much love that accompanies you.

(April 2023).

A second poem on the wall read:

War of 1915-1918, 100 years after

From those mad minds, the wretched, 

The crooked furrows, traffic jams

More a light color, now, only

Reddish waiting for life.

In a macabre disaster

Afloat with rotten leaves

A gray-green dress brings with

It the buds, most of which will bloom.

Now a smoke stinks of the dead

Acrid dirt, even if, the sharp mountains,

 Green pines snuggle between them.

Grass is haggard, now to speak: a mute

Silence, everything is quiet.

Only the wind has the strength to whistle.

(October 2017).

My phone battery died just as I was entering the town, so I plugged in my power bank. Pink blossom decorated the road like frosting on a cake.

Tiny succulents sprouted from in between bricks. Someone had graffitied a smiley face onto an electricity box similar to those my dad would draw on my prominent mole as a child. A rosette on a door announced the birth of a boy child.

As I passed the church, the stream ran into the river. A man was reading a book in the Square and a palm tree sprung from someone’s garden which was also decorated with Italian flags for Independence Day. It felt good to be in the city again and to see the Tuscan shield. 

I stopped at a bar on the corner, Café Teatro. Reggaeton music was blaring. There was a gaggle of other walkers who were accompanied by a brown dog and a guy with a crystal around his neck and palm trees on his shirt. He was chatting to a girl with braids with gold beads, a belly button piercing and a miniskirt. She wore big gold hoop earrings and leather boots. They were drinking tequila shots. 

I passed an opticians on my left and then climbed some steps to arrive at my destination, Pizzeria and B&B Le Scalelle.

I rang the bell and waited five minutes but no one came. I tried phoning the number on the door. 

‘Arrivo!’

Now, someone was coming.

I watched a little boy with a helmet on playing with his scooter in the square. 

Finally, Franco welcomed me and led me into a room which was filled with smoke from the fire he had just lit in the restaurant. Did I want a coffee? 

My room was just by the toilets. So much, I thought, for an early night.

Then here it came again, ‘Are you alone?’

I’d caught the sun today. I wanted to buy some more sunblock along with paracetamol for my foot cramps but the pharmacy was closed. Of course it was, it was a Friday.

On a little wander, I discovered two ice cream shops. Oliver had sent me a message to enquire after my feet. He remembered then.

That night, I ate a huge parmigiana pizza with fries. The waiter, Kevin, asked abount my laptop. His sister lived in England and he was a student of IT.

I washed my socks and knickers in the bidet and put them to dry on the abundant heater for which I was glad. These kind of things had become extremely precious to me.

I drank a bottle of fizzy water and used the special throat medication Kelsey had left me preventatively. 

Tomorrow would be hard, but I would do it. I had to do it.

Before I went to bed I asked Franco to make me a sandwich for lunch the next day. 

‘Tuna and tomatoes is ok?’ he’d asked.

‘Could you also add some cheese,’ I’d responded.

Fish and cheese, together, in Italy. What had I been thinking.

And this was my last thought before, at 10pm, I fell into a deep, deep sleep.