Dante on the Move

Tag: cammino

  • ‘Visible Speech’: From Dicomano to Pontassieve

    The sun shone strongly on the rolling hills and I reflected on great art’s ability to speak in indelible ink.  

    I woke at 7am and ate breakfast with the construction worker from Udine and a colleague of his who was also staying at the B&B, Pino del Capitano. Coffee was served in a chipped teapot.

    We discussed Italian TV and the phenomenon of the velinas who are attractive women who serve at props in news and current affairs shows – showgirls, if you will. When I had started studying Italian in my teenage years, I had been struck by the sexism that dominated much of the culture, but I reflected that on my cammino I had encountered nothing but respect and chivalry. 

    I was worried about my toes which were swollen and painful from yesterday’s fall and so I bound them together once more with some tape and plasters that had been left to me in a first aid kit by Alina. Today I would walk tentatively and see how far I got. It was going to be a case of mind over matter, for sure.

    Ivan proudly showed me the lemons he had picked from his own tree. They smelt sweet and tangy at the same time. I was reminded of the citrus house in Oxford’s botanical gardens where I would sit and read as a student. 

    As I departed back up the valley, a line of mist like an airplane trail hung lightly in the sky. It was sunny but the air was fresh, or rather ‘frescino’.

    I love Italian suffixes such as ‘ino’ and ‘etto’ which denote something as small. ‘One’ renders its subject big and ‘accio’ makes it wicked. My Italian exchange partner Maurizio had called me ‘Jennina’ – little Jenny.

    I would miss speaking Italian on my return. Speaking a foreign language is like playing a musical instrument through which you get to express a different part of yourself. In French, I go by Jennifer; in Italian I am Jenny; and in Arabic I am Jen which means ‘ghost’.

    Kelsey, picking up on my international mindedness and desire to incorporate all my different linguistic personalities called me ‘Jenny-Jennifer-Jen.’

    As I passed down Via Garibaldi, there was a church on my left and an elderly gentleman attending to his roses. One of the gardens that lined the little path featured a tree decorated with easter egg wrappers and outside one house was an exercise bike. ‘Free to anyone who loves the planet,’ read the paper note.

    As I crossed the beautiful river, I realized I was limping. The pharmacy wasn’t open for another hour so I made do with Ibroprofen and carried on my way. On the road there were shards of a car’s wing mirror that glittered in the dawn light.

    I entered a café in Dicomano’s centre to grab a second coffee and got talking to three men in bright yellow nurses’ uniforms. I asked one of them about my foot. He said the same as my mum had, to lance my toes together, put my foot up with ice and rest. I told him that this wasn’t a possibility and that I had to continue. 

    ‘I see,’ he responded with a smile. ‘So, you grind your teeth and carry on, girl!’

    The gaggle of men sitting smoking outside could have been intimidating, but I wasn’t self-conscious at all. On the contrary, I felt welcome. There was a self-service laundromat and a shop called Meat Matters, both of which were yet to open. 

    I walked alongside the river for around 20 minutes. Some graffiti said, ‘all cops are bastards.’ There was a beautiful little allotment on the left and an avenue of cypress trees to the right. I crossed beneath a short railway bridge which even touched my head at five foot two. 

    A man was walking a ridiculously small dog in a gilet.

    I read a sign alerting me that I was on the Path of the Powerful Arno, also known as the ‘Path of Partisans’. In the Spring of 1944, the resistance to the Nazis had grouped together near here and walked to Florence which they would finally liberate on August 11th. I thought of one of my favourite Italian writers, Elsa Morante and her novel La Storia, which means both story and history. It narrates the life of a single mother living under Nazi occupied Rome:

    ‘Freedoms are not given,’ she writes, ‘They are taken.’ 

    It was hot and I was sweating as I left the river and mounted the rise out of the town. A school bus went up the hill and down again. I’d really come to appreciate nicely ploughed agricultural land; the brown earth was spilling up its guts, vulnerably awaiting new crops.  Someone had a boxing bag hanging in their garden.

    Today I felt like walking in silence. I was nearing the end of the cammino and every second was important. Every now and again a stone would get caught just under the front pad of my left foot, sending a shooting pain up my leg. But I was on the way of the partisan. What did I have to worry about, really? It hurt, but I could still walk and walk I did.  My right calf twinged. Perhaps I was overcompensating for my left foot?

    After yesterday’s multiple diversions, I kept religiously checking that I was on the right path. I saluted the town as a train chugged by, turning the corner into a silver cobweb that broke upon impact with my nose. 

    A flurry of flowers, a kind of sage I think, were covered in ‘cuckoo spit’. The phenomena actually has nothing to do with cuckoos or spit at all. The foamy liquid is caused by a type of bug called a froghopper nymph, also known as a spittlebug.  The insect feeds on sap found in plant stems and leaves behind blobs of this spit-like goo. 

    I saw a new type of butterfly – yellow and black in the middle, its wings became translucent at the ends. 

    There were white flowers with yellow middles, pregnant with pollen and I was happy to see the bees enjoying it. The shadow from the trees was merciful as I made my way up a steep uphill path. The sedimentary rock crumbled in clumps beneath my feet.

    I followed the navigator on my phone down a little path where the grass was really tall, stopping to pet two golden retrievers who accompanied me for a short while. One licked my hand which was salty from the sweat.

    A stack of abandoned beehives looked like filing cabinets on the hill.

    Though the sun was maturing in the sky, I resisted wearing sunglasses as I wanted to enjoy every bit of the view. I wished I hadn’t left my sunscreen behind and trusted that my cap would offer sufficient protection.

    A man was sat reading in a field of chickens. A tabby cat crossed the path in front of me, reminding me of my own cat, Dante, back home. 

    As I passed a vineyard, I realized something momentous. The vines which I had identified at the start of my walk as tortured souls from Dante’s wood of suicides now appeared to me as yogis mindfully stretching their limbs towards the sun.

    My depression had lifted and I felt quite transformed in body and spirit. 

    All the nettles of the region seemed to have assembled here from where they stung me through my leggings as I crossed the overgrown field. My boots were snagging on sticky weed and there was a landslide. Then the overgrown foliage transformed into a perfect lawn.

    I stepped in something only to release that it was the entrails of a dead deer. The back half of its carcass was a little further up the path. Flies were making a feast of it. What could have got it, a wolf?

    As I passed a series of small waterfalls, I noted the ferns that sprung up in fans like toilet brushes. The landscape felt almost tropical. A pock marked cliff face protruded onto the road.

    I crossed a rickety wooden bridge and a sign that led to the Poet Hotel. What I assumed to be a father and son were playing in the stream. 

    Three hours had passed since I had left and so I stopped to take some more pain killers, observing a plastic unicorn rocker and succulents on the wall.

    Accompanied by the sound of the stream I felt like listening to Neil Young’s Harvest, one of the few CDs I had bought with me aged 18 as I trekked through India and Nepal. 

    ‘Will I see you give more than I can take?
    Will I only harvest some?
    As the days fly past will we lose our grasp
    Or fuse it in the sun?’

    Silverlake Ranch emerged and I greeted 12 horses who were each stationed in their own field by a reservoir. 

    The church bell sounded out at 11.58am, two minutes early. A spider had caught a fly in its web and it was slowly disintegrating. And there sat the spider proudly on the top of the grass.

    I was about half-way to Pontassieve and my broken toes were feeling it. I would stop in the next village and assess the situation.

    I arrived in Galardo to the smell of woodsmoke and strings of drying laundry that lined the narrow streets. Someone had decorated the front of their house with purple and orange snapdragons. I took one between my fingers and made the familiar mouth shape: snap! Some mushrooms were colonising a tree. 

    I stopped at a bar overlooking the river and ordered a coke zero and tuna and tomato stracciata. The type of bread – salty and delicious – suggested I was getting near to Florence. I knew better this time than to ask for cheese, and it tasted all the better for it.

    The owner, Sofian, was from Tunisia and so we exchanged a few words in Arabic. He had turquoise eyes that were quite captivating. 

    ‘We get a lot of pilgrims who stop here on the cammino di Dante but also the Via Francesco. But you’re the only person I’ve met who has gone it alone. It must be tough, especially for a woman.’

    ‘Not really,’ I replied. 

    I explained to him about my broken toes and he suggested I take a lift to Pontassieve with a local guy who would be passing by shortly to pick up some wine. The wine was made in house. Next to the bar there stood a heavy metal corking machine.

    It was tempting. I was determined to walk the full way back to Florence tomorrow and I’d already done 15km today and climbed 75 floors. I could wash my clothes, catch up on my blog and be ready for tomorrow which would undoubtedly be a day full of emotion. Kelsey and Alina were going to meet me in Florence along with Professor Alberto Tonnini from the University where I’d taken up a visiting professorship in 2023.

    Otherwise, there was the train or the bus, counselled Sofian. I heard him on the phone explaining that there was a ‘pretty blonde girl who wanted a lift’.

    Within ten minutes, Maurizio had arrived. He was a gentle older man with a solid grey moustache who drove a green jeep. 

    ‘Sorry for the mess,’ he offered. ‘For me a car is a way to get from A to B and nothing more.’

    I offered him a drink and, with speed he downed a glass of rose. 

    I thought of Virgil seeking out a shortcut from him and Dante in canto 11 of Purgatorio,

     ‘to reach the stairs; if there is more than one
     passage, then show us that which is less steep; 

     for he who comes with me, because he wears
     the weight of Adam’s flesh as dress, despite
     his ready will, is slow in his ascent.’

    See, even Dante had taken it easy sometimes.

    In the car, Radio Capital, a Roman station, played out a solid mix of 90’s tunes. Maurizio explained to me that he was retired but still repaired cars with his son for a living. But today was May 1st, workers day, and so he was having a day off.

    As we passed the medieval bridge, he explained that a ‘bomb of water’, or flood, had hit the town on March 15th, causing damage to its foundations and inundating the football field. There were logs that had been carried by the surge still deserted on the banks of the river.

    ‘Luckily no one here was hurt,’ Maurizio sighed. ‘You hear the sound of water and you can’t do anything.’

    I thought back to Rossella and her animals, not all of whom had survived the floods of 2023. 

    Maurizio left me by the town hall in the old city and wished me well,

    ‘Be careful in Florence,’ he advised me, ‘the political rivalry of Dante’s day continues there today.’ 

    ‘Oh, there’s the local major,’ he said, waving, and then he sped on.

    I felt vindicated in my decision to dye my hair blonde which had clearly played a role in me getting a lift.

    I strolled around the old city walls and was surprised at the decent size of the town. There was a United Colours of Benetton and a shop that sold nothing but sewing machines. A man’s barbershop was full of beautiful antique equipment. I saw my reflection in the window – the top of my shoulders were red with sunburn.

    I climbed up a little side street that smelled of soap and up a very steep hill to the apartment where I would be staying that night, La Taverna di Caterina. There were orange trees on the terrace and a sweeping view of the city. 

    Caterina’s daughter Anna showed me the lovely flat which had a round table outside for writing. Inside there was an amazing selection of books including The Red and the Black by Stendhal and verses by Leopardi.

    I thought back to Stendhal’s romantic novel. 

    ‘A good book is an event in my life,’ he had written. 

    As I washed my face in the sink, I realized I had come out in spots from the constant sweating. There was a heatwave back in England my mum messaged me to say and I wondered if she had caught the sun too. 

    I did some writing, caught up on work emails and then wondered back into the town. 

    Since the start of my cammino, I had wanted to do something permanent to mark the adventure and my relationship with Dante, so as I passed a tattoo studio I tentatively walked in and inquired if they had any spaces.

    They did.

    I spoke with Massimiliano, the lead tattoo artist and explained something of my journey and intention. Then, as if by magic, out he whipped a copy of the Divine Comedy from his backpack.

    ‘I always carry it with me,’ he said, ‘here and there I read a verse or two.’

    It felt meant to be. 

    Together on an iPad we designed a simple outline of the baptistry where Dante had been baptized and where he had wished to return a poet and assume the laurel crown. It was more original that getting a tattoo of the Duomo which was very popular in these parts, Massimiliano said. His dad was from Florence. This was the first time he’d tattooed an English person. 

    Two other female tattooists, Asia and Claudia, were working and they were chatty and curious to hear about my walk and my blog. 

    Massimiliano had to go and collect his daughter and so I sat with Claudia who realized my tattoo. She inked the small design in a subtle terracotta colour that I associated with Florence.

    ‘You’re not thinking of your feet anymore,’ she said, as the needle buzzed across my arm.

    And then it was finished.

    ‘Now you’re more Florentine than me!’ Claudia announced. 

    I was thrilled with the finished product and celebrated by going to a sushi bar where I necked a platter of dragon rolls. 

    Underneath my jacket I stroked my new tattoo. It was a work of art, a testament to what Dante calls ‘visibile parlare’ or visible speech. A picture could say a thousand words. 

    ‘I see you,’ this tattoo seemed to say. 

    ‘I see the pain of exiles and I am committed to documenting it.’

    ‘I have walked 400 kilometres and more to re-see the beauty of Florence and there, tomorrow, may I find peace.’

  • 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.
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    What Goes Down Must Go Up: From Brisighella to Monte Romano
    
			
    

    It was a difficult day of walking starting with an overdose of gypsum followed by an unforgettable evening of hospitality and a sky full of stars.
    




    




    I got up at 7am to a lovely message from my American writer friend Joyce who said she was headed to a ballet version of Frankenstein. I was jealous! Frankenstein, so misunderstood, is among my favourite books. Misread as a horror story, Mary Shelley’s novel is nothing if not a deeply romantic reflection on man’s search for connection and love. 
    




    Shelley writes,
    




    

    ‘If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections, and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. 
    




    If this rule were always observed; if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved; Caesar would have spared his country; America could have been discovered more gradually; and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed.’
    

    




    As I wrote in a recent article in The Times, I try to follow this logic with my own research as much as I can: taking my time, respecting people and not rushing to conclusions. 
    




    Indeed, part of the motive for this cammino was to take time to reflect on my research practice as a social scientist. 
    




    As I’ve been listening back to audio recordings of interviews with refugees on my way, I feel I’ve been able to hear their voices with a new attentiveness. I was taking care of myself and my own need to be outside and wonder. This would, I hoped, help me to care for other people. 
    




    For me, individuals’ wellbeing and not the political machinations of the world have always been my primary interest. One of my favourite quotes is from the French writer, Boris Vian,
    




    

    ‘What interests me isn’t the happiness of all people, but that of each one.’
    




    ‘Ce qui m’intéresse, ce n’est pas le bonheur de tous les hommes, c’est celui de chacun.’
    

    




    I had tried to carry this spirit with me on this adventure that was also, in many ways, a self-reflective ethnographic exercise.
    




    




    I headed down to breakfast where the cappuccino machine spat out my drink. The hosts were gracious and said I didn’t have to pay for the disappointing spa. 
    




    The morning was fresh but sunny. As I packed my bag, I was disappointed to learn that one of Alina’s glittery socks that I’d washed and put out to dry the night before had disappeared over the balcony. A pigeon flew into my glass door repeatedly. I closed the curtains hoping that might help.
    




    I drank a whole bottle of fizzy water and ate a cheese sandwich for the road. Yesterday at the supermarket, I’d purchased a Red Bull energy drink which I tucked into my sack. I was still quite tired. I didn’t feel like walking today. I had even contemplated getting a taxi, but Italians don’t really do taxis and part of me had to continue. I’d see how far I got.
    




    There was a Sardinia flag on one of the houses that lined the road, and I passed a man who was fitting new shutters on his house. A fancy-looking restaurant had hung wine bottles from an olive tree outside and the door was decorated with a sculpture made from cork. 
    




    




    The Dante trail takes you right through the heart of the medieval town of Brisighella. The cylindrical turret of the tower of Orologio, built for military purposes in 1290, dominates the sky above the majestic town hall.
    




    The butcher’s shop, or macelleria, was doing a roaring morning trade and a boutique called Woman included, among the tempting items in the window, a beautiful crochet top and leather boots.
    




    The road up out of the town was closed and so I had to take a scenic detour up some very steep steps that were about half a metre tall. I heaved myself up and the sweat was soon pouring from my forehead down into my eyes, rendering me partially blind. Leaving my bikini behind with Alina’s one remaining sock clearly hadn’t been enough to lighten the load of my heavy bag. 
    




    Succulents were nestled into the rocks and a purple flower called tassel grape hyacinth sprung out of the verge. It looked alien with its prongs – something like the covid virus. As I passed the church, the butterflies were back out in full force.
    




    




    Then I was back on the path which took me into a national park. It featured an open-air geology museum on the old site of the quarry of Montecino. I was in the land of gypsum, the second hardest mineral after talc on the Moh scale of mineral hardness, or so my geologist mother had informed me. She’d kill to be here. On holiday in Tunisia she had swooned over the abundant gypsum. ‘The desert rose’, she’d called it.
    




    The Gypsum Vein is a small mountain range characterized by one rock only, Selenite. It marks the landscape of the Apennine foothills of western Romagna. This, in turn, is made of just one mineral: shiny, soluble, slippery gypsum. 
    




    The landscape’s origin dates back to about 6 million years ago when the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean were separated and the sea water evaporation caused the formation of several strata of crystals that are the origin of today’s ravines. The solubility of gypsum produced a tessellation of caves and sinkholes (it is almost ten times more soluble than limestone), making it an area of great geological interest to Europe. The site had given rise to fossils from over five and a half million years ago: of rhinos, monkeys, hyenas, antelopes and crocodiles. But a sign made clear that fossil hunting was not permitted here. The park was to be enjoyed, not excavated. 
    




    




    I passed a French couple who I wished a bon chemin and stopped to locate my cap to ease the sweating situation. I had only done two kilometres but I was exhausted. 
    




    I exchanged voice notes with Alina whose mother’s house in Ukraine had been hit by a missile the day before. We shared thoughts on the mistaken assumption that refugees are somehow running away from something rather than staying to fix the problems in their countries of origin. 
    




    This brushland was a new kind of scenery for me. Something like broom scraped my arms as I walked and two mountain bikers came hurtling down the hill:
    




    Occhio! ‘Watch out!’
    




    ‘But are you by yourself?’ one man stopped to ask me. 
    




    I was, I replied for the umpteenth time. With every time I was forced to declare it, I felt more and more alone. 
    




    I whistled back at the birds as I climbed up the dirt track road which soon turned to gravel. An orange peel left by a previous hiker was being devoured by ants. 
    




    I offloaded my empty Red Bull can in a bin in a parking lot that was next to a sign with an arrow that simply read Carne – ‘meat, this way!’
    




    




    The valley had been slashed and hacked as if it had been visited by the devils in Dante’s infernal circle of schismatics.
    




    I could hear the sound of children laughing and soon arrived at a scout camp which was surrounded by sculptures. One resembled a dragon; here was a lizard and, there, a tortured woman who made me think of the Bernini sculpture of Persephone turning into a tree to escape violation by Hades. The statue is housed in the Galleria Borghese in Rome. 
    




    Two years ago, on a tour that I had taken with refugees, led by my brilliant friend and curator Stefania, one woman had said the sculpture reminded her of the sexual violence that her and others had experienced in Libya en route to safety in Europe. How she wished she could have turned into a tree. 
    




    




    The sun had gone in and it was nice and cool under the trees. In the panorama, the pine trees sprung up like bishops in a chess game.
    




    Several scouts filed towards the camp heading in the opposite direction to me. My Granny had been a scout leader, known as Akela after the character in The Jungle Book, but I’d never been a scout myself. Though I grew up in the city, my love of the outdoors had been instilled by my mother and father through our regular walks in the ‘Country Park’, a beautiful stretch of parkland some fifteen minutes’ drive away from our house. There was also, nearby, an old quarry where occasionally, with friends, I’d swim. Once I got a fishing hook caught in my foot. That hurt alright!
    




    My feet hurt now alright, and I was relieved to reach a stretch of downhill. But looking at the map I was reminded that what goes down must go up. Today would not be easy.
    




    I put on some music to elevate my mood. The song, Despacito, poignantly rang out and I sang along to the Spanish lyrics. On my most recent trip to Cuba, I had teased my friend Jo by requesting the song repeatedly from the ubiquitous itinerant street musicians. 
    




    The hills undulated like pencil sharpener shavings strung out across the landscape.
    




    The yellow broom smelt magnificent, and pinecones littered the path. The poppies opened up their petals like the wings of a butterfly. It was 1pm now and the sky was smudged with clouds. I passed a monkey orchid and bushes of juniper. 
    




    




    I didn’t have time to check out the Museum of Olive Oil but I was making up time on the gentle downhill patch. To look down was to see a furry black caterpillar curled in a ball; to look up was to see the vineyards dusted with buttercups.
    




    I proceeded past a sign saying the road was broken up ahead only to find that yet another landslide had torn into the cliff face. Luckily, I was able to hop over the barrier and traverse the crevasse on the left hand side. I put on Fleetwood Mac.
    




    




    The combination of smoked salmon and tzatziki was so, so good as I stopped for lunch, looking out over the vines. I noticed a worrying hole in my shoe. I still had quite a long way to go but I wanted to take a nap. This plan was thwarted by a tractor that emerged spraying pesticides.
    




    A car sped past. But where had it come from? The road was broken? Oh well, I’d missed my chance to hitch a ride.
    




    Some pigeons perched on an electricity wire. A delicate trace of honeysuckle decorated a laurel tree.
    




    




    And now came the ascent once more. I noticed the various signs signaling that European Union money had been invested in the area and passed another landslide, though this time the road was still navigable.
    




    My feet ached and I stopped to take some ibuprofen. Now I was listening to an audiobook that Alina had recommended, The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert. It was about botany. I thought of my grandfather who I had never known, but who had been an academic at the University of Manchester. A doctor of blue green algae or cryptogamic botany, he had apparently been a walker too. The family legend went that he had even been shortlisted for the Edmund Hillary Everest expedition. In my dad’s house there still hung a beautiful black and white photo of him at the summit of Mont Blanc.
    




    I tried to channel that spirit as I ploughed on with painful feet. I tried smaller steps – that hurt. I tried longer strides – that hurt too. A tiny spider hitched a lift on my thumb nail. Desperate for some company in my hour of need I played some opera music. The highs and lows of the singers’ voices matched the ups and down of the path.
    




    My phone signal had gone so I couldn’t call anybody for motivation. The rocks weren’t massaging my feet now, they were hurting them. I’d only done 12.1 kilometres but the incline had been 72 floors.
    




    A chapel to the Madonna spurred me on for a while, then I collapsed by some abandoned farming equipment. I would take some paracetamol too. Shit, how would I fare tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that?
    




    




    I watched a hawk sweep across the sky and contemplated it a while. It hovered then soared down in a flurry of feathers which were dark on the outer edges and a lighter brown in the middle. It screeched into the sky. I hear you, I thought. This was the sound of my foot cramps. 
    




    I put my feet up on my bag and closed my eyes. God, it felt good to be horizontal. It was nearly 4pm. In my body I felt fine. It was just that my stomach was still playing up and my feet were aching.
    




    I carried on, listening to the sound of the hawk and dogs barking in the distance. I was rewarded by a spectacular 360 degree view of the mountains which was framed by wild rosemary and thyme and blue daisies that exited the ground in little puffs of mauve. 
    




    




    The pain killers had taken the edge off, but every step still hurt and I had another two kilometres to go. There was a brief flirtation of rain, just enough for me to cover my bag and myself, but then it passed as swiftly as it had arrived.
    




    I pushed down hard on my hiking poles to relieve the pressure on my feet.  By 6 o’clock, I told myself, I’d be there. I ate some pistachio nuts and carried on my way. Panting like a dog, I dodged muddy puddles here and there and noticed an interesting orange fungus on a tree stump.
    




    A sign informed me that I was in Ca’ di Malanca where on the 10th of  October 1944, Italian forces had clashed with German soldiers. There had been 42 fallen partisans. It was humbling. 
    




    The forest opened up to reveal spectacular views on either side. I saw some parasites on an oak tree and thought of Paolo back in Ravenna and his ink. What a man he had been. 
    




    Now the path led across a sheer rock face littered with boulders with precipitous drops on either side. I thought again of Dante’s hike through canto 12 of Inferno,
    




    

    ‘And so we made our way across that heap
    of stones, which often moved beneath my feet
    because my weight was somewhat strange for them.’
    

    




    Attention is drawn here to Dante’s weight to stress he is a human being visiting the underworld. I hoped Dante had had good boots.
    




    




    The sun was now illuminating the mountain tops in a vibrant green. Then, I could hear a dog, I saw a car and my heart started to lift. Here was Enrico, my host for the night who had promised to meet me. 
    




    I couldn’t have been more happy to see him. 
    




    He showed me that across the ridge you could see Ravenna and, see that last line? That was the Adriatic sea. On a clear day you could see the mountains of Croatia. 
    




    I immediately liked this man who was accompanied by two adorable dogs, Mia and Cilian.
    




    




    Enrico was a keen geologist and star gazer – to love planet earth is to love space after all, he explained. He was one of the patrons of the Observatory that sat atop a nearby hill. When they’d built it, they’d found an unexploded bomb from the war.
    




    Together we passed Monte Romano, a tiny village composed of just ten houses, and arrived at his home. It was folded into the hills in the middle of nowhere. The view was breathtaking. You could see Mount Falcone which I’d crossed from Florence in the snow, and here were the origins of the Arno and Tiber rivers.
    




    




    It was moving to see how far I’d come. Perhaps I could do this after all. 
    




    ‘And you’re doing it without the threat of the death penalty over your head like our dear Dante,’ Enrico reminded me. We laughed. 
    




    Enrico’s wife had left to pay her respects to the late Pope at 2am that morning and so it was just me and Enrico who enjoyed an aperitivo on a little balcony as we watched the sunset. He had grilled aubergines with the local oil into a delicious sauce to make bruschetta. The olives melted in my mouth. 
    




    




    That night we ate tagliatelle with mushrooms he had foraged from the surrounding woodland with pepper he had brought back from Madagascar and discussed all things geology and stars beside a roaring open fire. The mushrooms were called St George’s mushrooms, since the best day to collect them was St George’s Day. 
    




    Enrico also prepared me a delicious baked potato with rosemary and some grilled cabbage and tomatoes which were served with pecorino and some local squacquerone cheese. It was all delicious. 
    




    The house was as stunning as Enrico’s cooking, with original brick walls and beams that crisscrossed above us protectively. There was an antique clock, oak furniture and a near perfect pencil depiction of Dante’s death mask which had been rendered by his grandmother’s sister for a project at school.
    




    And then Enrico shared with me one of his prized possessions: a striking photograph of the comet Hale–Bopp which was visible from earth in April 1997. It had been one of the brightest seen for many decades. 
    




    I can still recall my mum’s excitement. 
    




    ‘A comet, a real-life comet in the sky!’
    




    I had been ten at the time. It was one of my most vivid childhood memories. It won’t return for well over 4,000 years, had marveled my mum. I wished she were here to meet Enrico. 
    




    The dogs were under the table and I tickled one of them with my weary feet. It felt luxurious. Enrico shared with me a poem he had written about comets:
    




    

    Our existences flow rapidly.
    




    Like swift wandering comets
    




    That move
    




    In cold, empty spaces.
    




    




    Distant projects,
    




    Guarded in the dark
    




    Suddenly called
    




    To the light.
    




    




    Beauty and love
    




    They light up and burn
    




    Around this Sun.
    




    




    For each, the orbit is different,
    




    But it inexorably brings us
    




    Back to a place that reason cannot understand.
    

    




    




    Enrico had been the translator for Thomas Bopp, one of the astronomers who had discovered the comet before it became visible to the naked eye, on a visit to Italy during which he had signed his photograph. The photo, he proudly shared, was also featured on numerous book covers.
    




    ‘Comets now have names of computer programmes,’ he lamented, ‘not astronomers or lovers of the sky.’ 
    




    This man was a true lover of the sky, just as Dante had been.
    




    Before I went to bed, Enrico took me outside to see the stars and took my photograph beside his favourite oak tree. I felt honoured. And naturally, I recalled the last lines of the Divine Comedy in Paradiso:
    




    

    ‘As the geometer intently seeks
    to square the circle, but he cannot reach,
    through thought on thought, the principle he needs,
    




    so I searched that strange sight: I wished to see
    the way in which our human effigy
    suited the circle and found place in it—
    




    and my own wings were far too weak for that.
    But then my mind was struck by light that flashed
    and, with this light, received what it had asked.
    




    Here force failed my high fantasy; but my
    desire and will were moved already—like
    a wheel revolving uniformly—by
    




    the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.’
    

    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    Emergency: From Passo Vico to Bologna to Oriolo dei Fichi
    
			
    

    A last-minute invitation to Bologna came with some unexpected drama where I witnessed the strength of Italian family life and was impressed by the Italian health service.
    




    




    Although the Cammino di Dante is mostly a circular trail, the first day back from Ravenna required retracing the steps of day one. Since I’d already done that leg and I was in need of a rest day, after we dropped Kelsey at Ravenna train station, Oliver dropped me back at Fattoria Chiocce Romagnole where I was all too happy to stay with Rossella and her animals once more.
    




    I finally managed to wash my clothes and we spent a lovely evening together with her friends eating pizza and playing with the brood. I got to cuddle Margherita the skunk and a recently born pigeon. Rossella also introduced me to two chicks who had hatched from eggs just that day who were being cared for in an incubator. I was amazed to discover that as well as managing the farm she had an office job in Forlì  – this woman was a powerhouse!
    




    




    I had been among the first pilgrims of the year and there was a tangible sense of excitement that the season was starting. Spring was on its way which would be marked by a party to celebrate Rossella’s birthday. Kelsey would come from Rome. If only I could pop over from England!
    




    I saluted Blu the African gray parrot and Raul the smaller red one. I was also introduced, to my delight, to Dante and Beatrice, the pair of peacocks who merrily cavorted on the lawn in a frenzy of colour as we ate crisps and chatted among ourselves.
    




    




    Kelsey had brought me a nail file from her ample collection of hotel goodies – thus is the life of a UN employee – and I filed my nails neatly into ovals. 
    




    Oliver had invited me to the regional meeting for walking trails the next morning and, given that I’d be showing up in my rather pungent by now hiking wear, the least I could do was this small gesture of civility.
    




    I took a shower – with hair conditioner Kelsey had also provided that came in a miniature bottle – and looked at myself in the mirror of the wardrobe. Perhaps I had lost a few kilos. I noticed a large bruise on my right buttock where I had fallen in the Apennines on my way to Ravenna. It was the size and colour of a Victoria plum. 
    




    Despite my painful foot blisters, I felt in shape and ready to tackle the backwards leg of the cammino. An email arrived from Anna sharing much good will, an invitation to come and stay with her and write, and a reflection that perhaps next time I could consider spending more than one night in each place. She was right. It was saddening this constant stream of hellos and goodbyes; hence I was so happy to be back at Rossella’s farm. 
    




    One of the kittens batted a tampon underneath the bed. The other toyed with my shoelaces. This place had become like a second home and I wrote as much in the little guest book. 
    




    




    Oliver picked me up the next day in his large grey car and off we went to Bologna for the regional meeting of trail heads. There would be some 30 different walks represented including religious pilgrimages, such as the cammino of Assisi, and also the relatively new but expanding phenomenon of cycle trails. 
    




    Though it is not part of the official route, it felt right to visit Bologna on the Dante trail since he was known to have spent time there, probably teaching at what is one of the world’s oldest universities. I had visited the city on two previous occasions, once with my mum and once to visit my former partner who had procured a prestigious visiting professorship. 
    




    Unlike Florence where the medieval towers had mostly been flattened, here in Bologna the towers rise up in a phalanx, representing the phallic wealth and status of families who fought for power there. One such tower, the Garisenda tower, is mentioned at the end of canto 31 of Inferno to describe the staggering stature of Antaeus, one of the giants who are punished for opposing God, between the eighth and ninth circles of Hell. 
    




    

     ‘Just as the Garisenda seems when seen
    beneath the leaning side, when clouds run past
    and it hangs down as if about to crash,
    




    so did Antaeus seem to me as I
    watched him bend over me—a moment when
    I’d have preferred to take some other road.
    




    But gently—on the deep that swallows up
    both Lucifer and Judas—he placed us;
    nor did he, so bent over, stay there long,
    




    but, like a mast above a ship, he rose.’
    

    




    Antaeus transports Dante and Virgil to the deepest part of Hell, the frozen lake where he is to meet Satan himself.
    




    




    We don’t know precisely when Dante arrived in Bologna, but the details in his writings make it clear that he knew the city well. After Florence, Bologna is the most cited city in the Divine Comedy.
    




    On the way to the meeting, Oliver explained to me something of the politics of running a cammino. You had to make sure you had official permission for all the signs, and individual communes would lobby you to have you include them in the itinerary in order to boost the footfall of tourists there. As it was, the Dante trail had been divided into two rings, each providing a separate circular trail for the Tuscany and Emilia Romagna regions. After some gentle persuasion, they had also included an optional detour to include the city of Faenza.
    




    I felt at home talking bureaucracy and politics. I had worked at the European Parliament before Brexit, after all. 
    




    ‘Corruption was the biggest sin during Dante’s time and so it remains now,’ cautioned Oliver.
    




    




    As he mapped out the complicated process of fundraising to maintain the trail – putting up signs and information boards, cutting back brush, running the website, welcoming pilgrims –  I thought of Dante’s portrayal of the money lenders in Hell who have their heads bowed forwards for the weight of the money bags around their necks. The Cammino di Dante wasn’t all daisies and dandelions after all. 
    




    ‘That’s politics,’ sighed Oliver.
    




    Oliver had become involved in the trail a few years ago after re-reading Dante following a heart attack,
    




    ‘It was like opening a new book,’ he said. To read Dante was to ‘enter into a new world.’
    




    On the way to the meeting, Oliver spoke fondly of his wife, Donatella,
    




    ‘When you’re old, you need someone. She’s my soul mate.’ 
    




    I thought of my dad and his girlfriend to whom I’d sometimes been too harsh. Love was love after all. 
    




    Once arrived in Bologna, we parked the car on a street on the fringes of the city and Oliver covered my backpack with a patterned cloth:
    




    ‘Ochio non vede, cuore non vuole’ he said. 
    




    What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve. 
    




    




    It was a fifteen-minute walk to the towering palace where the meeting would be held and we stopped in a bar for a quick coffee en route. Oliver had a decaffeinated one – I had my usual, a double espresso macchiato. Yes, I was addicted to caffeine. 
    




    The district was business like and very contrary to the medieval city centre. 
    




    We located the building and shot up in the dizzying elevator to the 20th floor from where we exited into a meeting room. Some people had already arrived, and Oliver introduced me as a pilgrim and student of camminos.
    




    There followed a 90-minute meeting in which the different trail organizers each contributed thoughts on issues and opportunities to the regional office executive, a smart woman who greeted me in English and informed me that she had studied at Leeds University. It was highly formal. Everyone rose when she arrived. She was dressed in thick white glasses and a perfectly matched necklace. Business cards were flicked around like tiddledywinks. 
    




    




    I felt somewhat self-conscious not to be dressed in a suit and was relieved that at least I’d been able to wear clean clothes.
    




    Some of the trail organisers joined on Zoom, including someone who was walking as they spoke. This made me feel like less of an imposter. There was Via San Francesco, the Cammino di Saint Antonio, Via degli Abati, Via Romea Germanica, Via Misericordia, Via San Colombano…I’d have to come back to try them all.
    




    The window afforded a panoramic view of the city.
    




    We went round in a circle and when it was my turn to speak, I deferred to Oliver. I was there to give witness to the reality of the cammino, he offered.
    




    The discussion centered on the difference between ‘slow tourism’ and ‘active holidays’ and how the region could attract more tourists from both Italy and abroad. 
    




    ‘A path doesn’t exist if it isn’t maintained,’ someone said, and thus came a discussion of the floods of 2023 and 2024 and the ongoing damage to many of the pathways. Other topics included the facility of arriving at trailheads via public transport and different types of accommodation, including licenses for people to pitch tents. People appealed for more resources and someone raised the topic of climate change. 
    




    The region should leave a margin of wild trees on the edges of the pathways and invest in more accommodation in remote areas. There was an issue of hotels only wanting to give rooms to people who would stay for a week, not one night, in July and August – there were pilgrims and then there were tourists – it was important to make the distinction. 
    




    




    I felt proud to be representing the Dante trail. The King of England had recently mentioned Dante in a speech, someone pointed out with a hint of envy, so there would be a boom in foreign interest in our trail. 
    




    The meeting overran and people were hurried in their contributions. The gentleman next to me was taking notes in minuscule script, using a mechanical pencil on squared paper. The lady next to him drew a mind map. I noticed that Oliver didn’t seem to be taking any notes at all. 
    




    At the end of the meeting, the regional deputy offered some feedback and then proceedings were formally brought to a close.
    




    I turned to Oliver who, I noted, was wearing a Cammino di Dante jacket. 
    




    ‘That’s a wrap!’ I said.
    




    ‘Whose bag is that?’ he replied, pointing to his rucksack. 
    




    I was confused.
    




    ‘It’s yours.’
    




    By the time we had exited the lift, I had started to realize that something was seriously wrong. Oliver had asked me where we were and if I remembered where we’d parked the car. Had we come in a car?
    




    Physically he seemed fine and so I retraced our steps in the direction of the vehicle taking note of his behaviour. Was it just a funny turn?
    




    




    I managed to locate the car, my navigational skills no doubt seasoned by the trail, but, by that point, the gravity of the situation had hit me. Oliver was not ok. 
    




    ‘I think we need to go to a hospital,’ I said. 
    




    ‘Could I drive the car?’ Oliver suggested, admitting that his head felt ‘a little funny’. But I didn’t trust myself on the Italian roads. 
    




    I checked to see if Uber was operational – it wasn’t – then I asked a man who was passing if he knew of any taxi services.  
    




    ‘You’ll be quicker calling an ambulance,’ he said. And so call an ambulance I did.
    




    They instructed me to illuminate the car’s emergency lights to aid them in finding our location and gave the coordinates of the street. I was preparing for a long wait and instructed Oliver to sit tight inside the vehicle. 
    




    ‘Where are we?’ he kept repeating. 
    




    Much to my astonishment, the ambulance came in five minutes. Yes, five minutes. When my Dad had had a similar episode some years back we had had to wait five hours! It was ten points for the Italian health service from me.
    




    The paramedics were highly skilled. They checked to see what medication Oliver was taking and got him to say some tongue twisters. Could he raise his arms?
    




    In my head I tried to stay positive, but I also feared the worst. Surely he couldn’t have had a stroke, right here, right now, with me?
    




    I accompanied Oliver to hospital in the ambulance, sitting up front beside a paramedic called Samantha who had extravagant gel nails. She was curious to hear about the appalling state of the British National Health Service from which multiple governments had cut funding in recent years. 
    




    Five minutes. 
    




    I still couldn’t believe the speed at which they’d come.
    




    Once at the hospital, they took Oliver in for treatment and I was ushered into the waiting room. Was I family? I was not. We’d called his wife from the ambulance and she was on her way. 
    




    I bought some fizzy water from a vending machine with a one Euro coin which had Dante’s face on it.
    




    




    There followed two long hours of waiting until I finally convinced the receptionist to let me go and see him. He was sat in a wheelchair in the moderate care unit ‘under observation’. He asked me where he was and I tried to see if he could remember me.
    




    ‘Allsopp?’ he tentatively offered. 
    




    But he remembered nothing when I showed him photos of the time we had spent together over the last three days. 
    




    As he repeatedly asked me the same questions, I thought of the thieves in canto 25 of Inferno who are punished by being metamorphosized, time and time again, from souls into serpents in some hideous version of Nietzsche’s Eternal Return.
    




    Like Dante, I was in shock,
    




    

    ‘If, reader, you are slow now to believe
    




    what I shall tell, that is no cause for wonder,
    




    for I who saw it hardly can accept it.’
    

    




    I also reflected that while Dante’s shades lose their bodies but not their minds, here was Oliver in the very opposite state. 
    




    Finally, his wife Donatella arrived. She was as lovely as Oliver had described her. Accompanying her was their son Stefano and his wife, Sara, who was five months pregnant with Oliver’s grandson. He had been euphoric when he had told me of the future arrival in the car that morning but now, he recalled not a thing.
    




    Upon seeing Sara, he burst into tears, 
    




    ‘What a wonder!’ he remarked.
    




    Over the next two hours, this was to happen time and time again.
    




    ‘But what news! What wonderful news!’
    




    ‘How many times have you become a grandfather today,’ Sara would later gest. 
    




    We had to gest. There was nothing to be done but wait, instructed the doctors, and the whole situation was absurd. 
    




    Outside were huge signs reading ‘No smoking.’ 
    




    Everyone was smoking. Even I was smoking. 
    




    




    After a while, Oliver came to join us outside. He had a canular in his arm from where they had taken blood but otherwise he seemed physically in form. He asked where we were, re-discovered he was to become a grandfather once more, and, much to our astonishment, joked about his condition.
    




    ‘It seems I’ve had a sfarfallamento,’ he offered. This was a word to describe a funny turn that comes from the Italian for butterfly. 
    




    But then he would forget it all over again. 
    




    The Pope died several times. I got to know him repeatedly and he was moved to tears when I told him I had bought a rose in Ravenna that I would carry back to Florence with me in Dante’s honour. 
    




    ‘Ma che bella cosa!’
    




    He was thrilled I was doing the cammino and offered me sound advice. His long-term memory was locked in, but short term he could not recall a thing. 
    




    ‘Allsopp?’
    




    




    His niece, Martina, joined us. We swapped power banks to charge phones and it was agreed that Donatella would stay with Oliver while Stefano and Sara attended to the dogs. And then there was me. 
    




    I was conscious of impinging on the family’s space, but each time I attempted to leave, offering to get a taxi, they insisted I stay. Kelsey had offered to come and meet me. Rossella had offered to come and collect me. There was so much love on the trail. But Oliver’s family insisted that they would take me where I needed to go. It was ‘the least we can do,’ they repeated.
    




    I knew better, being in Italy, than to reject this offer. 
    




    I had become somehow an addition of the family and I also deeply cared for Oliver. The last three days we’d spent together had been a riot. I had had the feeling of meeting a kindred soul, even though he now did not recall a thing.
    




    Luckily, I’d had the sense to pin the location of the car and take some photos, and so Stefano went to fetch it while we stayed with Oliver. It seemed to distract and reassure him, talking about the trail. 
    




    The doctors insisted it was likely just a temporary memory loss: a transient ischaemic attack (TIA) or ‘mini stroke’ caused by a temporary disruption in the blood supply to part of the brain.
    




     Could it have been caused by the dizzying elevator that had even caught me out of breath?
    




    I was sad to leave Oliver but, in a moment of lucidity, after I’d reminded him who I was for the umpteenth time, he had encouraged me to continue with the cammino, chastising me with it for the big size of my backpack which I’d taken in the ambulance from the car. 
    




    ‘Could you have packed any more stuff?’ he joked. 
    




    We shared a hug. His body seemed to remember the bond we shared, even if his mind currently didn’t. 
    




    Thus I climbed into the car with Stefano and Martina, moving some Cammino di Dante signs from the back seat to make space for us. 
    




    Who would put them up now?
    




    Stefano was clearly terrified for his father. The whole family had come out in a display of love and support which had moved me deeply. No wonder he had spoken so fondly of these special people.
    




    




    Night had fallen and so Stefano insisted on dropping me at the end of that day’s leg of the trail which was an agriturismo in Oriolo dei Fichi. I had called to warn them I was running late. He used my power bank to charge his phone and we discussed his dear relationship with his father and what it would mean to bring a son into this crazy world. 
    




    After finding love at 37, within one year Stefano and Sara had got married and made a baby. 
    




    ‘When it’s the one, you know,’ he councelled.
    




    There was hope for me yet.
    




    As an only child, Stefano had the responsibility of both his parents on his shoulders. I felt grateful for my brother and grateful for my own family.
    




    The scent of wisteria hit me in the car park and the sound of the birdsong clashed with the disquiet in my heart. I hugged Stefano goodbye and he promised to keep me posted. 
    




    I sat in my room which had brick walls and a wooden beam ceiling. A beautiful antique wardrobe faced the bed. I knelt on it and did something I had rarely done in my 37 years, I prayed. I prayed for Oliver and I prayed for his family. 
    




    He was my Virgil, my ‘master and my author.’ 
    




    Without him to guide me, I felt lost.
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    A Mosaic of Colour: Ravenna
    
			
    

    I felt immediately at home in Dante’s city of exile, but the most special encounter came in the form of the hospitality of Oliver, our new guide.
    




    




    I had had the fortune to visit Ravenna on two previous occasions, once on a road trip with my University friends Tor, Martin and Will, and once to give a lecture at the University of Bologna. Ravenna is known as the city of mosaics and, as a mosaic artist myself, I had felt immediately at home in the city. This personal feeling of sanctuary came flooding back as I wondered the streets.
    




    On every corner are little mosaic plaques that depict flowers and announce, 
    




    ‘Ravenna, city friend of women’. 
    




    Though they are never explicitly cited, it is said that the Byzantine mosaics in the church complex in Ravenna (Ravenna has some 200 churches) inspired Dante’s Paradiso which he completed in exile here.
    




    




    Among the depictions that one can most easily recognize in the Dantean text is the mosaic in the apse of Sant’Apollinare in Classe which contains a sky dotted with 99 golden stars and a gem cross, in the center of which it is possible to see the face of Christ. In the 14th canto of Paradiso, the souls who welcome Dante arrange themselves in the form of a cross, with Christ placed in the centre:
    




    

    ‘As, graced with lesser and with larger lights
    between the poles of the world, the Galaxy
    gleams so that even sages are perplexed;
    




    so, constellated in the depth of Mars,
    those rays described the venerable sign
    a circle’s quadrants form where they are joined.
    




    And here my memory defeats my wit:
    Christ’s flaming from that cross was such that I
    can find no fit similitude for it.
    




    But he who takes his cross and follows Christ
    will pardon me again for my omission—
    my seeing Christ flash forth undid my force.’
    

    




    In the 10th canto of Paradiso, meanwhile, Dante encounters a group of blessed souls who surround him and his celestial guide, Beatrice, forming a crown of twelve. A second crown of twelve souls joins them in canto 12, which moves in coordination with the first.
    




    

    ‘And I saw many lights, alive, most bright;
    we formed the center, they became a crown,
    their voices even sweeter than their splendor.’
    

    




    It is said that this image could recall the two domes of the Neonian and the Arian baptisteries, where the twelve apostles are depicted in a circle.
    




    




    It is also possible to imagine that Dante was inspired by the beautiful portrait of the Emperor in the Basilica of San Vitale. Paradiso 6 tells the history of the Roman Empire which Dante viewed as part of the divine plan of Christianity. Justinian has a prominent role. Indeed, the political sixth canto is dedicated to him:
    




    

    ‘Caesar I was and am Justinian,
    who, through the will of Primal Love I feel,
    removed the vain and needless from the laws.’
    

    




    The Procession of Virgins and Saints depicted in Sant’Apollinare Nuovo may also have informed his description of the grand procession that heralds the arrival of his Beatrice in the Earthly Paradise. 
    




    I left Kelsey to explore the mosaics and caught up with some work during the day before meeting with the current president of the Association of the Cammino di Dante, Oliviero Resta, known to friends as Oliver. We had an appointment outside the tomb of Dante at 5pm. 
    




    




    Oliver is unassuming with his bushy moustache and two pairs of glasses, a contrast to the exuberant personality of Giordano, the founder of the trail, with whom who we had had the honour to spend the previous evening. 
    




    His quiet presence is fatherly and reassuring and, once again, I had the feeling that I had met a kindred spirit.
    




    




    That evening and the next day, Oliver was a host with the most.
    




     The first evening he showed us the house said to be home to Francesca di Rimini who is memorably depicted with her lover, Paulo, in a whirlwind of lust in canto 5 of Inferno. She is accompanied by Helen of Troy and Cleopatra. Her lyrical lament is among one of the most beautiful parts of the Divine Comedy,
    




    

    ‘Love, that releases no beloved from loving,
    took hold of me so strongly through his beauty
    that, as you see, it has not left me yet.’
    

    




    I recalled how when I had given my lecture on young refugees in Ravenna, two students in the front row had cried at the love story of Alim who, after being deported to Afghanistan from Leicester at the age of 18, had returned two years later only to find that his beloved had moved on and shacked up with his best friend. 
    




    As Dante says,
    




    

     ‘Alas, how many gentle thoughts, how deep a longing,
    had led them to the agonizing pass!’
    

    




    




    The emotional and relational lives of refugees is a topic long ignored in contemporary scholarship. Dante helps to set the record straight that refugeehood can be a sight of lust and longing. 
    




    Oliver took us through the winding streets to see the Basilica which hosted Dante’s funeral. There were signs of the spectacular mosaic floor of the ancient church beneath the foundations which now, quite strikingly, housed a shoal of goldfish. 
    




    




    At 6pm we returned to Dante’s tomb where there takes place, every day, a reading from the Divine Comedy. A crowd of about 50 people had assembled there to hear two women recite a canto from Purgatory. The tomb itself was constructed by Camillo Morigia between 1780 and 1782.
    




    We saw the hole in the wall where Dante’s bones had been hidden by Franciscan monks in 1810 to prevent them being claimed back by Florence. They were found by chance in 1865 and returned. 
    




    Dante’s bones were once again buried in a secret place during the Second World Rar to protect them from bombardment by the Nazis. A plaque memorializes this event.
    




    




    In a pretty market in the square there was an exuberance of flowers and artisanal wares. I bought Kelsey a hand-whittled honey scooper.
    




    ‘I’ll think of you when I eat my honey,’ she said. 
    




    




    That night we dined at Passatelli  which since 1962 has been serving delicious local fare in a converted old cinema. We ate all local food including passatelli, a thick pasta that resembles a maggot but tastes anything but. 
    




    We purchased more roses from Mashalim which we weaved into the doors of Dante’s grave. It was touching to see that the roses we had devoted to him the night before were still there, embellishing the tombsite. 
    




    




    The next day Oliver picked us up in his battered old car that had Dante information boards stored in the backseats that he would put on the trail in the coming days with the help of Giordano’s son, Marcello. Together they maintained every detail of the cammino meticulously. 
    




    




    We passed by the convent where Dante’s daughter had become a nun, taking the name of Beatrice, and visited the lido which had formerly been the port from which Dante had set off on his last perilous diplomatic mission to Venice to negotiate salt taxes. 
    




    Though the sea had now retreated some distance from the spot to create a wetland abundant with birdlife, you could imagine the scene. Though he arrived via water he returned from Venice on foot where he caught the malaria that would kill him on the night of the 13th of September, 1321. He was 56 when he died. 
    




    




    Oliver explained that a river used to run through the heart of the city but it had been diverted to prevent flooding. The Ravenna of Dante’s day would have looked familiar but also different. 
    




    ‘Every pilgrim has his way,’ he said.
    




    Ironically, at 71, Oliver himself isn’t a fan of walking. Some years ago, he’d had a heart attack and had four stents fitted, just like my own father.
    




    Kelsey had a train to catch at 1.40pm which gave us just enough time to check out the Pine forest of Classe, located a few kilometers south of Ravenna, which inspired Dante in his representation of the ‘thick and vibrant’ woods of the terrestrial Paradise, which receives Dante and Virgil along their path in the 28th Canto of Purgatory.
    




    

    ‘A gentle breeze, which did not seem to vary
    within itself, was striking at my brow
    but with no greater force than a kind wind’s,
    




    a wind that made the trembling boughs—they all
    bent eagerly—incline in the direction
    of morning shadows from the holy mountain;
    




    but they were not deflected with such force
    as to disturb the little birds upon
    the branches in the practice of their arts;
    




    for to the leaves, with song, birds welcomed those
    first hours of the morning joyously,
    and leaves supplied the burden to their rhymes—
    




    just like the wind that sounds from branch to branch
    along the shore of Classe, through the pines
    when Aeolus has set Sirocco loose.’
    

    




    The forest was full of life. Wild asparagus sprouted in tall stalks and pines shot up like towers. They had been harvested to make boats in the medieval period. 
    




    Wild honeysuckle exuded a delicious tangy scent and from an acorn, an oak plant tentatively hazarded a thin thread of life.
    




    




    ‘If you don’t visit a place and touch it with your feet don’t get it,’ said Oliver.
    




    He spoke fondly of his wife, Donatella, who he said was very much at one with nature – somewhat of a tree hugger like me. When she harvested wild strawberries from the forest she asked for permission, he said.
    




    ‘Man needs to realize that nature does everything by itself.’
    




    Back on the road, we stopped at a piadina shack that was recognizable from its green and white stripes. I had one with rocket and a local runny cheese called squacquerone. Kelsey and Oliver had ham and hard cheese. I felt Italian, wearing my feather jacket in the midday sun.
    




    




    Oliver then took us to meet Paulo, another extraordinary man who makes his own ink out of oak parasites, which are rich in tannins, and uses it to write out, by hand, stunning tracts of the Divine Comedy. 
    




    This ancient way of making ink requires daily mixing, boiling and the addition of iron and copper to make black from red and green. Gum is added from apricots and peaches to create a substance that is tacky, doesn’t run and sticks to the page. 
    




    His work was flawless. 
    




    The ink smelt like balsamic vinager and he kept it in a sea shell which he used for his ink pot. He was, he explained, a man of the sea. Mountain scribes use stones with holes in as their ink pots. 
    




    




    He had started on his work with Paradiso since he had been sick at the time and wanted some lightness – Dante’s vivid depiction of Hell was too close to home, he explained. But now he was recovered and halfway through Inferno. It was the second time he had transcribed the Divine Comedy since he was unsatisfied with his first attempt which was rendered in a slightly different, gothic font. He had had to change the font he used because, with age, his hand was not as dexterous. 
    




    It took him five to six months to complete a canticle. 
    




    On some of the pages you could see the light outline of the lead he had used to draw the lines to guide his careful script. And here and there, he had embellished letters in gold leaf.
    




    




    Alongside the Divine Comedy he had transcribed the two volumes of Dante’s political tract, Convivio, and the Bible.
    




    After removing the car from his garage so that we could all fit in, he showed us his equipment of an eyeglass, goose feather quill, and a hare’s leg that had been taxidermized and stuffed with cotton. The softness of the hare’s fur gave a particular shine to the embossed parts of the manuscript, he revealed. Each text was written on paper made in the traditional way from papyrus. 
    




    The name for someone who handwrites manuscripts is an amanuense.
    




    




    When we had arrived, Paulo and his wife, Lucia, had been hand making passatelli. Of course they were, they said, it was Easter. They would eat it with prawns and courgettes in a soup, or brodo. 
    




    On the walls were family pictures, some of which had come loose from the frame, and a white shaggy dog called Pipo bounded across the room in search of affection. An easter display contained eggs and plastic decorations of rabbits and chicks. From the study two budgerigars were tweeting. 
    




    Paulo appeared incredibly humble but also proud of his work. 
    




    




    ‘Many normal people do things that are seen by others are titanic,’ explained Oliver. 
    




    Then suddenly his wife appeared from the doorway of the garage.
    




    ‘The Pope is dead,’ she announced. 
    




    ‘He met J.D. Vance yesterday,’ said Kelsey, ‘shit I hope he didn’t contract the evil eye.’
    




    I was struck how quickly the conversation moved on back to the books. Paulo was a religious man and the Pope was important, but he was here to show us his own devotional work.
    




    I asked him what his favourite part of the Comedy was,
    




    ‘For me,’ he replied, ‘Beatrice is everything.’
    




    He explained that for him calligraphy was a form of meditation that empties his mind. 
    




    He read us the last lines of Paradiso and then offered to write it out for Kelsey and I. Yes please, we said. He would entrust it to Oliver to pass forward. 
    




    Paulo tucked up the pages he was currently working on in a leather cover as if he were putting to bed a baby. 
    




    




    He used to go into schools to explain his work to the next generation but he fears that the art is being lost. He was teaching a 16 year old called Giovanni and a student at the university had done a thesis on his work. 
    




    I thought of my great aunt mary who had taught me how to handmake pillow lace. I’d have to pull out my cushion and bobbins when I got home and see what I could remember. 
    




    As we left, we asked if there was anything we could do for Paulo and he simply said ‘remember me.’ This touched me for its similarity to the pleas of the souls in Dante’s afterlife who ask him to remember them when he returns to the earthly realm. 
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    Mushrooms, Bees and Fallen Leaves: Montemignaio to Castel San Niccolò
    
			
    

    The Tuscan landscape with its dandelions, daisies and cultivated fields has echoes of Ukraine where war still rages on.
    




    




    Today we woke up leisurely and made the 13-kilometre trek to Castel San Niccolò from Montemignaio. 
    




    As we munched on basil pesto on toast for breakfast, Alina showed me videos from the cities of Ukraine, Lviv – city of the lion, and of the epic landscape of the Carpathian Mountains. She has been commenting a lot in the last three days on how the landscape reminds her of Ukraine: a dandelion, a freshly ploughed field, an iris tentatively spreading its pastel petals in the Spring breeze. 
    




    




    The emotion is raw. Watching the camera pan over the hills and churches we both had tears in our eyes. 
    




    ‘We’ll go and hike there one day’, we both agreed. 
    




    Alina is getting a taste for the sweet ache of long-distance walking.
    




    She’s hardly hiked before and her life in Italy is largely restricted to Rome where she runs the holistic creative agency Sensi and fights to thrive in a context that would have her live on a meagre allowance a month. This is money incidentally that hasn’t even reached her account in recent months because of bureaucratic delays. She’s nothing if but a fighter. As she hopped over logs today in soggy trainers she was on the phone doing business. 
    




    




    ‘This walk is like metaphorically walking through my homeland’, she remarked today as the rain began to fall and the scent of freshly cut grass and quarry dust mingled in the air. 
    




    The first part of our walk was uphill through dense forest. The leaves that blanketed the floor crunched beneath our feet. They were interspersed with primroses the colour of Sicilian lemons, violet flowers and patches of moss an emerald shade of green. 
    




    Some of the trees seemed strangely out of place with their brown flesh shedding into the wind. 
    




    After talking with Alina about the war this morning, I was reminded of the poem ‘Soldati’ by the Italian poet Ungaretti:
    




    

    ‘‘They hover like
    




    The leaves 
    




    Of autumn
    




    On the trees’
    

    




    




    

    Si sta come 
    d’autunno 
    sugli alberi 
    le foglie.’
    

    




    




    




    I remember I was given this poem at my interview at Oxford University when I auditioned to read French and Italian. I was quite stunned to read it then and it moves me now in its simplicity. The verb ‘stare’ connotates a sense of temporariness that I’ve tried to capture with the word hover in my translation. 
    




    ‘How do we mourn so many dead?’ asked Alina. 
    




    ‘I feel like this trip is a very healing space. Like we’re doing it here but the impact touches back home.’
    




    As we were speaking, a Whatsapp message pinged into a group I share with university friends. 
    




    ‘Will’s been got!!!’ It read.
    




    Will is the co-head of the charity Greenpeace UK and one of my dearest friends. It transpired that he had been arrested for pouring biodegradable blood-red dye into a pond outside the US embassy in London. He was among five people put in cuffs when the large pond outside the embassy was turned red in what Greenpeace said was a protest at the US government’s continued sale of weapons to Israel.
    




    Will had been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause criminal damage, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Four other activists were also arrested near the embassy.
    




    I’ve become used to friends being arrested in the last two decades. A lot of my acquaintances are activists and I’ve come to know the deep belly fear of not knowing how the UK’s increasingly repressive government will punish them. Once, we recorded a whole audiobook for my friend Danni, fearing the worse when she was on trial for ‘aggravated trespass’ for occupying a runway to protest climate change and the new Heathrow runway. Luckily, she got off, but the terror was real. 
    




    How, my mind repeated. How do we mourn so many dead. 
    




    




    The chestnut shells were crispy at our feet, their hairy bodies split open by the footsteps of previous pilgrims. Though it must be said that whoever had come before us also had their work cut out. The path today was riddled with fallen trees and prickly thorns that sought to impede our route. We only got lost once, a move remedied by a twenty-minute dance over dead trees and waterfalls. I went ahead, whistling to orientate Alina with my two fingers tucked tightly into my mouth the way my Granny taught me as a child.
    




    As we approached another ascent, we played 90’s pop songs on our phones to maintain our mood. And then came the relief of the classic anthem by Paul Johnson, ‘Get Get Down’. And down we went, tottering with aching feet on the rocky terrain. 
    




    




    The sound of flowing water accompanied us today as we passed by numerous cascades and then arrived at the river. The town of Prato di Strada is well named – it is quite literally ‘lawns’ by the side of a major ‘road’ with the river bubbling by to the right of it. Stones line the sides of its path, worn smooth by the flow of the years.
    




    To look up was to see tin beehives in multiple colours and stone terraced houses tucked neatly into the folds of the hills. Smoke rose into the grey sky from farmhouses lacing the air with the scent of charred oak which was mingled with manure. 
    




    As we trod the difficult terrain Alina repeated her refrain, 
    




    XiaoXin (小心) – careful! 
    




    It literally means ‘little heart’ in Mandarin Chinese.
    




    We talked about how we both use these little phrases stolen from the various countries we have lived in. I say ‘oopla’ like a French woman when I tumble and ‘Alhamdulillah’ when we re-find the path from which we’ve strayed. Once I thanked Allah at a dry cleaner in Queensway, London after they managed to get a particularly difficult stain out of my then husband’s trousers. The Moroccan owners were so tickled they offered me the service for free. This is how we move through the world as global citizens. 
    




    Alina lived in China as a fashion designer for ten years before the war when she moved to Rome as a refugee. Like Dante, she was made an exile in absentia. Yesterday she’d told me about the richness of her experience in fashion and production: an apprenticeship at Alexander McQueen in London and then years spent in industry in China and the Middle East, including – a stint that tickled me – designing costumes for humans and animals alike for the world’s largest circus,
    




    ‘You know it’s quite a feat to measure the inner thigh of an elephant,’ she quipped. 
    




    The extraordinary variety of scenery we have passed in these three short days gives a sense of the topography of Dante’s Hell: towering banks from which he and Virgil stare down at sinners; streams made sinister by the force of gravity that has the water hiss like a serpent as it falls. 
    




    




    He makes little mention of the vast array of neon mushrooms, palm sized lizards. The ubiquitous caterpillars and butterflies are also absent from his infernal landscape. 
    




    We passed by horses in a field. A bus stop casually erected with three unmatching chairs beneath a tin canopy. We hugged the river until we arrived at our destination of Castel San Niccolò from where we faced another up-hill hike to our air b and b.
    




    




    At the end of the second part of the Divine Comedy, Purgatory, Dante drinks from two rivers, the Lethe and then the Eunoe. I wondered whether the River Solano with its gentle banks had inspired him. Today it is hard to access due to the phalanx of ‘no fishing’ signs. 
    




    We went a bit wild in the grocery store and purchased local pecorino, marinated artichokes and some Tuscan ribollita, a soup made with left over vegetables and stale bread typical of Florence. The server was tickled by the way Alina and I spoke to each other in a mix of Italian and English. When we arrived back at the house to unpack our spoils, we found she’d tucked in some extra aniseed buns, on the house. 
    




    




    Many people greeted us in the town,
    




    ‘Salve!’
    




    ‘Buon cammino!’
    




    ‘Anna’s house’, was hard to find but once we arrived it afforded rewarding views of the valley and surrounding town. I sat on the doorstep with a cup of tea as Alina snuggled her slim body into the window ledge, reading out loud from the copy of Paradiso that was tucked into one of the bookshelves. 
    




    ‘What’s the Empyrean?’ she asked. 
    




    In Dante’s cosmology, the Empyrean Heaven, Empyreal or simply the Empyrean, was the place in the highest heaven.
    




    Speaking of heaven – though somewhat less glamorous. In the absence of a bathtub, as Alina read on contently in her nook, I took out one of the recycling bins and filled it with hot water. 
    




    Adding some shower gel, I slowly placed inside, one by one, my aching feet. The top of my toes were raw with blisters and my heels appeared to have swelled in size from the rub, rub, rub of my walking boots. The feeling of the warmth gave me an immediate dopamine boost and I heaved a peaceful sigh. 
    




    




    Alina had put on music. 
    




    Leonard Cohen’s ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’ rang out into the evening air as swallows circled the sky and a neighbour’s cat walked curiously by. 
    




    ‘Every house should have a copy of the Divine Comedy,’ Alina said.
    




    




    Recommended reading: Activists disguise as delivery riders to pour blood-red dye into US Embassy pond in London: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/met-police-blood-red-dye-us-embassy-pond-israel-arms-sales-london-b1221715.html
    




    Recommended viewing: video of the Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBW7EFfYGI0
    




    Recommended listening: Leonard Cohen’s ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohk3DP5fMCg   
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    In the Distance: Florence to Pieve a Pitiana
    
			
    

    Renaissance paintings line the route, but be wary of getting lost in the wood of suicides.
    




    




    Though I remain determined it is what Dante would have wanted, starting my pilgrimage in Florence, Dante’s birthplace, rather than his site of exile and death, Ravenna, had the drawback of beginning with what is said to be the hardest day of the cammino: 30 kilometres with an ascent of 895 metres. Though I’ve been training back in the UK in the Peak District near my home, I was somewhat daunted as to how the day would unfold.
    




    I woke around 7am to the sound of birds singing and the chiming bells of Santa Spirito, the ‘church across the river’. I left Anna and her family sleeping soundly as I packed up my bag and tried discretely to exit the jewelry studio through the glass double doors that opened onto the quiet street. Succulents a hue of pink and green occupied window boxes along the cobbled passage into which the sun was sneakily smuggling its first rays of the morning. 
    




    




    In Santo Spirito square the market sellers were already setting up their stalls: leggings, knickers, pot plants, copper bracelets and beaded earrings the size of oranges. Two dogs – one caramel and fluffy, one white and slick – frolicked by the central fountain while their owners puffed on cigarettes and made casual conversation.
    




    I took an espresso macchiato and looked across at the church. Among other delights, it contains the Madonna with St. Catherine of Alexandria and St. Martin of Tours by Filippino Lippi. The altarpiece is also known as Pala de’ Nerli from the name of the commissioners, Tanai de’ Nerli and his wife Nanna, who are shown in donor portraits at the sides – the Renaissance equivalent of a selfie. 
    




    




    The painting was commissioned by the church in 1494, so some 100 years after Dante walked the squares of Florence. Lippi’s style is sensual. Gone are the 2D Giotto era portraits of Jesus looking like an adult squeezed into a baby-sized body. Lippi was a contemporary of Botticelli whose fleshy Madonnas continue to mesmerize visitors to the Uffizi with their delicate features. 
    




    The Uffizi Gallery literally means ‘offices’. It is named after the seat where the city’s rulers used to conduct their affairs. Once business was conducted in the Bargello, now an art gallery home to dozens of Donatello sculptures where Dante would have served as a member of the political elite. 
    




    The Bargello is the ideal venue to trace the complex relationship between Dante and his home city. In the Sala dell’Udienza of the then Palazzo del Podestà (today the Salone di Donatello), on 10 March 1302, the poet-politician was condemned to exile. In the adjacent Cappella del Podestà, a few years later, Giotto and his school portrayed Dante’s face for the first time, including him in a fresco among the ranks of the elect in Paradise. It is said to be the first ever portrait of Dante.
    




    




    The façade of the Santo Spirito Church is striking in its simplicity. As I passed and continued towards the Ponte Vecchio, runners wove in and out of my path and trucks disembarked cargo to one of Florence’s hundreds of eateries. One box read, ‘Lobsters and fresh mussels.’ 
    




    An Asian couple were taking wedding photos on the famous bridge which connects the Uffizi Galleries to the Pitti Palace which the Medici once called their home. Her veil glittered in the morning sunlight as the photographer insisted they ‘kiss, kiss, kiss!’
    




    I took a second coffee when I reached the Piazza del Duomo which, unlike the rest of the still sleepy city was bustling with life. Tour groups followed umbrellas like leaf cutter ants and carriages pulled by horses escorted tourists through the narrow streets. In Venice, the streets are known colloquially as ‘rughette’ or ‘little wrinkles’. I smiled as I recalled this fact, spreading wrinkles across my own face.
    




    Then came the time for our meeting. 
    




    




    Alina arrived, her flaming red hair licking her collarbone and cascading over her shoulders.
    




    She was wearing a beautiful black coat over sweatpants and a running jacket designed by one of the fashion houses for whom she had previously laboured. She had succeeded in stashing a huge amount into her small backpack.
    




    ‘That’s what comes with moving around a lot,’ she said. ‘And the coat? Well, if you invite a refugee on a walk, they likely only have one coat, and this is it.’
    




    We hugged tightly, shedding the first of what would be several tears over the coming days, and reached out and touched the walls of the baptistry where Dante had been immersed in 1265 and to where he had hoped one day to return as a poet post-exile. In Paradiso canto 25 he writes,
    




    

    ‘If it should happen . . . If this sacred poem—
    




    this work so shared by heaven and by earth
    




    that it has made me lean through these long years—
    




    can ever overcome the cruelty 
    




    that bars me from the fair fold where I slept,
    




    a lamb opposed to wolves that war on it, 
    




    by then with other voice, with other fleece,
    




    I shall return as poet and put on,
    




    at my baptismal font, the laurel crown .’
    

    




    




    

    ‘Se mai continga che ’l poema sacro
    




    al quale ha posto mano e cielo e terra,
    




    sì che m’ha fatto per molti anni macro, 
    




    vinca la crudeltà che fuor mi serra
    




    del bello ovile ov’io dormi’ agnello,
    




    nimico ai lupi che li danno guerra; 
    




    con altra voce omai, con altro vello
    




    ritornerò poeta, e in sul fonte 
    




    del mio battesmo prenderò ’l cappello . ‘                        
    

    




    It is tradition to depict poets in Italy with laurel crowns, one now adopted by students who port the symbol on graduation day. When we completed our Reading Dante with Refugees course in Rome, I made sure that all of the students received from Stephan, the Director of the Trinity College Rome Campus that hosted us, a laurel crown. 
    




    Alina, a Ukrainian refugee fashion designer turned feminist activist, was one of the eleven refugee students who took my class. For her final project she imagined her own journey from Inferno to Paradiso through the lens of the Italian bureaucracy. In the short film she made for the course, Paradise of Exiles, she shows herself moving from the dark wood (she literally, set off at 2am to shoot in woods outside of Rome) followed by the Purgatory of refugee status determination and the eventual Paradise of finding peace in Rome’s art scene. She filmed the final scenes at an exclusive shoot at the Galleria Borghese where my friend Stefania Vannini is a curator. She looks resplendent with her red hair against the green walls. I’m there in the background cheering her on.
    




    




    Since the course finished two years ago, I have become somewhat of a mentor to Alina, even though she is only five years younger than me. I know the value of mentorship having experienced it first-hand myself so many times over: Julie, Andi, Janey, Joyce – you know who you are.
    




    We took our time winding through the bustling morning streets before passing to the river, beside which we hiked a good few kilometres before turning up a road that led us outside of the city. For the entire morning, the Florentine landscape peaked out behind us like a jester egging us on. Each time we turned around she was more distant. I thought of Dante and how close he would have come in his exile. While we know, as this trek honours, that he dwelled at several lodgings by the river Arno, did he get close enough to see the cityscape which then would have been teaming with medieval towers and devoid of today’s famous domed landscape curated by Brunelleschi and Giotto?
    




    Swallows sprung from under bridges and inside cemeteries, disturbing the air with the gentle flap of wings. Street corners were embellished with Madonna and child.
    




    Alina and I chatted fluently in our colloquial mix of Italian-English as we followed the path up, up, up and left the gilded city in our trail. At 11.30 on the dot we stopped at a bench overlooking the city for her to join a call with two interns working for her holistic creative agency, Sensi, who were running an event on refugee wellbeing. I took the time to check our route and enjoy the delicate scent of crocuses that filled the spring air. 
    




    




    Despite her small bag, Alina had packed in an impressive amount of food including ‘unsalted bread’ from her local Bangladeshi deli. I was relieved to find that I was able to stomach dates again after a traumatic incident in Syria where I spent a 12-hour bus journey to Jordan munching on a bag-full only to find, upon sunrise, that it was also filled with ants. Oh well, protein is protein.
    




    Alina shared her news and I caught her up with my life. We’d both spent depressive winters hiding beneath the sheets of our beds and were grateful, like the crocuses, to be coming back to life. I had nominated Alina to be part of the Nobel Women’s Initiative Sister to Sister mentorship programme in 2023 and now she’d been invited to participate in a peacekeeping mission to Ukraine. It’s a funny kind of pride I felt as both a teacher and a friend. 
    




    ‘It’s about time women got some coverage in the Ukrainian-Russian conflict in Britain,’ I commented. ‘Too true,’ she observed.
    




    Once we had taken in the last glimpse of the Duomo it was after lunch. We ate schiacchiata sandwiches, a Florentine delicacy which literally means ‘squashed together’.
    




    The day was hot.
    




    In the town of Bombone we stopped to refill our water bottles and I marveled at the fact that the town council had voted to put in a well that featured not just purified still, but fizzy water. I made the mistake of filling my camel drinking pouch with it, only for it later to explode inside my bag. Luckily though my bum got soaked, my laptop survived. 
    




    We met a kind faced 80-year-old lady who Alina showed how to use the fountain,
    




    ‘In all these years, I’ve never known,’ she said. ‘Buon cammino!’
    




    




    A lot of Alina’s utterances start with the phrase ‘before the war’, just as mine do with ‘before my divorce’. Before long we were completing each other’s sentences. 
    




    ‘Before the war, I got my eyebrows done.’ 
    




    ‘Before the war, I worked for Alexander McQueen.’
    




    ‘Before my divorce, I worked for openDemocracy’
    




    ‘Before my divorce, I thought that by simply loving people I could change the world.’ 
    




    Perhaps something of the latter is still true.
    




    Mum dropped me a text asking how it was going, addressing me as ‘her Marco Polo’. 
    




    ‘Benissimo,’ I replied.
    




    I was so happy to see Alina. 
    




    Despite her slender Ashtanga yoga and capoeira molded frame and my own body, bloated with anti-depressants, she was less trained for the hike than I was. She pushed on honorably in her sneakers rarely complaining or even stopping to drink water. Layers were taken off and on as we moved in and out of the sun. 
    




    




    ‘I can’t get over the fact someone has gone to all this effort to mark this trail!’ I kept repeating, euphoric that someone out there might be more obsessed by Dante than me. Each sign post for the Dante trail had been marked with a red sticker on a lamppost or a wooden sign with the letters CD singed into it by hand by the trail’s father, Oliviero Resta, who I hope to meet in person in Ravenna.
    




    I would say it was hard to get lost if it were not for the half an hour detour we took tumbling down a dark forest following the GPS and ignoring the very clear ‘no trespassing’ sign. It turned out we were right, but the forest spooked us both. As we crossed the barbed wire and our feet became trapped in brambles, I thought of the documentary, Green Border, I recently watched about refugees seeking to cross the Belarussian-Polish frontier at the edge of Europe.
    




    ‘You can imagine Dante feeling a little shitty here, eh?’ we remarked. 
    




    




    Finally, arms shredded with brambles we were back on solid ground.
    




    We passed fields of tortured vines that provided a rich supply of local wine and stopped at a vineyard called Fattoria Pagnana to taste the local fare and buy a bottle for tonight’s hosts, a family of six who look after the local church. While much of today consisted of being barked at by aggressive guard dogs, at the winery the two brown dogs approached us tails wagging and tongues lolling out of their mouths, desperate for a touch. Alina like me is an animal lover. 
    




    ‘Don’t lick my face!’ She squealed.
    




    They licked her face.
    




    At 5pm, our host, Stefano offered to pick us up in the neighbouring village but we were insistent that we would carry on. We resisted the temptation to stay in Rignano sull’Arno for a Palestine solidarity music night and arrived at Pieve a Pitiana at around 8 in the evening with the sun setting behind us. 
    




    




    We had both been spooked by getting lost in the forest earlier in the day and now as the sun set, the sun kissed vines metamorphosed into Dante’s wood of suicides. 
    




    In Canto 13 of Inferno, Dante encounters those who have taken their own lives, following on from Canto 12 where he depicts those who have been violent towards others or their possessions. The canto is heavy with negativity:
    




    

    

    ‘No green leaves in that forest, only black;  
    




    no branches straight and smooth, but knotted, gnarled;  
    




    no fruits were there, but briers bearing poison.’  
    

    

    




    


    ‘Non fronda verde, ma di color fosco;  
    




    non rami schietti, ma nodosi e ’nvolti;  
    




    non pomi v’eran, ma stecchi con tòsco.’
    

    




    




    Dante is remarkably kind to the souls, much to Virgil’s chastisement, asking after them and their stories. Virgil encourages him to snap a branch off one of the oaks from which blood drains and the soul within orates. This is how he meets Pier della Vigna, an advisor to Frederick II who killed himself when his reputation was ruined by false rumors. Frederick asks for Dante to heal his reputation on earth, because this is the only part of him that survives outside of Hell. Though encouraged by Virgil to interrogate the tree like an asylum seeker on trial, Dante is so stirred by pity that he says he cannot think of anything more to ask the soul.
    




    Dante describes the tortured woodland as infested with harpies who abuse the souls by ripping off their branches. In an act of symbolic retribution, it is said that when each of the blessed and damned will return with their body from the Last Judgment, those damned for suicide will not re-inhabit their bodies but instead hang them on their branches, both because they denied them in their final act of life and as a reminder of what they denied themselves. Salvador Dalí depicted this starkly in one of his many paintings of the Commedia.
    




    




    As I mentioned above, Alina and I had spoken over the course of the day frankly about our own very difficult winters. Previous experiences of depression and suicidal thoughts had also weaved their way into our casual conversation, as they had many times before. It felt concrete and somewhat scary to see this fictitious scene brought to life. 
    




    We arrived at the church of Pieve a Pitiana to a roaring fire and an equally warm welcome from our host Stefano, his wife Giorgia, Stefano’s mother and their three bubbly kids. Anna, the middle girl-child was excited to practice her English, asking us about our favourite sports, meanwhile the youngest boy was keen to discuss all things Pokémon, later gifting us each a precious Pokémon card (I got Chansey, super power level 80. Get in!) 
    




    He had been off school sick and held his arm in a sling made from a shredded blanket. 
    




    




    ‘You look like a Roman wearing a toga!’ I commented, at which he giggled. His dimples pitted his face like someone had imprinted it with little olive pips. 
    




    We ate a simple meal of pasta al pomodoro with eggs from the three happy free-range hens that were the family pets and aubergine marinated by Stefano’s mother. Stefano and Giorgia talked to us about the 600-year-old house and the church that had even longer foundations. They had met in Peru. Their oldest son Michael was a bit timider but cited to us the first verse of the Divine Comedy after remarking, 
    




    ‘Wow, you guys are like really, really into Dante!’
    




    I think they were glad to have someone to talk to.
    




    After dinner there followed a private tour of the church where we were able to marvel at the paintings of Ghirlandaio, an early Renaissance painter of the Florentine school noted for his detailed narrative frescoes. One had been stolen, Stefano explained, and a replacement had been installed. He was careful to put on the alarm before we left. Alina said a short prayer. 
    




    




    The house sits beside an NGO that works with local migrant children and the two stories Alina and I shared were strewn with half-finished craft projects and colourful drawings on the walls. Since we both work with refugee children, it was a sight familiar to us both. They marked a stark and stunning contrast with the 14th century stonework which peaked out at points from beneath the pastel plaster. 
    




    With full tummies, Alina and I headed to our bunks in the arts room, sleeping beside loo roll easter bunnies and papier mâché masks. A warm shower was most welcome. My inner heels had developed thick blisters while Alina’s little toes looked like they had come down with plague sores. 
    




    




    An open fire kept us warm and dried our soap rinsed socks and knickers as we snuggled into our blankets and rested our weary limbs. 
    




    Apparently, I screamed out at one point in the night but this I don’t recall.
    




    




    Recommended watching (turn on subtitles): Paradise of exiles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o-lUZq_71E
    




    Recommended watching: Green Border: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27722543/
    




    Recommended reading: openDemocracy 50.50: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/author/jennifer-allsopp/