A Trail That Feels Ancient

SPEAKER_00 0:00

There's a moment somewhere in between past and present where the road stops feeling like a path and starts feeling like a story. Today we're taking you into the heart of an ancient landscape, walking the Camino dell'Intrepidolarte, a 60-kilometer loop through the wild Tusha, weaving between Orvieto, Bolsena, and Chivita di Bagnoregio, following the footsteps of an ancient warrior. This isn't just a hike. It's a journey through Etruscan memory along forgotten Roman roads, past volcanic lakes and crumbling cities that seem to hover between worlds. And somewhere out there, between the dust, the silence, and the rhythm of our steps, something happened to us. Something that put this whole episode in jeopardy. But as usual, magic tends to happen on the trail when you least expect it. Or was it maybe the spirit of Larth himself, the intrepid Etruscan warrior this trail is named after, who was watching over us? Today we're unpacking that moment, and everything else that makes this Camino feel less like a track, and more like stepping into something ancient, alive, and just a little bit magical. So we will be giving more information once we arrive at our destination. But in the spirit of recording in the field, I thought it would be nice to record out here on the train. So good morning everyone. We're currently embarking on our latest adventure, which Anna will tell you all about.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

So we're going to do a three-day walk, the Camino dell'Enteprido, the intrepid Larth, who is an Etruscan warrior, will tell you all about him and the history of this area as we go along. We start in Orvieto and we go to Bulsena and then Chevita di Bagnoreggio and then we return to Orvieto. So it's a loop.

Starting Out From Orvieto

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Yeah, it's a 60 kilometer loop, which as Anna said should take us around three days. And at the end of our walk, we will be catching a train to Ferrara, which is where we will be spending our Easter holidays. So today is what? Thursday, April 2nd. So we will be walking today. Thursday. Because we're on the train now, it's currently 6.44 in the morning. The train is supposed to leave in eight minutes. We should arrive in Orvieto at 20 past eight. We'll we're planning to start walking at around 9. So presumably we'll arrive at our destination for the day at around 4 in Bolsena by the lake. And uh yeah. So we'll be walking around 20 kilometers today and maybe 18 or 17 the following two days. Anyway, train's getting ready to depart, I think. It's getting a bit loud. So we'll put this away for now and we'll record more once we arrive in Orvieto. Bye. Okay. So I was incredibly sleepy this morning on the train when we first started recording because it was like said 20 past six. We'd been up since 5.15 and I didn't really get much sleep because I'm not good at sleeping when I have to wake up very early. So we are currently in Orvieto, in Umbria. And maybe can give us a little bit more information about Orvieto in a little while. How did we get here? We took two trains, one from Rome to Orte, and then from Orte to here. It was a relatively painless and quick journey. Trains were on time, they were clean, not too crowded, so that was awesome. Took a little funicular up the hill because Orvieto is a hill town, and now we're here. We had a nice breakfast at a bar at the Duomo, the cathedral, and now we're ready to go. Basically, what we will be doing today is something between 20 and 22 kilometers, which is like a half marathon, basically. I thought about it earlier and I thought it was funky. So Orvieto being a hilly town, we must now go down the hill. And then we will probably be climbing for a good chunk of the day. Our destination for today is the town of Bolsena, which we first visited almost 10 years ago, remember? When we cycled from Siena to Rome along the Via Francigena. It's by a lake, it should be very nice. We were impressed the first time we were there because there were a lot of northern European tourists in their like camper vans and like RVs staying at the Bolsena lake, which I don't think is that pretty, honestly. You come this far, you drive down all the way from northern Europe to Italy, and you stop at Bolsena to camp.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

The lake was murky, I remember, and it had lots of duck feathers floating in it.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

It's a lake. It was grow, like it wouldn't be my top vacation spot for any particular reason. It's great to stop by. Bolsena is a nice medieval town. So I'm glad we will be stopping there today. But apart from that, I don't know. Anyways, it's currently 9:37. We're ready to go. I think we might get to our destination around 4, 4.30. Do you wanna chip in while I stretch?

SPEAKER_01 5:50

It is a brisk morning and it's quite chilly, but it's fine as long as it doesn't rain, and once we get walking, I think we'll be fine. It's really nice, I have to say, to see Orvieto at this hour of the morning because maybe we can talk about it a little bit later. But Orvieto has become very touristy. Thanks, Rick Steves. And it's a very convenient location on the train line between Rome and Florence. It's right off of the A1 highway, so it's very easy and comfortable to get to, and it's really cute. They have excellent wine and food here. The Duomo is beautiful. They have all of these little cobblestone streets with these adorable buildings made out of the tufle. It's really nice, but it had it is it can get very crowded. So it's nice to see it at this time of day. It's Holy Thursday, so we'll see how the holiday will be affecting the walk. We've already seen, I think, a few other walkers that got off the train with us, so we'll see if we meet them on our way. So we've just stopped at the last fountain for a good while, so we've got plenty of water, we've got lunch, snacks, and so we'll talk to you all a little bit later.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

So we originally plan to record at the next town that we're supposed to cross, which is in just a few minutes. But we're in the middle of the woods. You can hear the wind, the birds. We're far enough. Oh, we just hit kilometer number five. We're officially one-fourth of the way there. And we've been walking for an hour and 20 minutes. So it's just so beautiful here that I thought it's good to record in the woods where there's less noise except the sounds of nature. You can maybe hear our footsteps too.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

After leaving Orvieto, we passed an archaeological site where they found some pretty important temples. So Orvieto, or the ancient Vetria, they think was the capital of the Etruscan cities. So the Etruscans, they were not in a unified like republic or unified empire. There were 12 main cities, each one was independent, but they shared the same army, the same navy. So they would gather once a year in the springtime at the main city, at the main temple, to talk about political things and have religious ceremonies. And archaeologists and historians now, because of this archaeological site, are fairly sure that the capital of these 12 cities, the Dodicapoli, was Orvieto. So Orvieto was like a really important city for the Etruscans. The Etruscans are an ancient pre-Roman population. So the height of the Etruscan civilization was in the like 9th century BC. Rome was founded in the 8th century BC. So there are very important people living in central Italy. So where we're walking today is a really important Etruscan area. We made a little stop at the Bar Obelisk to get our stamps, obelix, obelix, like the comic book character. And we got the stamps there, and then we started a pretty steep climb. But now the as Edda was saying, the woods here are really beautiful, really peaceful, and I can imagine in the summertime when there's more leaves on the trees, it would also be in the shade.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Okay, so usually our dynamic is that Anna gives you more historical details and information and then more about the technical stuff. So just to give a little update so it feels like you're walking with us. As I said, we just passed the five-kilometer mark. We're at 5 25 now, one hour and 20 minutes approximately, because sometimes I forget to pause when we stop at bars. We already climbed 273 meters, which is almost 800 feet. We've done most of the big climb today, so we got rid of 270 meters of elevation out of 500 or something for the day. And but we have 15 kilometers left to go. I love my new Osprey backpack that Anna got me for my birthday. Where was the store that we went? Was REI, but where? Peabody Peabody in Massachusetts, and I'm not sponsored or anything, but coming from a decathon backpack, which has served me very well over all of the box that we've done, it's like night and day. The fact that it's adjustable and the weight is actually distributed on my hips and not on my shoulders, is pretty great. But I also found a super sweet stick that's the perfect height for me. It's got like a handle. I'll take a picture of it, and I'm thinking that once we get to our destination later tonight, I might use my leatherman that Anna gave me again for my birthday a few years ago, which is engraved with go far, I'll use it to whittle it a bit. So yeah, so far, I know it's early to say, but we are almost 10% of the way through of the whole thing because it's 58 kilometers, and we're at five and a half now, so almost. So it's early to say, but we're feeling pretty good so far. The scenery has been amazing. We're making some good time, I think. But yeah, now we'll focus more on walking. Okay, then I see a sign for Larth and signing off. Talk to you later.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

We've made it to Boltzna, it's beautiful. It is on the largest lake of volcanic origin in all of Europe. It was a good day of walking. So Boltsena is most famous for a miracle that took place in 1263. There was this Bohemian priest from Prague who was doubting the transubstantiation, the belief that the host is actually the body of Jesus. And so he made a pilgrimage to Rome to pray about this, about his doubts at the tomb of Saint Peter. And then on his way back home, he was along the Via Cassius, he stops in Botsena for the night, and he started to have some doubts again. And while he was saying Mass in the grotto of Santa Cristina Church here in Botsena, the host started to bleed. And he covered the host with the corporal with the altar cloth, and blood drops fell on the altar, fell on the marble steps, and then he immediately went to Orvieto. He had the Pope come, the Pope sent the bishop of Orvieto, and the relics were taken to Orvieto. And this miracle, which has been recognized as an official miracle, gave rise to the feast of Corpus Christi. So the relics are in Orvieto, because Orvieto was the mo more important place. But here in Botzen is where the miracle took place. And on our walk today, we went through this tufal rock that had been cut clean, the passage had been cut supposedly miraculously when they were bringing these relics to Urvieto. So that's what Botsena is famous for. This um this miracle of the Eucharist and this beautiful lake that it's on the shores of. Here's Edo, he'll give you some of the stats from today.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

First of all, I'm wondering why all of like the miracles of Christianity are so grisly and bloody. There's always blood involved. Look, here's a statue that cries blood. Oh, here's the Eucharist dripping blood.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Wouldn't there be I mean it's like the it's a it's really Jesus' body.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

For the Eucharist, but like why would a statue necessarily have to cry blood?

SPEAKER_01 15:33

Sometimes they just cry tears. Okay. Like actual tears, not like blood.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Yeah, okay, but some of yeah, some of this stuff. Like even the whole relics thing. The bodily fluid, like the oh, here's a finger of a saint, here's his brain, here's like a foot, whatever. It's gnarly. Anyways, today we have walked 21 kilometers, give or take. It took us around five, no, like exactly five hours. Moving time was like six hours, I think. And I have an average speed of four kilometers per hour when we're walking, and today, based on my watch, it was like 4.2. The guidebook said that we only were going to climb can you check the guidebook what that said? Like we can so we can compare what my GPS said with what the guide says. So the guide says 21.2 kilometers, that makes sense. 557 meters of elevation gain, and 566 going down. My watch told me that we did way more than that, like 850 going up and around 750, 770, something like that going down. It is true though that we had to take a little detour because of a landslide, apparently, in Sugano. Sugano is this little town that we stopped at, seven kilometers in, that I'm sure we've mentioned. And my general impression so far is that I'm very pleased with how things are because there were temporary signs because of the landslide, and they were relatively fresh. You could see that they hadn't been there long. So I don't know when this lands landslide happened, but it seems like this trail is well maintained.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Definitely.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

We followed it entirely just following the waymarks, and occasionally the book, but just to read ahead. But it was extremely well waymarked. Never once did we have a doubt as to where to go. So let's see if it keeps if it holds up for the next two days. Oh yeah, we met other walkers. There must have been there was a group.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Like six or eight.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Six or eight people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

Three pairs.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

Three pairs, yeah. So with us, there's probably around 15 people, maybe 15, 16 people. I don't know. Yeah. All the people that we saw were like not all of them, but older than us. I guess it's even a good day walk if you want to go from Rodavieto to Bolsena and have either somebody drive you back or catch the bus. I don't know. But again, overall I'm very impressed. We've done 21 kilometers out of, I wanna say a little under 60. Technically, I think we only have 36 or 35 left. So we're well on our way over a third of the way there. Surprised with the uh with the pace that we maintained, and today supposedly was the hardest stage of the three days. We did do some climbing. There was a lot of climbing today. So supposedly I'm gonna read the guide and then we'll we'll tell you more about it tomorrow. Yeah, we're feeling good. Do you have any closing thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 19:24

Oh, it was uh uh up and down, but the landscape was really beautiful. Some of the steepest climbs and declines were on paved roads, so it wasn't that bad. And because it's it was a pretty kind of overcast day, so we weren't walking in the sun, but that would be definitely be a challenge walking in the sun for some of these steep uphills. But on a day like today, it was fine.

Day Two Toward Civita

SPEAKER_00 19:58

What I feel like the most challenging part of today was after Sugano, there was a detour, so we had to go down and back up, and that was pretty out in the open, but it was overcast, so it wasn't bad. But right around when we stopped for lunch around 1 p.m., there was this huge wind that picked up, which according to the apps that I saw, like the weather apps, it's almost 30 kilometer per hour wind, which is 20, 20 ish, 20-ish miles an hour, it's pretty strong. And we were caught in the wind in this very open area where there was no cover at all, and it was violent, it was put literally moving us, pushing us around. I guess the ideal conditions would be an overcast day like today, but with no wind. I can see though, like if we were to do this in the summer and there was no cover at all with the clouds, that section there can get a little tough. How long do you reckon it was? Maybe five kilometers, five or six kilometers. Anyway. The plan for now is to is for us to go take a shower, and then Anna wants to visit a church, and then perhaps start considering dinner, start thinking about our dinner options. I would like to go to bed early so we can get an early start tomorrow. I would like to visit Chivita, but more on that tomorrow. Alright, bye. Good morning. It is currently 9 28 a.m., so we're like 90 minutes behind schedule based on what we had planned yesterday night, but we're on holiday, we're enjoying ourselves. We're leaving Bulsena, the lakeside city that we arrived at yesterday at the end of our first leg. this camino today's destination is Chivita di Pagnoreggio Yep oh shit I left the stick wait underneath the door okay take two Anna reminded me that I left my stick at the bar where we had breakfast so I jogged back because I have great plans for this stick we bought some twine today which I'm planning to wrap around it so that I can get better grip anyway we were saying today we will be going to Chivita di Bagnoreggio it's hard to see another thing I forgot that I'm gonna start now is the watch so it's hard to gauge exactly how long this this leg will be because the guide said the guidebook said a little over 16 kilometers like 16.5 but then their GPS tracks track said over 17 we will also be doing a little detour to visit a chapel in the woods so overall it might be a little longer anyway but we will see weather conditions are I would say maybe a little better than yesterday it was windy all of last night even during the night it was windy this morning so first of all we have five kilometers to get out of the city basically then we will be walking through some woods and after those woods we will be walking along some fields like yesterday where we will have no shelter from the wind and the sun which should also be coming out today so yeah and again our destination for the day is Chivita di Bagnoreggio which is the called the city that's disappearing or something right what's it called yeah because it's built upon a mountain of Tufo and apparently it's bound to collapse so this is also a little bit nostalgic for us because we've we've we're walking on a stretch of road that we cycled as I mentioned yesterday on the Via Francigena when we cycled from Siena to Rome and we've seen a lot of a lot more walkers today and yesterday but then again I don't think they're doing what we're doing necessarily because again this is a stop along the Via Francigena and we've seen people with heavier backpacks carrying more stuff and it leads us to believe that they are probably walking for longer days than us.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

So the sun is shining it's again 9 30 approximately 9 30 in the morning our plan is to get to Chivita not really as soon as possible but it's a nice little city that we want to visit and my idea would be and let's see if we actually can make it happen my idea would be to get there before we stop at the BNB if we're lucky I'm planning to be there at around 130 right after lunch in around four hours I think or maybe two anything you want to add just to say Boltsena was very nice we did we did see a relic the one that they left here were these pieces of marble where the blood from the host fell on the marble and left permanent marks so at least they left something here but I have to say Bolsena had a really nice vibe we it's it is quite touristy but it's a nice atmosphere and also it's a particular time to to walk or it's good Friday today but stuff was open we had breakfast at the at one of the bars on the main square and got our lunch I packed it we'll we'll speak to you a little bit later we've got a little bit of a an uphill climb here I'm so glad the sun is out I was a little bit worried honestly this morning because it was very windy and seemed very cold I'm wearing all of my layers but now it's the sun is out and it's definitely warming up I will speak to you in a little bit bye for now this is Ido from the future well the present actually anyway I'm in the studio right now and I'm in the process of editing this episode and something incredible happens while we were out on the trail which you're going to hear right about now.

Losing The Microphone Then Finding It

Civita’s Eroding Cliffs And Holy Week

SPEAKER_00 27:09

You will be hearing the voice of an unexpected guest on this podcast and she will explain more about what happened and later on you will hear from us directly. Keep in mind that this audio that you're about to hear, we've just found out about it yesterday while we were organizing all of the files from our lock. It was completely unexpected. It was a huge surprise and a pretty welcome one. After we heard this message we got in touch with the person that you're about to hear and we managed to thank them personally. We thought that this was yet another example of why these adventures are always magical and a little special. Anyway enough out of me let's go back we just found this recorder we're heading to Bagnareggio therefore if we're gonna meet you gonna try to give this device back to the owner we are five friends and colleague actually we are lifeguards and we are doing this Camino dell'Intrepido bless you because we decided that we wanted to do a little team building before oh my god I'm doing a happel therefore I'm a little fatigued I don't even w know if this is a word in English but away what I was saying yeah so I'm gonna try to give this recorder back to the owner and then I don't know just leave a message and eventually our path is gonna cross again if the universe will allow that if you're willing to come to the swimming pool of oh my god ah San Giovanni Pertigeto in the province of Bologna then you're more than welcome to ask for us we are I'm Isabella and then there's Marco Davide Federico and Lorenzo Bye today has been a day and a half basically lots of things have happened since this morning when we recorded outside of Bolsena let me just pull up the uh the stats for our walk today we walked 17.62 kilometers a little over ten miles an elevation gain of six hundred and sixty two meters approximately eighteen hundred feet our average speed was a little higher than yesterday four point four kilometers per hour and we walked from Bolsena following the lake then we struck east towards Bagnareggio where we arrived I don't remember exactly it was 230 yeah and we left at 930. So what happened today was that we were following the path and approximately six or seven kilometers in we got to a rest area where there was a water fountain where we stopped and at that point we were following the Via Francigena which goes all the way through France then northern Italy all the way to Rome which is what we've done that we've mentioned many times and the first part of our path today went along the Via Francigena then when we when we finally got to a crossroads we had to choose whether to follow the Francigena or go along with the Camino di Latte which is what we're doing right now. There was a rest area right there at the at the crossroads basically where we sat down refilled our water and we were ready to go while Anna decided to take a little bathroom break I thought hey why not record it was so beautiful because there was the sound of the running water from the fountain and we were in the woods and we heard birds it was amazing. Nobody else was there even though today was a little crowded but a little more than that soon so we go to pull out the microphone and to our shock and disgust we could only find the the stick that holds the microphone and with the shock mount but no microphone no zoom H1N and at first I was a little angry and disappointed but then it quickly dawned on us that if you've seen pictures of our microphone on our Instagram page I basically jerry rigged selfie stick that you know can become longer and on top of the selfie stick I put one of those like GoPro mounts on which I attached a shock mount for the microphone which is basically a cylinder with four elastic bands where the microphone sits. The shock mount is useful because it absorbs the vibrations of the microphone. So handling noise such as this if I'm moving the stick around get dampened by this shock mount. However we quickly realized that evidently these bands got a little loose and so the fact that I had packed my bag differently today and where the microphone was sitting in my backpack probably meant that with the walking my heavy book that I've lugged all the way in that I haven't read yet probably pushed the microphone out of these elastic bands and it fell out of my backpack. And we had only noticed eight seven or eight kilometers in and at that point we had a choice and the choice was to either leave the microphone or try to retrace our steps to find it we had already gone I want to say almost two hours maybe it was more like five or six kilometers maybe it was like an hour and a half and I thought why risk going back I might not be able to find it and I would add at least in the worst case scenario ten kilometers to our walk and maybe two and a half more hours so begrudgingly we decided let's leave it. It's not really worth it not really for the microphone the microphone itself can be replaced we were more worried about all the recordings that we did. Also this taught us a lesson I will now find a way to upload the recordings at the end of each day so at least we don't lose too much but we had lost all of the recording of the first day of walking and the recording that we did this morning. So we said we're sorry I already ten minutes later I had ordered a new one on Amazon but we thought okay we lost these recordings we're just gonna have to write down our thoughts or maybe record some thoughts with our phone and then write a studio episode and not have the live episode like this one. So we decided to start walking again and I wanna say maybe around the 13 kilometer mark it must have been around 1 p.m that we decide to stop for lunch. Right before then I want to say like 15 20 30 minutes max before then we had passed a cheese factory and we saw some other people that stopped there who were ahead of us because they decided to have lunch there. For us it was still a little early must have been like 1230 so we didn't really think twice about it and we kept going. At one we saw these two guys pass us. It's young guys they must be like in their twenties and we had actually seen them the day before in Bolsena when we arrived and they asked us hey any chance you guys lost a sleeping bag and we said no that's not us jokingly I said lost the microphone though did you see it and they said oh we didn't but we know who found it and I was like are you kidding me and these two guys told us look we met these people at the cheese factory who stopped there and they were asking around if anybody had lost a microphone. I was like okay great they gave us a description of these people and funnily enough I thought okay I might go back and try to meet them because I they gave us a description but I didn't know who they we hadn't met them. They must have been behind us because these guys had joined us after we had been sitting there for 15 minutes I think while we were having our lunch so I decided to call the cheese factory asking them hey are these people still there or did they leave it with you and they said they left it here and we were overjoyed obviously and I told them look I'll come back I'll come down must have been like one or two kilometers behind us I thought I can do that I'll go back down I was ready to leave Anna with the bags and just hoof it down the hill but then the guy who worked there said look I you're probably going to Bagnareggio tonight right and I said yeah and he says I live there I'll bring it to you tonight I couldn't believe my luck so I thanked him and thanked him and then later a little later on we met this couple one of them is actually an actor in Italy he's uh in a comic duo with his brother and they asked us if we had some water for their dog because they were hiking with this little tiny dog. So we chatted with them we gave them a gophar sticker that we had with us and we told them about the microphone and they said yeah we've seen it like we we were there with these people so if today isn't an example of trail magic I honestly don't know what else could be defined as trail magic. So now we are at our B and I will tell you the rest it was still very windy this morning it was a little overcast but then the sun came out so it was also kind of hot but the wind made it bearable overall it was relatively easy walking today because it was only 17 and a half kilometers and then we visited Chivita di Bagnoreggio which is this medieval town on top of a hill but really quickly and then we rushed to dinner at 730 a lot of places were booked there were many people which is what I mentioned before. Not a huge fan of today because of the crowds that were walking with us I shouldn't be complaining because of all these people that were walking we managed to get our microphone back but I didn't like it at the beginning when we had people in front of us and people behind us and we could hear their conversations it felt like we were in the city. A stark const contrast compared to yesterday when we were in the in the woods all by ourselves so it worked out in the end. Again a relatively easy day based on the guidebook I thought it was going to be uglier but it was nice like walking along these unpaved gravel country roads lots of trees lots of greenery I feel like overall today was very intense and very exciting but here's Anna with her opinions and perhaps more information about where we are and especially what's going on tonight here in this in this town we are actually staying in Bagnore which is the main part of the town but the original the oldest part of the town called Cività di Bagnorejo which is actually where the today's walk officially ended is it's called the city that's dying because it's on top of these limestone cliffs and it's actually a really unique valley called the Valley of the Kalanqui.

SPEAKER_01 39:29

What's special about this place is they erode like very quickly. There are these hills mountains that are changing rapidly there was a big earthquake in 1695 that destroyed like the one sort of passageway up to Chivita. So now in the 60s and the 70s they built this footbridge and it's the only way to access the old medieval town of Civita so imagine a little old fashioned little medieval Borgo like many little towns in Lazio Tuscany Umbri region but this one is only accessible via this foot bridge and it's almost on the top of a hill an island almost in the middle of this valley it's really it's really cool. So we we visited that and because it is quite touristy we saw like tourists from all over the world so it is an international tourist destination now it costs five euro to cross the footbridge. So we checked it out and then came back to Bonio Ridgeo where there's more restaurants and where we found a less expensive place to stay. And they had all of these iron sort of torch holders along the main road on the buildings and they had candles burning in those torch holders there are all of these like flames along the main road the music is already going and they're all set up with this gigantic cross when we were coming back from dinner people were already going to take their places for the procession it starts at nine o'clock but we are gonna try to get to bed because it's gonna be an early start tomorrow but Bagnioreggio is definitely a really nice town nice to check out and I agree with Edo walking the trail with a lot of other people seeing people behind you in front of you this effect where I see if the people are in front of us I can see the road better because I see them walking on the road and so it gives you a preview of what's coming up and for me it makes the road the path look more daunting and because I can see the big hills it makes it look longer when I see people walking along it. I prefer to just walk and as you come to a hill as you come to a big valley or a mountain that you have to cross but I prefer to take it one step at a time and not and have these surprises not to see exactly the hard terrain we are about to cross but it was it was really nice and fun to to speak to other travelers and hear a little bit about what they're doing. The the guys with the dog told us about some of the other walks that they've done and so that was nice to connect with other travelers and to share our joy marveling at the magic of the trail really does the Camino provides exactly what you need so it was a very very overall very good day and I'm excited I'm excited about tomorrow. Tomorrow we're gonna try to be on the road at 7 30 we've already got lunch and breakfast because tomorrow we have a slightly longer day it's about 18 19 kilometers so it'll be the mid-length day and we will be going back to Orvieto. We're gonna try to be in Orvieto by 12 o'clock so that we can get the testimonium there's some swag that we want to get some local Easter treats to take with us because then we will be getting the train to go to Ferrara for Easter and because it's Holy Saturday lots of people are going to be taking the train the Tickets were very expensive. There were limited trains that we could take. So this was basically our only option. Fortunately, we've been to Orvieto before, so it's not like we really have to visit Orvieto. So not that we'll be rushing tomorrow, but we want to get a move on so that we can do everything that we want to do when we get to Orvieto and then get the train to go to Ferrara. So we'll definitely have time to catch you all up tomorrow. Alright, good night.

SPEAKER_00 44:37

We're leaving we're leaving Bagnoreggio right now. Because as we mentioned yesterday, we want to be in Orvieto by 12. So that's five hours from now, 18 kilometers away, around 11, between 11 and 12 miles. We should be able to make it without many issues. It's beautiful out here right now because there's the birds chirping. I hope you can hear this. There's the sun rising when the sky is blue. So today might be a bit of a hot day. I'm not really sure what the terrain will be like today. I'm using my stick that I found on day one, which I wrapped with twine yesterday, so the grip is a little bit more comfortable. Used Hannah's leatherman to cut off some of the more knotty bits that were digging into my hands. And yeah, this is pretty much what's going on this morning. I'm glad that we set out early. I did have some, I didn't sleep very well. I had some stomach issues overnight. We went to bed at 10 p.m. and around 10.30 maybe, and I woke up at 3 and I had to spend one hour in the bathroom, and then I had a hard time falling back asleep, and obviously as soon as I fell asleep the alarm went off. And I was courteous enough to get up and buying food yesterday proved to be the right choice. We had a nice breakfast in our room that we bought at the supermarket, two little bottles of fruit juice and uh two Starbucks drinks that they sell in supermarkets here. What was it? Caramel macchiato? Yeah. So here we are now. We're following the road that we followed yesterday, going towards Chivita di Bagnoreggio, but we will not be going to Chivida. The first section of today will be going down a hill upon which Bagnoreggio sits. And then going up the other side of the valley. They're called calanqui. I have to look up what the English translation for this word is, to Lubriano, which is a neighboring city. And from there it's pretty much level, I think, until we reach Orvieto, where again we'll have to do the same thing. Go down and then back up. Is there anything you'd like to add? We can see the sun right now. It's beating on our faces, which is great. It's still low because it's very early. I think it rose maybe 30 minutes ago.

SPEAKER_01 47:24

It's interesting to leave this early for a walk in Italy because people who do the Camino de Santiago, it's very common that people get up super early, that they have the headlamps, they start walking with flashlight because they start walking in the dark. Whereas here in Italy, at least for us, we've taken things a little bit easier, even walking in the hot summer, leaving around like eight, nine o'clock. So it's interesting to go back to for me back to how I've done other walks, but that we haven't done for a while. And it is it is nice to get out at this hour. I was a little bit worried about the cold, but with the sun coming up and us moving, I think it'll be fine. And the wind is manageable today, which is very good.

SPEAKER_00 48:20

We're approaching the Belvedere where we can see Chivita right now, where we will probably stop to take a quick picture because it's look, there's a little bit of morning mist. I'm pretty sure it's gonna be beautiful. Again, all of this stuff will be on our Instagram page, but yeah. Gonna put the microphone away now. We're gonna put it away securely because we got lucky once.

Post-Walk Lessons And Why It Works

SPEAKER_01 48:43

We'll give you some updates further along on the road.

SPEAKER_00 48:47

Hello. So it has been a couple days, or maybe longer. We've had a couple busy days with family over Easter, and what always happens whenever we do these things is that we're like, oh, we should be recording, you know, what we did, but then we're either tired at the end of the day, and so we always postpone it. So what tell me what your impressions were on the last day of our walk.

SPEAKER_01 49:17

As we talked about before, it was definitely a good decision to to get up early and have the walk more to ourselves. It was so beautiful to see the dawn or early, early morning, very early morning. The last day of the walk was varied. It wasn't too difficult. There was some steep incline and decline close to Orvieto, which again it was alright because it still wasn't that hot as we had started early. We did we did see people who were starting off at that time, and that that would have been tough. We went through a beautiful monastery that had a really nice church, really nice area in the middle of nature, really, really nice place. And then coming into Orvieto was shocking though, because Orvieto is super touristy. There's so many people walking around, and you have that sensation when you come into the city at the end of a walk, at the end of a pilgrimage, and you feel like you're no longer a pilgrim, you're just uh you're just a tourist. And there are people walking around buying their Easter breads and buying souvenirs and going out to lunch, and you completely lose the sense of just walking simply in nature. But that's what happens, and it does give you a greater appreciation for the walk, for the journey. Yes, it's nice, of course, to arrive and get the testimonium and and reach your destination, but really the most beautiful part is the journey.

SPEAKER_00 51:12

That day we got up early and I didn't think we were rushing at all, but we did have a deadline because we had a train to catch. I guess it's good sometimes to give yourself a bit of a schedule when you're on a walk so you don't waste too much time. We've noticed that the less we're on the trail, obviously, the less tired we get. Because we could also walk more slowly, but if you walk more slowly, this is pretty obvious you're gonna be out on the trail longer. So under the sunshine or the wind or whatever, so we found a pretty good balance, which is for us is walking at an average of four kilometers per hour, which is a decent enough speed so that we don't stay on our feet as long. So I guess that's why it's good to have a bit of a schedule. We arrived in Orvieto, we set off a little after 7 in the morning, I think, and we arrived at around 12, which was exactly what we had planned. As Anna said, I feel like that day was either the hardest or the second hardest. It was out of three, it was on par, I think, with the first day, especially the last bit, because we could see Orvieto in the distance towards the end. We were on one hill that was tall, like higher up than Orvieto, so we had to go down it, and there were no switchbacks, it was basically just a straight line down the hill, so the incline was steep, and then again a straight line up the hill on the other side, and we've done a few of those during the day because let me remind you, Civita was on top of a hill, we had to go down the hill, then up the hill again, so we must have done that three or four times, maybe. Also, maybe not as dramatic as those in terms of elevation changes, but Italy has a lot of small towns that are built on top of hills, so you're gonna have to go up and down a lot. And after that, we got our testimonials and said in Orvieto, bought the patches, careful, there's a bike behind us, but the patches, and we had prepared sandwiches the day before, so just in case, and we really got out of Orvieto as soon as we could because it was so crowded and it was such a stark difference compared to the first day we got there, which was very early in the morning. Obviously, it was a Thursday morning, so it was a work day. Obviously, arriving at around 12 of on a Saturday of the Easter weekend, it was very different, so we got out of there as soon as we could. We decided to wait out the last few minutes, like the last hour, instead of hanging out at the center of Orvieto, we went straight to the train station, so we were sure not to miss the train. We hopped on a train that took us to Bologna in around three hours, which wasn't that bad, it was actually quite nice. And then just to give you a recap of what we did in the past few days, we met up with family. That was Saturday evening, we're in the medieval, no Renaissance city of Ferrara, it's not medieval. And we had Easter, Easter Monday. We just ate so much, we probably ate all of the calories that we burnt on the Camino. And we're currently doing something that I think is interesting. There's a nice walking, cycling, running path that goes all around the perimeter of the walls of uh Ferrara. It's around nine kilometers long. Our train for Rome leaves in five hours or something, so we got plenty of time and we thought it's nice to do this. We're out in nature. I'm jealous of this. We have lots of parks and we have a long cycling path along the river that we've talked about at length before, but I would love to have something like this. Every time we're here, I think about how nice it would be to live in a smaller town, but maybe that's another story for another day. So our plan for today is simply to walk around a bit, catch our train at around four, and make it back home for dinner in Rome because our cat has probably been missing us these last few days. Our little Persephone. Hey, again, not sponsored, but if you're out on a trip, get yourself an automatic feeder with a camera that you can control on your phone so you can keep an eye on your pets all the time. Yeah. Anyway, final thoughts for me. This was a nice, nice little trip. We were gone, what, five days, six days. This is the sixth day, of which three were spent walking and two and a half were spent chilling. I love this area. Well, Orvieto Umbrian Lazio is very special. And I like Ferrara. Do you have any closing thoughts?

unknown 56:20

Alright.

SPEAKER_01 56:22

Okay, this walk, it's it's very well designed because you see three beautiful towns, and the area is quite particular. It's called Tusha, and it has this incredible Etruscan history. It's like a longer version of the Trevilaggi. So it's a really nice place in terms of the nature, the history, what and for us, or even if you're not coming from Italy, it's quite easy and comfortable to get to. So again, like staying in Orvieto if you're coming from far away, it's we would probably recommend spending the night in Orvieto, but you don't you don't have to if you're coming from Rome, so it was quite easy as we left Orvieto and made quite a long journey, it's quite far between Orvieto and Ferrara, but uh because it's so comfortable to get to, so it's easy to access and in a really beautiful area. So it's all around a really great walk to do, and especially these with these days after the walk, we were really reminded of, especially if you live in the city like we do, how important it is to get out in nature. So, yes, we would definitely recommend this walk. It's it's really well organized as well, it's getting more and more popular, but it's definitely well maintained and yes, definitely recommended.

The People Who Make The Trail

SPEAKER_00 57:55

Absolutely. So we had a blast, and anyway, thanks for coming along with us, and bye. But what stays with you are the people. The unexpected moments, the quiet reminders that you're never really walking alone. Out there, somewhere between one step and the next, strangers become part of your story. And sometimes they carry a piece of it for you until it finds its way back. That's the kind of magic you don't plan for. And honestly, it's the kind you don't forget. Thanks for walking with us on this latest episode. If you've ever had a moment like that on the road, something you've lost and somehow return in more ways than one, we'd love to hear your story. You can find us along with the pictures from this trail and others on our Instagram page at GoFar Podcast. Thanks again for coming with us, and thanks again to our friends who've got our microphone back to us. And as always, GoFar.