Via di Francesco, Day 17: Spello - Trevi

Friday, June 9
19.1 km
429 m

Every day we walk in Italy we must choose: get up and walk in the cool hours before dawn, or get a full night's rest and enjoy a real breakfast before walking. The choice shapes each day.

If we rise early, we have bleary eyes and grumbling bellies in the morning, and we struggle to stay awake through the Italian dinner hour-- but we arrive at our destination before it gets too hot, and often we get to enjoy lunch on a piazza as we watch the other pilgrims arrive, sweating and sun-blistered.

If we sleep later, we are bright and happy, and enjoy lovely breakfasts of cappuccinos, warm pastries, yoghurt, and fresh local fruit-- but then we labor up every hill and dread every unshaded stretch of road.

We seesaw back and forth, some days opting to rise early, and some to sleep in and enjoy a real breakfast and sweat through the afternoon. Today, we slept in. Albergo Cacciatote has a lovely terrace with a breeze and a panoramic view of the Umbrian countryside, and we wanted to enjoy it as we sipped cappuccino and devoured flaky pastry. As we sat and ate and admired the view, we knew we'd made the right choice. Just an hour and a half later, however, as we dripped sweat and the rubber of our shoes softened to gum on scorching pavement, we were quite convinced we'd, in fact, made the wrong decision.

A Camino is full of impossible decisions. Do you follow the directions in your guide book, the markers on the ground, or your GPS tracks (because they don't always agree!)? At the end of what's already a long day's walk, do you climb to the top of the hill to see if the monastery (that didn't answer their phone) has a bed, or do you stay in the convenient (but expensive and charmless) roadside hotel nearby? When you call a convent for a bed and your shoddy Italian fails to do the job, do you show up anyway and hope for accommodation, or do you call someone else and maybe leave the nuns in the lurch? And, of course the omnipresent Camino question: Do you take the steep, high, long, rocky route with the views and remote sanctuaries? Or do you save your feet and back (and maybe your pride) for another day, and take the low road?

There are no right answers. There are no perfect choices. Camino is all about moving forward, always forward. So you make a decision, any decision, keep going, and live with the consequences-- whatever they are.

Often on our way, we meet locals or tourists for whom modern pilgrimage is a completely unfamiliar idea. We explain that we are walking to Rome. They start to grasp the idea. "Ah, you're walking!" they say, "But sometimes, or if you get tired or bored, you might take a bus or train to the next city?" We exchange looks. We suppress giggles. We patiently explain: no. No busses, no trains, no giving up. If we get tired, we rest. If we get hurt, we rest longer. But take a bus? No.  

Rod and I have always approached Camino with the view that nothing can stop us. When I sprained my wrist early in our Italian camino, I thanked the heavens it wasn't an ankle or foot. Then we walked to a pharmacy, wrapped my wrist, and kept walking. See, no matter the decision we make -- call or not, high road or low, rise early or late, we walk. That is what propels us, literally and figuratively.

So maybe walking 6 hours through midday summer Italian heat was a less-than-great idea, but we kept walking. Maybe we could have avoided my 11th hour near-heatsroke if we'd skipped breakfast and left at sunrise. But we're here, in Trevi now. We will rest a day in this peaceful medieval hilltown and recover. The day after, we will walk again. And maybe we will skip a hot breakfast, and get up and on the road before the sun, and beat the heat. Or maybe not.