Via di Francesco, Day 2: Pontassieve - Consuma

Wednesday, May 24
17 km
1032 m

We awoke before the sun today to beat the heat and hit the trail in a chorus of birdsong as the sky lightened. Walking north along the Sieve, sizable fish splashed, fed, and spawned, as lesser egrets patrolled the shallows and cats fished from the shadowy banks. Crossing the old bridge the town is named for, we followed a steep paved road northeast bast fields, farmhouses, and castle views, toward Diacceto and second breakfast.

We left Diacceto full of cappuccino and pastry, armed with panini and peaches for the  remaining 12.5 km to Consuma. The walk took us past a hotel built to look like a castle (parapets and all) and an abandoned chapel, before turning sharply uphill on a wide dirt track through deep green forest.

The steep climb was punctuated by the noise of a chainsaw ahead of us, and our first turning revealed a logging operation blocking the trail, complete with heavy equipment. The driver of a backhoe waved us back along the trail, describing a curve up the other side of the hill, and shouted, "Consuma!" With a bit of confidence bolstering from the GPS, we followed the alternate trail.

Our new path was wide, clear, and often flanked by more logging paraphernalia: stacked logs, parked equipment, and rutted tracks. Despite the disruption in the trail and the ongoing mechanical drone in the distance, the remaining climb up the steep hillside was pleasant and uneventful, and the logging road eventually rejoined the route in our guide.

After a brief stop for lunch, we left the dirt track, passed an abandoned restaurant/hotel, and started up the paved road on the final leg into town. We didn't make it far before we encountered four other pilgrims, also from Seattle. In more than 500 km of walking, we hadn't yet encountered other pilgrims, so this was a somewhat unexpected but very welcome turn of events. We slowed our usually brisk pace to meander with our new companions who, having started at Firenze, were nursing the usual aches and pains of new pilgrims.

We were welcomed at Consuma by Irina of Bar Carletti, who quickly whisked us away to a charming yellow cottage on the hillside with a view of the valley. Later, she was our host for a dinner of pasta, fresh tomatoes, local cheeses, and salty, oily focaccia, shared with seven (seven!) other pilgrims. We all walked back down the hill to our cottages together under a watercolor sunset, full of pasta, and rather over-chearful from our host's vinosanto. Every night on Camino we feel a bit like that: sore, over-chearful, and full, like the road, or life itself, has filled our souls the way food fills the belly.