Via di Francesco, Day 3: Consuma - Stia

Thursday, May 25
16.9 km
1096 m

This morning, Irina stuffed us with cornetto and cake, and a generous helping of her egalitarian charm, to ease our first steps on the road. Once outside, we quickly turned off the pavement and into the shade of the forest, where we spent the rest of the day in dappled sunlight.

At the turnoff to Il Gualdo horse ranch, we caught up to some of the pilgrim's we'd met the previous evening, and two more besides. They were conferring over which trail to take, having scouted and rejected the most likely candidate. Our GPS trumped their scouting though, and we all headed down the middle trail, despite its deep ruts and overgrown bushes.

We were now seven in number: two Belgians, three Germans, and ourselves, the four Seattleites having made a somewhat later departure from the comfort of Irina's hospitality.  The seven of us leapfrogged each other for several miles on the mostly gentle uphill climbs, occasionally pushing past dense sprays of dusty yellow scotch broom that had overgrown the trail. At intersections, we compared German and English guidebooks, and generally relied on the GPS we carried to make our final decisions.

The two guidebooks offered nearly identical routes til early afternoon, just past a small stream crossing. There, Sandy Brown's English language guide (and accompanying GPS tracks) instructed us to go steeply uphill on an overgrown trail, crossing three large hills. The German guidebook stuck to the wide, gentle path we were already on, and followed a meandering stream. Though the upper route no doubt affords spectacular views, the prospect of an easy walk, an early arrival at our destination, and a big Italian lunch won.

We followed the stream out of the warm green light of the forest, past a donkey farm where we learned to our mirth that such a thing is called an Asineria in Italian. We giggled the rest of the way into town on the short route, got a quaint attic room and hot shower at Albergo Falterona, and settled in for lunch at Trattoria Filetto.

In more than a month in Italy, we've had many good, and several excellent, meals but this was something special. They served classic Tuscan dishes with zero pretention: local pork medalions rubbed with Tuscan herbs, spitted with rounds of bread, and roasted for hours; homemade spinach and ricotta ravioli dripping with farm fresh butter and sage; and creme castellano-- the perfect marriage of sweet butterscotch-like pudding and burnt sugar crust. Pilgrims are well advised to get an early start on today's stage to arrive in time for lunch, because Trattoria Filetto does not serve dinner, and a pilgrim's belly is always hungry, just as their feet are always tired.

We rounded out our day by going to check on the women from Seattle, who, as it turned out, had not yet arrived at their albergo. Though we'd only hoped to check on their progress, our visit alerted their innkeepers to their lateness and so alarmed them that one promptly got in his car and went out to search for the women. Somewhat mortified at having sent out the cavalry after four grown, capable women, our concerns were nonetheless mollified when he returned and reported our friends were just down the road.

Over pizza later, we learned they'd followed the longer, steeper route recommended in their guide, logging a total of 16.5 miles, to our paltry 10.5. While we were impressed with their fortitude and stamina, my partner and I agreed: we wouldn't have traded our lunch at Trattoria Filetto for all the spectacular views in Italy.