Monday Nov 20. Vitulano. 17.5 km.

Not that long a walk, but an ascent of about 800 metres, followed by a corresponding descent on the other side of a mountain range. Here is the scene leaving in the morning - the mountains to be crossed are on the right.

As the climb goes on, the view gets impressive.

In the mountains.

Vitulano is a village with nothing much to do. I arrived at my Air B&B about 1.30pm. It’s a large house with five dogs and three cats and a very loud family of parents and adult son. The father and I had lunch together - pasta, iceberg lettuce salad (the only kind all throughout southern Italy apparently), bread and cheese. Reminded me of country meals in France - very simple. Unfortunately it is really cold in the house and they don’t seem to have hot water.

Last night I had supper with a fellow pilgrim - the first I’ve encountered since Rome - and tonight we had drinks together. Morgane has walked here from her home in Nantes (north-west France). She is following the ligne St-Michel, a perfectly straight line that links seven of the main sites where Saint Michael (or Archangel Michael if you prefer) is venerated. Here in southern Italy the Longobards (a conquering people originally from Hungary) spread his popularity when they ruled in the 8th century. One theory is that as the great warrior angel he reminded the Longobards, recent Christian converts, of their old warrior gods.

Morgane has done other pilgrimages and shares her thoughts widely. At one point a friend enticed her to do bike routes, but she found biking too fast and missed the natural rhythm of walking. Her joy in living and her peace rooted in spirit and nature are beautiful. Here is a link to her thoughts as she passes Mont St Michel in France. From there to here, over four months of walking.

https://youtu.be/1lqvoSH17os?feature=shared

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September 5

I landed at Heathrow this morning at 6 am, a very inconvenient time to get a room and rest! But my student residence accommodation includes a common room with handy couches for a short snooze. The neighbourhood abuts on Regent’s Park, complete with gorgeous flowerbeds. The Queen Mary’s rose garden in Regent’s Park. My neighbourhood wandering took me to the Wallace House which used to be one of the homes of the marquesses of Hertford. The Hertfords were fabulously rich, mainly from extensive land holdings, and in the 18th and 19th centuries avid art collectors. They obviously had Trumpian home decorating tastes. Here are two of their many clocks, all of which need frequent ‘fine tuning’, it appears. I particularly liked two 18th c British paintings by Sir Joshua Reynolds in their collection: Mrs Carnac and the hauntingly strange Strawberry Girl.

Sat Oct 4. London.

19 days walking on pilgrimage paths for a total of 395 km or 245 miles on foot (not that arduous - an average of 20.7 km per day, and lots of ‘rest days’ staying put in one place). All of that undone in 1.5 hours on a Eurostar train. I’m not entirely sure what conclusion I’m drawing from that comparison, but I’m back where I started, in London. On my way to my lodgings (I’m staying in a Buddhist retreat centre) I decided to visit the first visitable place to cross my path, which turned out to be the Foundling Museum. Horrified by the sight of infants being abandoned on 18th c London streets, a prosperous seaman, Thomas Coram, spent 17 years raising awareness and funds, as well as obtaining royal permission to build London’s first children’s charity. Opened in 1739, the Foundling Hospital continued its work until the 1950s, and actually is still active as a non-institutional resource, under a different name. Here is a photo of it in 1935. So many similarities to ...

Fri Oct 3. Lille.

I had a lovely day in Lille. In fact, all my days on this trip have been lovely! In the morning I went to the very large Palais des Beaux-Arts. This museum holds the largest collection of works of art of any French institution outside Paris. The collection started at the time of the French Revolution as the works of art of the nobility and of the church were confiscated, and continued on apace due to various enthusiastic municipal governments. By 1892 the collection was so large and important that the Palais, its current house, was constructed in the centre of town. The first fun aspect was the recent work of the Swiss artist Felice Varini who used the museum’s interior as his canvas. The oldest works of art are in the ‘basement’, beautifully displayed. Look at the marvellous three dimensionality of this (flat) marble plaque sculpted by Donatello (c 1435) showing Salomé dancing for the head of John the Baptist. And modern technology brings statues alive by giving them back t...

Celia Walks

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