How Did St Francis Of Assisi Change The World
P eace, universal dearest, respect for the natural world… Francis of Assisi, the "offset environmentalist", is the sort of saint whose teachings even the most ardent secularist couldn't object to. His celebration of simplicity and rejection of cloth possessions as well chime with today'south distaste for heedless consumerism.
Nearly 800 years later on Francis died, hubby and I – ardent secularists both – are post-obit in (some of) his footsteps, through the western Apennines on a trail the Umbria tourist lath is refurbishing and promoting – the Via di Francesco, a 550km road from Florence to Rome on paths the saint would have used.
We're doing effectually 110km in half-dozen days' trek from the aboriginal hill town of Assisi to Piediluco near the Lazio border. We have in the past enjoyed walking holidays where our luggage was magicked alee each twenty-four hours, but at present can't square that with some other business that Francis would have shared: carbon emissions. We've come to Assisi by railroad train, and then it would seem mad to take someone drive the route each day with our bags. I'g also masochistically dandy to try a more "authentic" trekking style, then earlier nosotros set off I do some rigorous decluttering – though I'1000 thinking less of Marie Kondo and more of my back.
Francis possessed but a robe, staff and girdle. We have a rather less saintly small-scale rucksack each: spare shorts and T-shirts, minimal toiletries, suncream, phones for GPS and podcasts, and Sandy Brownish's guidebook to The Mode of St Francis (Cicerone, £16.95). The saint gave his stuff abroad to the poor only we get out our other possessions at the hotel. The heaviest thing nosotros deport is drinking water, which naturally gets lighter as the mean solar day goes on.
But Umbria, with its mountainous terrain and medieval hilltowns, offers some of Italia'due south best walking and nosotros're looking frontwards to quiet paths, ancient forests, clear streams and stunning views.
Francis was born Giovanni Bernardone in 1182 – he was nicknamed Francesco (Frenchy) by his wealthy merchant father considering his female parent was from Provence – and lived a carefree upper-form life until his mid-twenties, when a vision led him to choose prayer and poverty. He took to escaping Assisi to meditate and preach in the mountains and gathered such a following that in 1209 he was summoned past the pope to explain himself. The route he and a band of friends took to Rome is the basis of the Via di Francesco.
If Francis found 13th-century Assisi a distraction from spiritual life, he'd be shocked to come across it today: its mellow streets lined with souvenir shops and thronged with bout groups. Nevertheless, when we make an early start the adjacent forenoon, the peace is broken only by sounds he would take heard 8 centuries ago: birds, cicadas and the faint singing of nuns.
Brown'southward book divides the expedition into stages of upward to 20km, and for our kickoff day at that place's a selection of "like shooting fish in a barrel" and "hard" routes: the latter is 4km longer and involves well-nigh 1,000 metres of rise. Feeling we may equally well start on the path of virtue, fifty-fifty if we after autumn by the wayside, we gear up off upward steep trails, following blue-and-yellow waymarking to a hermitage, Eremo delle Carceri, in a steep forest gorge on the slopes of Mountain Subasio, where the saint came seeking dazzler and solitude. In that location'due south a sprinkling of visitors (they've come in minibuses, ha!), just its modest monastic buildings and a chapel used past Francis however have a peaceful feel.
Descending in late afternoon on slippy gravel paths to the pre-Roman hilltown of Spello is nigh as hard as the ascension. Francis would have offered up his suffering; I only offering some ungodly expletives.
Non every day is as demanding, just as nosotros are walking the Appenines' western edge, it's all descending into valleys then climbing ridges for eye-popping views due west across the wide Valle Umbra. Each day we stop around noon for a picnic (and a snooze for someone) – in an olive grove, a forest immigration or a high meadow strewn with wildflowers.
I went to a convent school and share Dave Allen's "gestapo in elevate" view of nuns, only the four who alive at Eremo delle Allodole (Skylarks), which we come to up a steep path south of Trevi, are nil like that. In her simple blue dress, thirtysomething Sister Lucia, who answers our band at the medieval bell, is smiling and non-judgmental, interested to hear most our London lives.
This is an ancient Christian site, founded by missionaries from Syria who stayed in caves hither in the fifth century – as, later, did Francis himself. The caves, reached downwardly steps below the chapel, look comfortless to us, but – with their year-round 15C temperature – would have been a refuge from icy winters and summer heat.
Equally Lucia is talking, a butterfly lands on her arm and stays as if listening – and I recall fancifully about Francis preaching to the animals. Leaving to head upwardly the valley, I notice that the birdsong here is especially loud …
We swap uplifting thoughts for more than downward-to-earth concerns each evening though. While there are pilgrims' hostels and bothy-blazon spaces along the route, we've booked hotels – for hot showers, a comfy bed and somewhere to wash our socks. And while Franciscan brothers lived by begging scraps, we apply the excuse of high energy expenditure to fill upward on tasty Umbrian cuisine.
Tiny Hostaria de Dadà in Spello offers food Francis might recognise: traditional flatbread made with lard, flour and water - hot from the pan; chickpea soup; spelt ravioli. The best nutrient of the walk, though, is at Antica Dimora Alla Rocca in Trevi, where a starter of pear and pecorino tart topped with pepper, honey and hazelnuts is followed by homemade tortellini in cream sauce. Massive calorie count but, hey, tomorrow holds some stiff climbs.
When you're travelling light, every detail in your rucksack is there because information technology's vital, and losing anything is a blow. On a windy evening one of my only pair of hiking socks is swept off the windowsill where I've put them to dry out – and I mount a drastic search until I locate information technology mode beyond the piazza. A day later I realise – as I step out of the shower, pilus dripping – that I've left my hairbrush somewhere. It's some other 2 days before we get to a village big plenty to have a store that sells me a comb, simply in desperate times, it'southward amazing what tin can be washed with a toothbrush.
In that location is something especially satisfying about a long-altitude trail – the sense of steady progress, the changing scenery, a different town or village each night. The steady march of our feet becomes meditative, and as it'south just the two of the states at large in the landscape, married man and I find it a bonding feel. We appreciate each other's strengths: I'chiliad faster going up hills; he's more sure-footed on descents and has a better sense of management. And we encourage ane another when the going gets hard, as when we reach Poreta later on a long day of ups and downs, and I indulge in more sinful swearing when we find our hotel is on a crag another kilometre higher up the village.
As with the Camino de Santiago, this is a expedition done as much by not-believers as religious types. Nosotros meet a group in hills higher up Ceselli who are actually carrying a cross and have a beatifically smiling monk among their number, and I take a close wait at a signed alphabetic character from Francis in Spoleto's Duomo, but in full general nosotros continue faith at arm'southward length.
That's partly because there's and then much more than to enjoy: dizzying views where we cantankerous a ridge above the steep Nera valley, the crashing majesty of the Marmore waterfalls near Terni, the alpine loveliness of Lake Piediluco. Rather than only admiring the wooded hills of Italy's "greenish centre", we are spending long hours walking among them, letting their natural glories fill our senses.
Which is pretty much what St Francis's message was all near.
The trip was provided past Sviluppumbria. . Hotels along the route cost from €lxx a dark B&B, for details of accommodation run into umbriatourism.information technology. Railroad train travel to Assisi via Turin was provided by Trenitalia
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Source: https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2019/nov/03/walking-holiday-italy-umbria-trail-of-saint-francis-of-assisi
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