Date: Saturday 1 September
Distance covered to Rome: 620.5/1027km
Terrain: Too much edge-of-road walking.
Overnight: Mimi Apartment, €72.50
Feeling: Happy to have a rest day tomorrow.
This morning I woke up at 200am thinking, “gee, it’s windy outside”. Then the penny dropped that it wasn’t wind, it was teeming rain! Uh oh!
It had eased dramatically when I made a start on the day, but I didn’t get fair without stopping to put my rain poncho on. Two kilometres down the road and it was teeming again and I had to make a call whether to walk back to Pietrasanta and catch a bus or train to Lucca, or push on. As the rain eased again, the optimist in me won out and now with my gaiters on, I set off up the road.
There was a lot of road walking today, and while it is fine when there isn’t much traffic, it’s not fun when the cars and trucks are coming thick and fast.
The grey clouds hung around all morning and then they started to be acccompanied by thunder and then lightning….and then bucketing rain. Now this is definitely the definition of un-fun!
I determinedly pushed on convincing myself that every step was a step closer to Lucca until the thunder and lightning seemed to be getting closer AND it started to HAIL! That was the last straw! By this stage I was sheltering in a motorbike shop and the lovely man called me a taxi. The best damn €15 I have ever spent!!
So, I missed out on 4km, but much better that than drowning, being fried by lightning or flattened by a truck. Yes, I have come to wisdom late!
Tip of the day: you can’t out walk an Italian storm!
Life...one big adventure 
Sounds like great chunks of everything coming at you Mel. Nature, views, weather, smells, resilience, humour, good decision making all rolled up in a memory-making, life-affirming walk. Good in you. x
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Yes, Nella – each day is very full! It is certainly not a holiday as such, but it is so interesting!
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Oh dear Mel. At least there is no mention of unfriendly dogs over the past few days!! Take care x
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Don’t worry, they are there everyday, but the storm certainly quietened them!
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Love your common sense. It sounds as if you walked through Dante’s Inferno. I see you passed by Purgatory 😉
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It certainly was that is spades! I have never seen rain like it, or at least tried to walk in it!
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Hope you enjoyed your day in Lucca? And I did smile at Purgatorio 🙂 🙂
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Yes, Lucca was fabulous, but I really needed another two days there to see everything. Next time! And I was wearing my marketing hat when I took the Purgatory Restaurant photo. Surely they could have come up with a catchier name? It certainly doesn’t bode well for the menu!
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Oh, that HAIL! I remember a day out on the Portuguese Camino when it started to hail and the only shelter we’ve had was under a tree … what did you say … un-fun 😄!
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One of the downsides of waking through Nature is that you are at its mercy whenever it feels like it, but then you wake up to yet another stunning sunrise and all is right with the World again.
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That’s absolutely true!
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