There’s another action-packed, hero’s journey-esque narrative to be written from these past two days. The ascent to Monte Falco, up around 1650m, in the midst of whipping winds and pelting rain, and the unsurprisingly slick and catastrophe-proximate descent that followed, was as frenetic and intense a stretch of walking as I’ve had on this trip. While the second day of this stretch was much calmer, following my last big climb back above 1000m, it also involved my first serious encounter with the landslides that ravaged the region a couple years ago. While the Cammino di Sant’Antonio has been rerouted and resignposted in many such places, this one was either more recent or just slipped through the cracks. Regardless, it was clear I couldn’t go through the gnarled wreckage of trees and mud, so instead I climbed up the muddy face, using upside-down tree roots for handholds, and eventually clutched onto handfuls of long grasses to pull myself onto the hilltop. My hands were utterly coated in mud by the end, but it worked, as I was able to pass to the other side of the landslide and rejoin the trail.
Plenty of excitement there. I’m a damn fine war-time walker. When unexpected challenges or difficult conditions come hurtling at me, I’m stubborn enough to push through pretty much all of it. I wore a long-sleeve shirt, the same I wear on every other day of walking, and my regular pants, plus the poncho. That’s it, along with my beaten up, 50-euro pair of Asics. It doesn’t matter. I’m going to keep going.
The challenge, less today but still present, is to be an equally capable peace-time walker. Tonight, I’m sitting in the rectory of Rocca San Casciano. It’s not on the accommodation list for the Cammino di Sant’Antonio, but I pushed out dozens of emails to parish churches along the route, subject “A roof over my head” (in Italian), and managed to score a few bites. My room has two beds, both with bare mattresses; there are a few old prayer tables lining the walls, along with an exercise bike from the 1950s. In my mind, though, I’m walking back through these past few days, diving back into the whirlwind, to linger on some of the places I powered through too forcefully–however necessary that was–lest they be forgotten entirely.
My thoughts first turn back a few days, to the town of Badia Prataglia on the walk to Camadoli. Near the entrance, I passed the town’s own version of the Lourdes grotto. A Chilean priest built it in 1939 to give thanks for having his life saved on two different occasions. One good turn deserves another; five years later, a group of young town residents took shelter here during a Nazi air raid and emerged unscathed. From there, the road wound through the hills into the center of town, moving past a pair of large, stately old hotels. The whole town had the look and feel of a place that was a bit of a tourist draw 30 or 40 years, but has since seen the trends shift attention elsewhere. Still, the center is filled with covered seating areas, public facilities, and wifi–a very deliberate effort to attend well to the needs of the walkers and other travelers passing through. A large monument commemorates the town’s hosting of the 2017 World Championships of the Sacred Forests Trail Race, which focuses on cross country routes through places of natural and religious significance, spanning 14 to 50km.
Originally, I was focused on the town’s significant legacy in the realm of woodcraft, including chestnut utensils, beech tool handles, and oak cooking supplies. Even more interesting, though, is the town’s significance as an early forestry center. In the mid-19th century, the region was suffering from deforestation, in part because of the Camaldoli monks’ over-exploitation of lumber. In 1846, Carlo Siemoni, a forestry engineer, was brought to Badia Prataglia to spearhead a round of interventions. At the core of his work was extensive experimentation with exotic species, trying to discover what would offer the greatest yield without adverse ecological consequences. He oversaw the establishment of large chestnut groves, transformed old pastures into coniferous forests, thinned out some unhealthy sections, and introduced deer and all kinds of different birds to the area.
Knowing what we know today, were some of Siemoni’s moves cringe-worthy? Almost certainly so. But Badia Prataglia today is a small crisscross of civilization in the midst of dense woods, even as a lumbermill continues to thrum away just outside of town.
Fast forward to yesterday, as I made the final push through snow-covered trail to reach the summit of Monte Falco. I dolefully stared at the small viewing post on the mountain’s edge, imagining what I might have seen on a clear day. More visible, though, were the small information signs interspersed along the trail, alerting hikers to the fact that they were passing through a nature reserve–the Sasso Fratino Integral Nature Reserve–protecting some very fragile species. The area’s ancient beech trees are particularly valued, earning UNESCO distinction as Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians. We’re hardly the first, though, to see the importance of this area; Etruscans made the hike almost three thousand years ago for purposes of worship. Meanwhile, the Opera del Duomo–heck, Brunelleschi’s Dome itself–and other major sites in Florence were built with wood from these forests. In all, the park includes 1357 different species, 1125 of which are indigenous, including 44 different species of orchids and 845 different fungal species.
All along that march through the mountains, I had been thinking about Castagno d’Andrea. It was the only town I’d encounter along the walk and my only chance at a grocery store, where I hoped to buy supplies for dinner. A hot drink sounded amazing as well. And yet, when the clock struck 1pm, I hadn’t yet entered the town limits; by the time I went sprinting down the road to the alimentari, it was already 1:15. I still had hope, as nothing in Italy operates with any semblance of precise timeliness, but the store was shuttered when I arrived. Disappointed, I spun back around and headed to the only bar in town, a small affair tucked back from the main road.
I settled into the cozy confines, ready to lose myself in a coffee and pastry, when an old woman took interest in me. Between her poor hearing and my uneven pronunciation, it became a bit of an Abbot and Costello routine, but the young bartender pitched in as a willing intermediary, and suddenly the whole café was focused on me. When I told the woman that I’m a teacher at home, she asked if I was an Italian teacher, and they all seemed to believe that to be a credible notion. I might have to increase my total words to forty.
I didn’t realize it until later, but I had entered the “land of art and chestnuts.” It’s all in the name, if only I had been paying attention. “Castagno” quite explicitly means “chestnut.” The “Andrea” part requires a little more explanation. The town’s most famous son, Andrea del Castagno, was an acclaimed painter in the Renaissance, best known today for the portrait he painted of Dante, part of the Uffizi Gallery’s collection. The faces of both men are prominent around town, with full-body cut-outs posted in front of some buildings.
Leaving Castagno, I wasn’t thinking at all about that closed alimentari. Dinner would sort itself out. Instead, I was reflecting on the warm welcome, the ability to show up somewhere as a scruffy, soaked stranger and be integrated seamlessly into the life of the town. Life isn’t easy here. The original town, situated further up in the mountains, was destroyed by a landslide in 1335. In the 20th century, the new town was leveled by an earthquake in the immediate aftermath of WWI, and then it was razed by the Nazis in WWII. Over the course of the 1950s and ‘60s, a huge flood of the region’s population moved to cities. The persistence of Castagno is a testament to the special qualities of this little corner of Italy.
I almost didn’t visit Portico di Romagna at all. On my walk from San Benedetto in Alpe to Rocca San Casciano, I was feeling the impact of the recent hard days, and I kept staring at the gps track. Portico required an out-and-back. The distance wasn’t a big deal, just a couple kms, but it was pure verticality, descending into the narrow valley to visit town and then climbing right back up. I admit it–I almost tapped out. I could have made it to Rocca without a second coffee, or a water refill.
The moment I reached the town, though, I realized how foolhardy such a decision would have been. After completing that sharp descent, the trail doubles back, passing alongside a small cluster of gardens squeezed in along the river. Just ahead was a marvelous Romanesque bridge–one elegant, oversized arch passing high over the Montone. The Ponte della Maestà. The original paving is still on the bridge. Portico has long been a crossroads, functioning as a regional marketplace in the Middle Ages, and it’s another town in this region associated with Dante. One legend claims that Dante first kindled his love for Beatrice here.
This two-day stretch concluded in Rocca San Casciano, a small town also on the Montone River. I had a couple hours to kill when I arrived, before the priest who was hosting me would return home, so I grabbed some food and settled onto a bench overlooking the river. While we were deep into Easter week at this point, the town seemed much more focused on the next festa, the Festa del Falò, occurring the following weekend. On the riverbanks below, freshly flattened in the wake of the 2023 landslides and flooding, two large posts had been planted, one on each side. Around those were giant piles of cut branches of broom and pine; it was like the mounds of tumbleweeds that I encountered when walking through the American West. As I sat, men trickled in–young and old, along with a few boys–and began arranging those branches.
Nobody knows exactly what the origins of the Festa del Falò entail. Documentation informs us that this tradition goes at least as far back as the 12th century, but speculation suggests that it has Pagan or Celtic roots. It’s easy enough to see that in the narrative underlying the practice–the primary goal in lighting a giant bonfire was to appease the waters and deter disastrous floods. A goal as worthy and relevant as ever in 2025. As the years passed, this morphed into a competition, because everything’s better as a competition. Today, the two main parts of town–Borgo di Sopra and Mercato–compete head-to-head. Both have large signs, announcing their names, posted high on the hills above each side. Flags representing each side’s colors flutter proudly from nearly every window in town.
None of these towns appear on a tourist itinerary. Their presence, though, makes the pilgrimage. Every stop offers something–warm hospitality, a breathtaking sight, a fascinating historical vignette, or a captivating tradition–that transforms it from a simple cluster of buildings into a memory to value. At least, if one takes a moment to lock that memory into place.
