20. Merlin and the nightingale

Sutri to Campagnano di Roma

There comes a time in everyone’s life when you wake up one morning and suddenly you’re interested in birds. If it hasn’t happened to you yet, it will, trust me. And what a very wonderful addition it is to life. We bizarrely discovered that birds were interesting when we were on safari in Zambia. Our guide was passionate about them and it was not long before we would be cooing with excitement over a Bateleur Eagle or Lilac Breasted Roller oblivious to the passage of elephant or cat.

We packed our binoculars for Italy but soon put them away as the birds were audible but invisible. There was significant bird withdrawal until a couple of days ago when a wonderful passing pilgrim introduced us to Merlin. Merlin is Shazam for birds. (If you don’t know what Shazam is that‘s your next task). It was created by Cornell University and is a free app. You can download a data base for any part of the world and then magic happens (I‘m assuming that is where Merlin comes in). As you wander a dirt track in Lazio Italy and hear a call coming from a bush you press a button and it records the sound and tells you within seconds what the bird is and all you’d ever want to know about it. Even more amazingly it tells you all the other birds that you may not have noticed trilling in the background. Suffice to say it has added at least an hour on to our walking time today, but we heard nightingales, tits, robins, European magpies, blackcaps and blackbirds. Go get yourself this wonderful thing.

As you will see from the photo taken this afternoon, it was a soggy one. The heavens opened in the last half of the walk and paths turned to streams and the vertiginous climb up to Campagnano di Roma was like pushing through a waterfall. The hotel proprietor looked less than delighted when we arrived dripping at her door. It was a relatively unremarkable walk today, but long. Over 26km by the time we reached our hotel. One nice little highlight was a remarkable Roman amphitheatre just outside Sutri which had been carved entirely out of the tuff rock and was pretty well intact. We had an alarming few kilometres dicing with death on the via Cassia with no verge to escape on to, but then the rest of the day was pretty rural. There was a quaint town called Montessori which served as a good lunch stop before the rain hit. The rural scene here was less beautiful but more varied. There were walnut trees and plum trees and lots of sheep instead of unrelenting hazelnuts. A lovely waterfall and park almost tempted us but then the rain started so we retreated to a bar for an espresso and an ice cream instead.

We are tired now. Grant has blisters and sore knee and shoulder. I have no real damages, but just aching tied feet and limbs. My phone tells me I walked 35 000 steps today. That is a lot of times for those poor feet and knees and hips and muscles to have to lift and move, often on very rough irregular surfaces or steep slopes. You can probably tell from my photos I’m no athlete so I am very proud of how this old body is holding together as we get near the finishing line. It has been a very good exercise in stoicism - letting go of what was, not thinking of what is to come, but just focusing on each day and putting one foot in front of the other.

It is still raining and we have half board at this hotel which means we don’t have to actually leave it tonight as they will feed us…we may just stagger down to the dining room and go no further! Grant has just said it is beer time, so I will love and leave you and gather my aching limbs together.

Here is a photo of one of my favourite sights in Italy - the gathering of the men of the village in the piazza each evening. I assume their unfortunate wives are at home cooking dinner, but it’s still a lovely thing watching such warm and familiar social connection. Another thing we have lost.

Love Marie