6. Sounds of silence

Monteriggioni to Siena

As I write the massive bells are ringing in the tower of the Basilica Cateriniana San Dominico about 50m from my window. What a wonderful sound, and it’s particularly powerful when you realise bells have been ringing there since 1340 give or take the odd reconstruction due to earthquake.

Sound is an interesting thing when you are on a long walk or pilgrimage. We met a fascinating fellow pilgrim last night in our hotel in Monteriggioni. She is a criminal court judge in the UK and taking a very understandable break from the stress of presiding over murder cases, to walk the via Francigena. She is walking alone and has been fascinated by how still her mind has become. So little noise in fact that she has started to listen to music on her headphones. This trail is beautifully quiet in that there are very few humans around, we walk mostly away from major roads, the rural areas have very little machinery noise and towns we pass through have so far been tiny and very quiet. The main external noise is the sound of the birds, barking dogs, distant cars, the scrape of our shoes on the road and the tic tic of our walking poles- which always end up synchronising. I don’t know if you’re the same, but the other noise when I walk is invariably a song churning around in my brain. I conducted choirs for years, so you’d think I’d have a wide and interesting repertoire. Sadly no. For some reason the main song that comes back year after year is the old hymn ‘All Through the Night.’ Grant introduced a new ear worm at the start of this walk which was Savage Garden’s ‘Truly, Madly Deeply’ https://youtu.be/jBVifG4_Ruk which you may like to add to your brain’s playlist. Today, for some reason Coco’s Lunch ‘A lot of Looking to do’ has been accompanying me from Monteriggioni https://youtu.be/F6av1jMQ_KA A great song composed by one of my favourite people, Sue Johnson. It got me thinking about what this eclectic mix had in common and I realised they have a similar pulse that fits my walking cadence. The rhythm of my feet and the walking poles and the music in my head makes me feel like a one woman band.

The other noise, other than of course the occasional chat with Grant, is my internal chat with you dear reader. It’s lovely to ponder on what I will tell you about as I write each day. We had a big walk today. 23.5 km from hotel to hotel. We started by climbing up to Monteriggioni to check it out. It’s surprising tiny. We were there so early we had the place almost to ourselves, but it took less than 15 mins to explore. It exists because Sienna needed extra defences to its North to hold back the aggression from Florence. It’s a remarkable fort almost completely intact and built in the middle ages. Here’s a picture of what it’s like inside.

After that quick visit we headed through forests, valleys and fields, past surprising little castles, tiny villages and along more actual bitumen roads (with no verge and fast moving traffic) than we have had to negotiate before. We are both back in full fitness and even though the walk was quite long we have scrubbed up well and thoroughly enjoyed the day. Our hotel is in an amazing location and I can see the Duomo through my window as I write. We have a rest (and washing)day here tomorrow so I will leave Siena photos until then. I will leave you with a last look at the rich red soils of Northern Tuscany, as I am told that the colour changes as we leave Siena.

The bells have just started up again.

Love Marie