Meeting other pilgrims

Sometimes, pilgrims turn up in very unexpected places. Today, I did some last-minute shopping, some cosmetics. The saleslady added some sunscreen samples and I thanked her, saying this was a very good idea because we were going to need it soon.

She then asked where we were going and when I told her, she said "you know, I've been to Santiago di Compostela twice" and we began to chat a little. We departed after an exchange of cards with a "nice to have met you" and "Buon Camino",

Last-minute concerns

Early on Sunday, the news put a question mark to our project: an earthquake had occured in the Emilia Romagna, it was reported. Half of this year's route is in that region, so I was following the news closely.

As the day wore on, it became clear that the area affected was the one we had travelled through last year, and not the one we will walk through next week. So last night, I wrote e-mails to all our hosts, corfirming that we would come. Some have already been answered, confirming that there was no damage in the province we're travelling in.

All done now

I hardly can believe it... I got all the internet work done for this year's leg of the pilgrimage: all accomodations are booked, the data transferred to my journal. I do still prefer the paper journal, I am afraid of what would happen if a smartphone ran out of juice in the middle of nowhere!

We're following the route described here. I've bought the guide book, and of course, I'll need a dictionary to understand everything. But since I have to take a small dictionary anyway, that's not a problem.

To think that even five years ago, I knew next to no Italian and now I can book accomodations, order meals, go shopping and explain to people what we are doing is amazing! I love to communicate, that's probably the key. And people have been so friendly and encouraging all along, even when false friends were leading me astray or my grammar was entirely my own.

I'm very much looking forward to our holiday, we'll leave on the early morning of 26th May to take the train to Bologna and will come home on the 8th of June, full of new impressions (and with bellies full of excellent food, I'm sure)!

Preparations for the next leg

The book mentioned in the last post turned out not to be the right thing for us. The hike was divided into day trips of only 10-13 kilometers, and so would have taken about ten days. But that would have been boringly short for us, in that kind of terrain, we know we can do 20-25 easily.

So I went for a guide book in Italian that takes a different route with legs that are mostly 16-19 kilometers long, and I've managed to find us accomodation everywhere, and train tickets, too

So we will leave on the 26th of May and come back on 8th June, having spent a week on the hike and a week in Fiesole just north of Florence. I'm very much looking forward to it!

A stroke of luck

I had been a little worried about our next leg Bologna - Firenze (Florence) to be done early this summer. I somehow didn't seem to be able to find any good information. But then I mentioned our project to my optometrist. And he of all people told me he had done just that the year before, and there's a very nice trail called Sentiero delle degli... there's even a field guide, and he sent me a mail with the order data.

So I can buy that and set on to plan this year's stages. Apparently, it takes only about 7 days to walk the trail, so we'll be able to spend a few days in Florence, too, and discover that quintessentially renaissance town.

Things to take back: recipes

The whole point of doing a pilgrimage - or, for that matter, of going on holiday - is to bring back something with you into your daily life. A new outlook on life, distance to everyday turmoil, is probably the main goal. So we have our little escapes. Some of them are culinary. Not every day has enough time to cook something special, but we try to on most weekends. We try to recapture tastes we liked. Some will be forever unattainable, like a tirami su we were served in a small, probably old, roadside trattoria not too far from Bologna. First we had tagliatelle bolognese (no, the original is not with spaghetti), then dessert, zuppa inglese and the said tirami su. I vowed not to eat any other until I couldn't remember this one clearly any more. It was that good.

But further north, still in the mountains, we were served polenta with different types of goulash. I tried to re-create these a few times, and last Sunday, I was successful. Here's the recipe:


Meat Stew "Monte Peller"

(serves 3-4)

Ingredients:
1 Tbs butterfat
1 pound stew beef, not too lean
5 spareribs
1 medium sized onion, finely diced
4 carrots, diced
1/2 orange bell pepper, diced
fresh herbs (I used lovage and thyme)
pepper and allspice, freshly ground
pinch of salt

1/2 cup water, more if needed

for the roux:
3 Tbs Butterfat
3 Tbs flour
1/2 cup rosé wine
water as needed


Preparation:
Heat the butterfat in a large pot. Brown the spareribs, take them out, then brown the beef in two portions to get a crisp crust. Take the meat out, then brown the onions. Put all meat back in, then the carrots and the herbs. Season and toss, then add the water. Cover and let simmer over low heat for an hour, then add the bell pepper and let simmer for another half hour. Make sure there's always some liquid left.

Drain into a coarse sieve, collect the fluid. To make the sauce, you can boil the fluid to make it thicken, but that might give very little in the end and takes a lot of time. Or you can make a roux:
Melt the butterfat in a skillet over medium heat. Add the flour and stir well. It should make a ball that leaves a sticky residue as it is moved about in the skillet. Add the fluid from the stew, a little at a time, stirring constantly to avoid lumps. Add the wine in like manner. Cold liquids must be added more slowly than warm ones to avoid lumps. Add water do make a thickly sauce. Normally, no additional seasoning is needed.

Put the meat and vegetables back into the sauce and serve the stew with polenta.


Monte Peller is a peak in the Brenta Dolomites, where we tasted this type of dish for the first time.

Thanks to Mary and Jason for their help in setting the recipe up.

What makes this special II

But what drives us on and on has become something different: it's people's reaction to us, the encounters we live.

People generally have seen backpackers before, but generally, these are young adults. A family hiking long-distance together is much rarer. Not so much on the well-traveled E5/Via Alpina, but almost everywhere else, the four of us are such an unusual sight that people stop and ask us where we come from and where we go.

And of course, nothing feels as good as people being positively interested in what you're doing... So we tell our tale, basking in people's attention and admiration. Quite a lot of people have asked us to pray for them to St. Francis when we arrive in Assisi, and I've noted every one of them. Of some of them, I don't even know the name, so I will pray "for the lady at the tabacchio where we bought the bus tickets into Bologna", for example.

It's not that I believe that praying for them will actually change something in their lives, but I find it important to keep my promises. Doing the pilgrimage changes something in my, in our lives. I feel enriched by the many, many encounters, with people, with landscapes, with cuisine, with history and customs... and perhaps talking to us gives people an idea that some unusual ideas can actually be put into practice. Perhaps we can enrich their lives, too.