On top of Monte Tesoro
Siete matti? (Are you crazy?) Not surprisingly, that was the reaction of my brother-in-law when the MotH mentioned about both of us walking the 800 kilometer-long pilgrim trail across Spain. The Camino de Santiago first came to our knowledge years ago after watching Martin Sheen in The Way (2010). In the film he walks the Camino Francés beginning from the French side of the Pyrenees. We intend to do the same. My brother-in-law has reason, maybe we are crazy. We’re set to leave next month.
Now lest you think I’m just joking, I’ll admit there are moments I wish I was. We’ve been ‘training’ for months, since last year to be exact. We’re fortunate to have a variety of terrain to practice on: hard dirt, asphalt, cement, loose rock, gravel, snow, up the mountain, down the mountain, or along the lake. At first it was 5 kilometers, then 10, 15, 20, and recently 22. We walk 3-4 days out of the week to keep from falling out of practice. The problem I’m more worried about is my left knee (a bit of arthritis). If we can make it to the halfway point in Spain I’ll be happy with that, but not without a large supply of pain relievers tucked within my backpack.
Boot camp is pretty much in our ‘back yard’ and it’s been a delight to see the flowers in bloom: drifts and drifts of snowdrops, yellow primroses, wood anenome, crocus, to name a few. At lower elevation along the river, patches of wild garlic lend such a heady scent that it always makes me hungry!
Leo & me
I didn’t realize that bicycle and foot paths along the Adda river had some history attached to it. Apparently, Leonardo da Vinci used to frequent the area and there’s an ecomuseum dedicated to this Renaissance man. A statue of his likeness stands next to a 14th century church rising above the Adda river. I wasn’t able to find a website in english but this link is dedicated to the ecomuseum: www.ecomuseoaddadileonardo.it
Rubber Slippers In Italy 