Stage 10 Mandela to Subiaco

After a restless night it was just before 6am when I set off at a decent pace to try and cover my 18 miles and arrive in Subiaco by 2pm ideally. Today was to be flat and mostly sheltered in a forest.

I reached the half way point and stopped for coffee and the Italian equivalent of a bacon roll. Restocked the water supplies with some lovely and slightly fizzy mineral water and kept on going. The scenery was lovely as it has been, and I suspect I was beginning not to notice it.

All was going quite well, even if the right ankle was swollen and the tendons tender, and the pain in my blisters of the left foot was nagging. Then it got to the final 10km, I was struggling, I was slowing down, the heat, the pain and discomfort was getting to me. As much as I tried to over come the voices that told me I couldn’t go on, or that I should just sit down, it was getting harder. I knew that giving up in a forest was not an option. I knew that another village was near, if I could just keeping plodding on for just another hour we could rest. The village was Madonna della Pace, the first place I saw was the church. I entered and walked down the nave, approached the tabernacle and burst into tears as I collapsed onto a pew. I could not tell you why I cried and not even now.

It was hot, I was exhausted, the pain getting worse in my feet, it wasn’t being on my own or even the every day routine of packing up and moving on that had got me, but my feet. I had tried hard to look after them, but 112 miles off thereabouts in 10 days takes its toll. I sat in the cool peace of the church and contacted my Airbnb hosts to let them know I was not far but may be a couple of hours. They were 6km away along the main road.

Maria Rita and her husband Pino were kindness personified. They offered to collect me, and every part of my stubborn self wanted to politely decline and push through. However I felt that perhaps God was judging me to be less proud and just accept a short lift in very high temperatures in the middle of the day.

The house I was to stay in for two nights, to allow time to see the two monasteries and rest up a little was delightful, with an incredible view of Subiaco. As it was a Sunday, Maria Rita and Pino asked if I wanted to join them up at the Sacro Speco monastery for a special 6.30pm mass and what I realised later was an Italian bun fight afterwards, as they seemed to be celebrating St Benedict’s day. The Sacro Speco is the site of where St Benedict went to live in a cave until people kept annoying him and he created the monastery of St Silvestro, now St Scolastica.