We certainly felt in need of our rest today after yesterday’s marathon of nearly 30 kilometres. After a luxurious lie-in, leisurely breakfast, and ministering to the washing machine, we set out to find somewhere to have a good lunch.
Retracing our steps of yesterday we were much more appreciative of the tree lined pedestrianised boulevard, the Corso Giuseppe Garibaldi, leading from the railway station to the Piazza Pietro Pajetto Nedo. Close to the Piazza end we found a small family run cafe/bar doing a good trade in lunches, so decided to follow the crowd and were not disappointed.
At the adjacent table was a family group speaking English. After seeking their advice on whether it was table service or order inside, we got into conversation. They were two Tunisian men and the Dutch partner of one of them meeting up with a female Tunisian relative who moved here a year ago, as she explained, for love. They were very interested in our pilgrimage, and most encouraging.
Our next task was to find a supermarket to stock up on items for picnic lunches. En route we noticed again the flying baby spiders which had been all around us yesterday, catching their sticky web parachutes in our hair and on our clothes. Against a sunny blue sky we could see them floating around high above us.
Shopping sorted, we went in search of the Tourist Office to get our pilgrim passports stamped and had a very interesting conversation with the young woman working there. She told us that the confusing detours on our route yesterday had arisen because some of the local farmers had got fed up with lots of people walking over their land during Covid lockdowns. They had insisted on the Via Francigena being re-routed, despite the fact that only locals were allowed to walk there at that time. It seems the straw broke the camel’s back to the detriment of pilgrims like us. Equally frustrating for her, the City Council has not yet agreed to signpost her office from the railway station, which is the direction taken by most visitors. It seems that bureaucratic intransigence and life’s little frustrations are much the same wherever you live!
We were also able to make the link between the decaying Ospedale Maggiore di Sant’Andrea we had walked past at Cascina Stra yesterday and the current Ospedale Maggiore situated just behind the Tourist Office. Both are part of the foundation set up Cardinal Bicchieri in the 13th century when Vercelli was far more important than Turin or Milan because it lies on the Via Francigena, which was the main trading and pilgrim route between Rome and northern Europe during the Middle Ages. We were reminded that places like Amesbury and Ludgershall, near where we live, for example, were far more important in previous centuries than they are today.
Just around the corner from our B&B is the beautiful romanesque Basilica di Sant’Andrea (St Andrew the Apostle) which, being made of red brick, glows warmly in the low autumn sunlight. Unlike many of the churches we have visited in Italy so far, this one has retained its simple early architecture and avoided the baroque ornamentation of later times. This church too was founded in the early 13th century by Cardinal Bicchieri on his return from acting as Papal Legate to the royal courts of France and England, where two of his tasks were to support the crowning of Henry III and to witness Magna Carta, providing an interesting link with Salisbury.
Washing, shopping, and minimal sight-seeing done for the day we returned to our room to rest with a cup of tea and plan tomorrow’s walk before going out later for supper. There is a lot more of interest to see and do in Vercelli, but we will have to save it all for another visit.