Boots Auction Cancelled!

Hi guys

I have just found out that eBay has withdrawn the listing for my boots!

I have sent them an email to find out why, and will let you know when they are back online...

Buy My Boots!!!

Yes, that's right. You now have the chance to buy the boots that took me the whole way from Canterbury to Rome.

Click Here
to go to the auction.

As you all know I am trying to make a documentary of the next stage of my trip, so the funds raised will go towards this.

It has been a while since my last post and I have been enjoying the rest. My feet are starting to look normal again, and my legs have finally stopped hurting :)

The other BIG news is that my mother has heard my call and will come and join me from Rome. Her goal is to make it to Istambul! WOW! It says a lot for the genes in our family i know ;)

We will set off on the 21st or 22nd of September so stay tuned...

Thank You All :)

So now it’s time to hang my boots up and take a short holiday from being a pilgrim…

I have found over the last few weeks that I have become very self-absorbed because of spending so much time in my own company. I think my social skills have taken a bit of a beating and when I read back through some of the emails I wrote recently, I feel that they also show this.

So now I will try to readjust back in to the “real world” :)

I would like to thank everyone who has been following my journey. You guys are all great! I cannot express how much it has meant a to me to know that I have not been walking alone.

For those of you who would like to continue following my journey through to Jerusalem, I will place regular updates on this blog to keep you all informed.

I also put together a website…

www.partypilgrims.com

Please feel free to contact me anytime :)

My plan right now is to be walking again by the start of September. Between now and then I am going to try to drum up support for a documentary, as well as try to find some other people crazy enough to join me on this next stage ;)

So if you have itchy feet…

Pilgrimage from Rome to The Vatican :) 10/08/07

This is it!!! My final assault on the Vatican :)

I must have been excited this morning, because even after the wine last night I could not sleep in. I woke up at 7am in great spirits and busily prepared myself for my last walk…well, not really much of a walk, it was more like a stroll across the road ;)

It was an amazing feeling to walk into S. Pietro’s square. It made all those nights in my tent worthwhile.

I found an information office and was informed that I needed to go into the Basilica if I wanted to get my “Testamonium”, the certificate that the Vatican awards to pilgrims.

The security was a bit surprised with the size of my bag but luckily let me through anyway.

S. Pietro’s Basilica is a truly awesome, one of the most impressive structures I have ever seen. But I was trying not to look as I have a friend meeting me tonight who came to Rome just to show me the Basilica tomorrow…so we won’t tell her I already took a glimpse ;)

Nobody seemed to know the exact location of the office I was meant to find but I finally located it.

For the information of anyone else who does this pilgrimage, after you enter the Basilica go down on the left hand side until you reach the entrance to the museum. Follow the hall until you reach the museum ticket desk and just before it on the left is a roped of passage with a guard. Tell the guard what you want to get a “Vatican stamp” or “Vatican timbro” and he will take you to the office.

I have heard that some people get there “testamonium” on the day, but I was asked to bring back a copy of my pilgrims passport and they would send I out. So if you bring a copy with you the first time you might save yourself an extra trip.

Thank you all for sharing this journey with me and I look forward to seeing you all back here for the rest of the pilgrimage shortly…

So that’s it….for now :)

Pilgrimage from Palo to Rome 09/08/07

YES!!! As you can see by the title I made it to Rome!!! :)

I was happy to sleep in this morning because I thought it would only be a short walk today. When I woke up at 08:30 Mario came out to say goodbye and gave me a wonderful packed lunch of tuna, tomatoes and bread. What a champion!

I had a spring in my step, as I knew this part of the journey was almost over. The walk felt great, but it was still all along the highway.

Whenever I asked about the distance to the Vatican I was continuously given different answers, with a range of around 15kms. I was once again wishing I had a map :(

Also, the highway seems to bypass all the towns now, so the only places to stop are the service stations. I did find a caravan park though and decided to stop for lunch.

It was wonderful. They put on a great buffet and I once again ate too much. If they had the internet I would have stayed as they said they were only 15kms away from the Vatican.

I thought there would be quite a few places to stay on the outskirts of Rome but I was mistaken. The next place I found was he Holiday Inn, and when I went to talk to them about the distance to the Vatican I was informed it was only 4kms away! The guys at the counter where great and recommended this wonderful little B&B about 200m from S. Pietro Basilica for only €50. As they wanted €100 for the night, I got them to book me the B&B :)

It was an amazing feeling walking in to Rome. It felt as though a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. The last 4kms flew by and it wasn’t long before I caught my first glimpse of the Vatican. What a feeling!!! :)

As I still had my packed lunch from Mario I figured I might as well leave the final push for tomorrow and have my last pilgrims meal tonight with a nice bottle of wine.

The B&B was awesome! I highly recommend it. I have to admit that I wasn’t expecting much after seeing what €50 would get me along the coast, but I was pleasantly surprised. The room was brand new, there was a kitchen to cook in and you could help yourself to the “breakfast” whenever you wanted. It’s called Carolina B&B – Ph. 0039 347 180 6657 and from the front door you can see S. Pietro Basilica! Amazing :)

So after a hot shower, catching up on all my blog entries, eating Mario’s packed lunch and drinking quite a few glasses of wine, it was off to bed to dream about my final day tomorrow on the Via Francigena.

Pilgrimage from Civitavecchia to Palo 08/08/07

It seems I didn’t learn my lesson well enough the other night… :(

I was woken up at 04:30 with things crawling all over me. I got out my torch and sure enough I had left my flap open a touch and an army of ants had moved in…

They were only small and didn’t appear to bite, so considering I wanted to get up at 05:30 anyway, I just curled up in my sleeping bag and went back to sleep :)

I have now been three days without a shower or a swim and have developed quite a nice layer of dirt. Curled up in my sleeping it soon turned to mud! It was an extremely pleasant sensation waking back up at 05:30…very sticky :)

And then I had to deal with the ants. Everything got unpacked and had a good shake. Just what I wanted to be doing first thing in the morning!

It was a pleasant sunrise though, and a perfect temperature for walking so I made good time before breakfast.

I haven’t been able to find a good map of the area because it’s holidays and everyone has sold out. It’s not such a problem for the route, as I don’t think I can get lost from here (touch wood), but it would be nice to plan where to stay and to find out exactly how far the Vatican is.

Spotting a sign for a Tourist Information office, I followed it to this place called Santa Severa. There is an old castle here, but not too much to see. When I enquired about a map, the only one they had would be good for about 300m down the road :(

It did however mark some ruins and when I asked about these I was told, “You might be able to see them. You have to go next door to the little museum and ask the man there. If he is in a good mood he will let you, otherwise…” then they just shrugged :) Italians are great!

I went next door and luckily the man was in a good mood, he promptly invited me in and I got my own private tour of the museum. I have to admit this made it much more interesting…even if it was all in Italian. Probably one of the nicest museum visits I’ve ever had ;)

We then went down to check out the ruins but there wasn’t much left. Only the foundations but it was still good to have a look.

At around 16:00 I decided to stop for the night at this little town Paulo. This would leave me 40-50kms for the last two days. Too easy :)

I found a parish and even though they didn’t have room for pilgrims, the caretaker, Mario, let me camp in the back yard. The best thing was I could get a shower!!! It was cold but who cares, it was great!

I did have a bit of a miscommunication with him though…

He couldn’t speak any English and I though he wanted to try my sunglasses on, he obviously asked if he could have them :) So after I agreed, he was a bit surprised when I asked for them back as he was leaving…

Very amusing :)

Luckily he didn’t hold it against as later, he happily bought me out a HUGE plate of polenta.

I was in my tent watching a movie, which Mario was sure must be a porno, when dinner arrived. I have to admit that it wouldn’t be completely unknown for a porno to accidentally find its way on to my computer, so I was lucky that this one wasn’t because Mario thought he better check :)

He also didn’t leave until I had finished the whole plate. I tried stop a couple of times but without any luck. I HAD to eat it all! It got to the point where I was considering trying to stash the last few mouthfuls under my tongue because I was sure I was going to pop. Luckily I didn’t, but it didn’t make me feel so good…maybe Mario did hold the sunglass thing against me after all ;)

Pilgrimage from Montalto Di Castro to Civitavecchia 07/08/07

As I was sleeping in another paddock it was once again an early alarm. But this time it looks like I had been found out…

As soon as I started moving around inside my tent this great yapping started up. It sounded a bit far away but I thought I better check just in case. Sure enough, about 50m away, four little “yap yap” dogs were giving it their best. Luckily none of them were game to get any closer but it wasn’t long before it got the attention of the farmer.

I gave him a wave and I figure the fact I was up and about at 6am worked in my favor because he just waved back and went back to work.

It was a boring 20km walk to along the highway to Tarquinia but I made good time. I wanted to get my laundry done, find an internet café, and then walk at least another 10kms.

Unfortunately, Tarquinia is situated on a big hill and once I was at the top I found out the Laundromat was back down the bottom…the laundry could wait so it straight to the internet.

I haven’t had much luck with internet over the last few days and today wasn’t any different. I only got half the things I wanted to do finished before I was informed that the shop was closing for lunch. So as many of you would have seen, I have had half a post up for the last couple of days :( sorry…

I did find out however that the next big town, Civitavecchia, was only 20kms away. So rather than wait for the internet to reopen, I decided to leg down there.

It was a hard slog…I have banned myself from Sprite and I think my body was protesting. And not only that, I hadn’t had a coffee today either so it was a double blow :)

Five kilometers out I decided that if I found a caravan park I would stop, but it wasn’t to be…I finally crawled into town around 20:00 and went to see if I could find a parish. After an hour searching I was still out of luck, so it was looking like another night in the tent. The worst thing was that I would have to walk out of town, which meant that I wouldn’t get internet or laundry done in the morning :(

I thought my luck had changed when I spotted a one star Albergue near the edge of town…but even they wanted €50 for the night!!! Italy isn’t the place to be in August if you want a cheap holiday. Even though saying that, I don’t think I really could be spending any less on accommodation ;) So I suppose the exorbitant prices do have their bonuses, even if it is just forcing me to camp :)

Civitavecchia had a funny feel to it so I wanted to find a good hiding place for camping. Unfortunately my legs were too tired to take me very far so I settled on this dodgy bit of a construction site. At least if I was gone before it got light it would be unlikely that anyone would see me.