October 9 Montalcino

We were limping down a steep, rocky path through the woods. My trekking pole stabilized the descent but my knee, my hip, and my toe hurt. “At least we’re not doing this on our knees,” I quipped. That thought brightened me up. We were on the Way to the Abbey of Sant’Antimo deep in the Tuscan Hills. This ancient church has been a pilgrim’s wayside for over a thousand years and we were on the pilgrims’ trail.

The trees opened up and there, nestled between wheat fields, rows of grape plants and occasional olive orchards, rose a tall, plain, tan colored church. End in sight, I picked up my lagging pace.

A few tourists milled around the door. They were the first people we’d seen in our last three hours of hiking.

Entering the abbey I felt both relief and the sense of a holy place. Unlike the highly decorated cathedrals in Venice and Siena, this place was plain and serene. Gregorian chants over the sound system added to the feeling of mystery and awe. Mike moved to a pew at the front: I left him to his praying or recovering, and walked the inside perimeter of the church.

Maybe at one time it was brightly decorated with frescoes, but only a few soft and faded paintings remained. These two holy men were inside small arches.

The simplicity, the stateliness and the isolated hillside setting made this my favorite church so far. Here was a place a humble person could be close to their God. Maybe for me it was the work it took, ten miles of fairly rugged hiking, that made this place so welcoming to me. With a peaceful feeling, we moved on to find our bus back to Montalcino.

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Food Note: We were thirsty and starving. For supper I had pappa pomodero, a lukewarm soup made of tomatoes and bread. It looked sort of like condensed tomato soup, but the consistency was more like baby food or the smoothest tomato paste. The flavor was deep rich tomato, like nothing I’ve ever tasted before. Like the Abbey, it was pure, simple and divine.