Montenero Walking Again

After an interval of four long months I resume my Montenero walk.

The clouds are so low, they graze the hilltop, and in the silence I am surprised to hear the sound of a priest reciting mass to a group of chanting pilgrims, no doubt on a visit to the Sanctuary. Further on, as I pass a row of houses, I hear bathroom noises, and raised voices in a heated argument - accusations I don't wait to hear. Dogs behind fences would attack me if they could; their sudden barking startles me and I nearly step on a flattened frog in the road. A team of gardeners loudly strim hedges in a garden of olive trees; in a couple of months all those olives will be ready to pick, and I will be wondering - once again - what to do with mine.

On the longest and hardest uphill climb I bump into another church group heading up to mass (someone at the front is carrying a tall object that rises above the congregation - I expect it to be a cross, but it is a loud speaker). They are slow so I overtake them, by now red and sweating from my exertion. I attract curious stares. I am the only one who doesn't know the words to their litany, and I hope they don't think me disrespectful as I dodge round them.

Despite the greyness, the view from Via Byron is as wide and breathtaking as ever. A young girl waters plants in the little shrine to the Madonna. Lord Byron probably rode his horse along here when he stayed in Livorno, but I doubt he would have stopped to pray. I don't stop either.

A quick check of the pulse tells me four months is too long a break, and I slow down slightly to save my heart from any more battering.