il problema con mio ginocchio

Can you strain your meniscus without tearing it? I don't know but something whacky is going on inside my right knee. For two days it was hard to put weight on it. Every time I had a downslope to navigate, I had to step with my right leg and bring my left even with it, taking baby steps, or old man steps as Patrick with his sometimes sharp wit commented. Upslopes and flats were fine, no problem, but anything more than the slightest downslope, anything requiring an angle between my right lower leg and the upper was more than modestly painful. I felt that the knee would not support my body weight.

I have it managed now, thanks to ice packs every evening, two ibuprofens each morning and several days of predominantly flat terrain, but the knee hasn't been retested. There are still a few days on the Piedmont and Lombardy flats, walking for hours on the mud dams separating rice paddies, soon-to-be-risotto all around me, for miles! I won't be on hills again for another week. When I was going through my second cut at packing before leaving California, winnowing down weight, a snakebite kit here, a mylar emergency blanket there, I held my knee brace in my hand and considered it. If I had not been experiencing sciatica, if I had not felt my body a bit vulnerable, I would have left the knee brace at home. But I took it. It was my savior for four days until the backside of my knee was rubbed so raw the chafing became more of a problem than my slowly improving knee.

But the day I left Aosta started out on a high note. I met Claudio. Patrick spotted two figures with backpacks across a traffic circle as we were leaving the center of Aosta. A large monument at its center, leafy sidewalks on both sides of all six spokes, the Italian participation sport of aggressive lane changing at high speed was in full swing. We managed our way across. When Claudio spotted us his face opened into a large welcoming grin, his grey ponytail sailing to the right as he swiveled his head left in our direction. Claudio is the kind of person who leans into you when you converse, not in a threatening way, but in anticipation, anxious to participate, eager to enjoin the conversation. He is not a very tall man, but he has a big stride, in his early-sixties but has a hidden energy that could come pouring forth at any moment if he fails to restrain it. Mirella, his wife, was with him, on her first long-distance walk. Claudio and I chatted along most of the morning in broken Italian and broken English, a mongrel tongue that anyone trying to listen in would have difficulty comprehending. We were doing just fine though. Mirella contributed where she could.

I started the conversation with the same expression I use in every language I know a smattering of, "Non parlo multo Italiano ma provo." It works wonders when you tell someone in their own country that you don't know much of their language but you are going to try. If the conversation turns immediately to introductions and the introductions include where you are from, they are doubly astounded to find out you are American. It is just not what they expect and you've broken the ice in a very big way. If you are lucky enough to live in a place they have a positive image of, like San Francisco, a place that is on almost everyone's bucket list, you get eyebrows lifted, a big smile and a "Ahh, San Francisco." Once you confirm you are all pellegrini, there's a good chance you have a walking companion for at least a few hours, maybe days. The conversation turns quickly to where you are headed, for the trip and for the day, whether and how many times you've walked to Compostela, which routes you've taken, where you started this pilgrimage and when. Those are the preliminaries. It's the secret handshake. We are a brother/sisterhood, a community. It does not matter the nationality, the faith, the social class, the political outlook, the line of work, the age.

Sigerac the Serious, the Bishop of Canterbury who documented the Via Francigena in the last century of the first millennium, followed a route that is in some dispute. I believe that the only thing that is know for certain are the places he stopped each day of his return journey from Rome. If I had to guess, after reaching Aosta, Sigerac would have taken the Roman road which followed the river near the base of the valley, high enough to stay passible in times of flood. The Roman road I walked on last year had been covered over with gravel. This one was the original, the same stones Roman legions marched over and Roman suppy wagons cut ruts into.

Today, the base of the valley is traversed not only by the river, but also by the modern version of the road to Gaul, the superstrada, the highway whisking auto and truck traffic from the Val d'Aosta to the Piemonte and beyond, and by roads that permit access to the towns that line the base of the valley and the lower reaches of those towns that are built on the hills that slope up from it. Today's Via Francigena connects the places that are documented by Sigerac's scribe, but the route between those sites are not known exactly. Where there are extant portions of the old Roman road, you can be pretty sure Sigerac traveled over it. 

The roads today's pilgrims walk are designed to keep them off busy thoroughfares, opting instead for country roads, dirt tracks through woods and fields, and cobbled paths that connect evocative hamlets and villages, especially if there are interesting churches, towers, or castles to be visited or viewed, any sites that pilgrims or hikers might be drawn to. In this region, in the foothills of the Alps and along the longest moraine in Europe, that means climbing and descending. 

On this particular day there was nothing to match the descent from the Col de Grand Saint Bernard we had just accomplished, but enough to make you work. It was not that the elevation changes were so great, only that they were steep, both up and down. In between three notable sections, there were many smaller ascents and descents so that by the time we got to the last climb of the day, I felt that I was in serious trouble.

My knee started hurting on the first descent. We had attacked the upslope with aplomb, making good time, winded but strong. A flat sectioned followed and Claudio and Mirella stopped for something to eat from a plastic bag Claudio had been carrying since we met him in Aosta. Patrick and I continued along. When we started down, I was very surprised that my knee was hurting. I had no prior indication that there was anything amiss. The damage likely had been done on the two days of long descents from St. Bernard to Aosta. This first significant downslope of the day did not do the damage. It just made it evident. 

We decided to stop for lunch and headed down off trail into to find a restaurant. After we finished, we needed to regain the height we had lost. Again we attacked, taking the full elevation change without slowing and without a rest. We found Claudio and Mirella again, they were sitting in the shade outside a church. Mirella had blisters and her feet were hurting.

Walking together for the remainder of the day, we passed by the home of a Romanian gentleman, eighty years old, mind sharp, body giving no indication of slowing down. He had worked for sixty years in the US and when it came time to return to Europe, the only place he was going to go was Italy. He showed us his woodcarvings – they adorned the side of his home abutting the trail. We spoke for about ten minutes. He asked us in for coffee but we declined.

The longish stop was a bad idea. My knee had stiffened and every step was painful. Claudio asked what was wrong and when I told him he asked if I wanted to stop. I said no and he gave me a "bravo!" There really was no choice, no way to bail off the trail. Where would I go? Patrick suggested I take the lead to set a pace comfortable for me.

Some people walk with head erect, surveying the landscape. I generally walk with my head somewhat bowed, glancing ahead at the trail a few feet in front of me. I think it is because I am often deep in thought. So it is not totally surprising if I miss a turn or a trail marker now and then. I think I do it more than most. When we found ourselves ascending between two old abandoned stone houses, roof shales and stone blocks that had been walls scattered and covering what we thought was the trail, cantilevered so that stepping on one side lifted the other and your boot sank, brushing against discarded shale stones, we knew we had lost the trail.

Patrick suggested retracing our steps, but by that time I was not going to go down when I could go up. The pain was too great. So I volunteered to forge ahead and retake the Via Francigena, which my GPS indicated was twenty or so meters above us. Once I cleared the stones, I pushed through deep ground cover, bushes, and high grasses. Finally, I saw a clear trail above me. Calling to the others, I forged ahead. We did eventually have to head down into the town at which we would be staying that night, Chatillon. I was in bad shape and asked the man who greeted us at the restaurant/albergo for a bag of ice.

As I spelled out in the opening to this post, I am now a number of days past. Some of those days included lesser climbs and descents, but anything past a minimal downslope was difficult for me. The first of those next days were very problematic, but as we hit the flats, and there are days and days of them past and yet to come, my knee, helped by two ibuprofens in the morning and icing in the evening, settled down. The first really significant climb and descent will not be for another week. I'll try to baby my knee until then.