Via Francigena - Day 12

From Monopoli, I headed on down the coast where I reached Torre Canne and back to some sandy shore lines. This was probably the first town that I could not find a church within the town old or new. It is quite small town and it's history is built around a light house from fairly recent times (last two centuries).

The beach at Torre Canne with Hotels in the background.

I found a small chapel on the side of the road on the way out of Monopoli. Very cute indeed.

Some more stunning coastline along the way.

A rare find, a statue of Our Lady of Revelation in the small town of Savalleteri. As many of you would know this is an apparition that happened in Rome not far from the Beda college and accross the road from St Paul's martyrdom site, Tre Fontane. She is associated with conversions.

Into Torre Canne and it was time to take rest with nearly 20km covered for the morning and the temperature rising. It was lovely scenery to sit back and relax and have some lunch.

After walking all these kilometres and relying solely on the Via Francigena app for directions and beginning to wonder if there was a trail here at all I found some signs in town directing pilgrims through with even a walking lane marked out on the side of the road.

Unfortunately Torre Canne e was booked out for accommodation and the closest I could find was about 5km out of town in the hills. I decided I would leave for it in the afternoon and stay there.

Fountunatly the trail lead up this way as well so I was making a head start on next mornings walk anyway.

They call this area the olive plains and the have been growing olives here for 500 years plus and some of the trees are probably that old or older.

A slight error in taking the wrong road out of town forced me to do some cross tracking to bring back on the correct path. This took me down the side of the train line. ( Behind the fence).

And through a tunnel under the tracks.

I finally reached my accommodation for the night and was well and truly exhausted the last 5 km up hill really took it out if me. The B&B I stayed in was really nice and I slept well this night.