Camaldoli

The monastery of Camaldoli

Another trip into the Casentino, where earlier in the week we saw the delightful chapel of Santa Maria della Gratie near Stia, and several other lovely places. Today's outing was more focused: to see the monastery at Camaldoli and then walk up to the hermitage a few kilometers away.

The Benedictine monastery dates from 1023 and was founded by St Romuald. As a visitor, you can see the 16th century pharmacy and two lovely cloisters: a delightful renaissance once and this stirring gothic one which you enter by descending from the main door shown in the photo above.

There is also a baroque church.

We left the monastery and followed a winding tarmac road which led up to the Hermitage. The monastery is quite high up at 850m and the hermitage appreciably higher at 1094m. Our impression was that there was a track which was criss-crossed the road as it followed a more direct - and hence steeper - route through the trees.

The woodland path was lovely in the dappled sunshine and we made good progress uphill.

In several sections there were ravines with mountains streams descending, and the sound of rushing water accompanied us most of the way.

We passed a couple of pilgrimage chapels on the way. However, after crossing and re-crossing the road several times, we made one crossing too far and headed up another path. It was waymarked, but, we later realised, not in the same way as the path we started out on. We ascended increasingly rough terrain, confident from the position of the sun that we were going in the right direction and certain we were not lost by the knowledge that the road was somewhere to our left.

Eventually we hit a level area and a path going across our line of march from right to left. We naturally headed left and, following a fine broad path, found our way to this lake. A nearby noticeboard explained that it was artificial - a monastic fish pond of the kind we have seen in Berkshire. Clearly we were nearly there!

And indeed we were. Soon we rejoined the road and reached the open area in front of the hermitage. Although quite high, it is so surrounded by trees that there is no view and very little sense of being in a high place. The hermitage was of course closed for lunch. However, we had brought a picnic which we enjoyed on a bench by the wall. Later we had a drink in the curious cafe-cum-religious-bookstore which was in the building on the right of the photo.

When we went through the gate we were struck by just how big and elaborate the hermitage was - not really what we had imagined. We saw St Romuald's cell and had a glimpse of the private area where the modern monks have their cells.

The hermitage church was an imposing building from the outside ...

... but was, shockingly to our minds, decorated in a most over-wrought baroque fashion inside. We felt there was a surprising disconnection between this ostentation and what we imagined was the simple life of prayer led by the monks.

We followed the road back down to the monastery, with the dense woods all around.
 It was much quicker than the way up!

Conditions: 28 degrees, sunny.

Distance: 4 miles or so.

Rating: three stars.


Reflections

We should probably steer clear of any building described as baroque. We always find them impossibly ornate and over the top.

On the one hand, our navigation through the woods was successful and we ended up where we intended to go. We were never exactly lost - we could always have retraced our steps to where we last left the road. On the other hand, we had no map and could easily have gone wildly astray. An exercise of skill or a lucky escape? I think I might try harder to find a suitable map next time. At  a deeper level this means discovering first what map series are available.