Gardesans Return on Foot to Rome for Jubilee, Celebrating 1975 Journey
The greatest satisfaction? They experienced it on August 30th, when the Pope’s car passed just a few meters from them. Around 50,000 people cheered the Pontiff in St. Peter’s Square. In an instant, the group of Gardesans, quite original pilgrims who had chosen to reach the capital on foot for the Jubilee, forgot the heat and fatigue.
They set out for Rome on the morning of August 19th: five runners and a support vehicle. And while arriving in the Eternal City on foot for this year’s Jubilee was an achievement also accomplished by many others, the Gardesans could at least boast one unique aspect: the historic core of the Benacus-area group had taken the same route (626 kilometers) back in 1975, also during a Holy Year.
The return to Rome on foot
“We will return on foot to Rome in 2000,” they had promised 25 years ago. And so, from the group that left from the courtyard of the Church of Santa Maria Assunta in Navazzo at 5 in the morning, included Elio Forti, 48, a surveyor, and Maurizio Bertanza, 41, a plumber—veterans of the same journey a quarter of a century earlier. With them, on this occasion, were Mauro Castellini, a 54-year-old retiree, Sergio Dallaguardi, a 28-year-old municipal employee, and the only woman in the group: Mariangela Bontempi, a housewife.
All kept themselves in consistent training, although Dallaguardi (the youngest) and Castellini (the most fit) had a few extra cartridges up their sleeve. On support vehicles, they alternated Claudio Tavemini – a worker at the paper mill – and Giacomo Samuelli, an elementary school teacher. Forti and Bertanza thus kept their promise to return, made 25 years earlier.
However, Aurelio Bontempi (Mariangela’s brother) was unable to do so. At the time, he had just graduated from the Istituto Magistrale. Now he runs a construction company, and his professional commitments did not permit him to undertake the arduous journey again.
The historic route and variants
Forti was 23 years old at the time of that August, while Bertanza had recently finished middle school. They covered the 626 kilometers in less than ten days. Departing on August 1st from Navazzo (obviously at 5 in the morning from the church courtyard), they were photographed in front of Bernini’s colonnade at exactly noon on August 10th. The support vehicle (an old Fiat 500) was driven by Daria Pace, who had married Forti just a few months earlier.
The route from then was repeated with some variations. In some sections – they recount – the roads have turned into ring roads, and trucks rush by quickly and close. Nine and a half days weren’t enough this time, and they didn’t even need the 13 planned stages: the distance was covered in ten and a half days (Navazzo to Olgiata), plus an extremely tiring half day to go from the outskirts to the city center, amid traffic and chaos.
All details of the journey are recorded in their travel journal. The days were structured around a morning stage (leaving at 6), which allowed them to cover 32-33 kilometers. In the afternoon, they resumed walking at 4 p.m., trekking another 15-20 kilometers. The main challenges? The heat and the burning asphalt, which caused blisters and swelling in their feet. In the end, the victory was complete: they found tickets and entered Saint Peter’s. And the Pope passed right there, just two meters away.