Stage 13: Pietralunga - Gubbio

A leg of approximately 26 km on secondary roads and mule tracks. The uphill and downhill stretches are not challenging. The first stretch is in the silence of the mountain valleys, while the second part is all on flat ground as far as Gubbio. The trail is dotted with hermitages, abbeys and little villages.

Along the St Francis Way there are different ways of shortening this leg of the journey, while the churches and abbeys, even if closed, offer the possibility to stop and rest in the shade of the trees. You can walk without difficulty through the forests and open meadows, which offer sweeping views of the surrounding hills, and then cross the forest of conifers. The trail continues on along a tarmac road and, suddenly, the splendid plain around Gubbio opens up, where the horizontal lines of the fields cross the vertical lines of the poplars along the irrigation channels. 
Once you reach the locality of Loreto, the landscape changes: the silent forests give way to the cultivated fields and the villages. You will reach a tree-lined panoramic viewpoint next to the church of San Giovanni Battista (usually closed, but the kind caretaker lives opposite the church). 

You continue on downhill, until you reach the locality of Abbadia di Piazza, where you carry on along a secondary road, alongside which there are majestic oak trees. From here, a long stretch in the sun and on the tarmac begins and you will come across the new "Fonte del Pellegrino" (Fountain of the Pilgrim), a gift to wayfarers from the Parish Church of San Venanzio in Sermonte - Rione del Piano - in the Diocese of Gubbio. Your arrival in Gubbio is a reward for your efforts, not only because of the beauty of the place, but because of the strong bond that unites St Francis to the town. 

The Way ends in front of the church of St Francis, where there is an endearing statue of Francis and the wolf, in memory of the miraculous taming of the ferocious beast by the Saint. If you can spend a day in Gubbio, it is worthwhile walking around the town circuit known as the Path of "Fratello Lupo" (Brother Wolf), which allows pilgrims to visit the Franciscan places in the town, the "second home" of the Saint from Assisi.