Last night I ran into again 3 lovely Dutch ladies over dinner, I had met them on the first day and had breakfast at the same bar in the morning, also booked by Caminoways. So off we went, a party of 4 on our adventure.The focus of today was to get to the magical forests and Church of La Verna Sanctuary where St Francis spent much of his life.
I woke early this morning around 630am to ensure I could get away by 8am leaving 10 hours of daylight for the walk, lunch and exploring as I combined 2 days into one. This was set to test me today:- Stia to Comaldoli rated hard; 18kms with 1000m of steep climb and 600m of descents[…]
After a couple of late nights and a lot of walking I crashed out at 10pm last night not waking until 8am! I had a European breakfast (to Australians these questionable) and didn’t arrive back into Consuma until 930. By the time I provisioned up, I got away 10am.
How can you resist a cappuccino and prosciutto from here for lunch
The walk to Stia was rated as hard Stia with climbs of 500m and descents of over 1000m along a 17km route.
Today I start at Pontassieve, crossing the 16th century bridge and followed the track of an ancient road, climbing amid Chianti vineyards, up to the village of Diacceto (460m). Over the next 5 days I generally will continue this uphill journey through vineyards and forests.
The views today were spectacular looking over vineyards and through forests towards the green mountains of the central Apennines. Although only 18km, it has an 1100m climb and some rough tracks. It was a bit tougher today as headed towards the first mountain pass of the route at Passo della Consuma (1050m)!
Better Preparation
What a day!
Finished my blog of day ‘0’ at 220am – I know I should have started it before 10pm …. So I set the alarm for 0700. Morning consisted of a mad session of packing before dropping my main bag off for tranship at 0830. Should have packed up my 35 litre daypack beforehand and lifted it!
Breakfast was pretty good, Café Late machine, orange juice, great muesli and a tasty croissant. Relearning lessons after 8 years of 5 star – Lesson 1 – Simple can be good.
Yesterday I said goodbye to Amanda & Jack in Rome and jumped on the high speed train to Florence – impressive – 90 minutes later I was walking through Florence – an amazing medieval city imbued with masterpieces of architecture, painting, inventions, design and sculpture that formed the heart of the Renaissance. It really is quite amazing how concentrated the innovation was.. […]