GAS: Garulla to Montemonaco

  

We awoke to clean, bright sunshine and a very sugar-heavy breakfast spread. We were off into the day by 9 and expected quite a moderate amount of ascent, although as it turned out there was still quite a lot of up. We decided to make a detour to the Gola (gorge) dell’Infernaccio, which took about an extra hour and a half but was well worth it. You could see there had been a massive landslip along the way and everything was shored up with massive steel netting and fences. 

Montefortino

Emergency lunch stop towards the top of a long, steep hill

View from the guesthouse

The last few miles were mostly road walking and there was a hill at the end, so we were very grateful to arrive at our guesthouse towards 5pm. A lively place with great views. They gave us the most unbelievable and impracticable amount of amazing food for dinner (half-board) and we just couldn’t manage the final course or any pudding (boo!) We’ve asked them to skip the secondi platti meat course tomorrow night. Tomorrow we have a day of rest and will just walk an hour or so into Montemonaco. On Thursday night we’re staying somewhere quite remote so we will have to carry two days’ worth of lunches with us. They’re leaving us some food for dinner in a box, apparently!

GAS: Fiastre to Garulla

  

We were a little delayed this morning by the hostel person turning up late to give us breakfast, but in the end we managed to set off by 9.30. 

Lago de Fiastre

Although the amount of ascent and the mileage were similar to yesterday, it felt a lot harder because the hills were steeper and there was a really long ascent for several miles. Knackering.  

Yikes!

On the plus side, we didn’t have any steep descents. Great views over the hills, and a cool breeze most of the day.  Very good walking temperature again. 

Nearly at Fiastre

The hostel tonight is good but I made the mistake of going for beef again, and it arrived as wafer-thin slices in gravy, including a lot of fat. Looked the same as last night’s unappetising veal shank. That’s obviously how they roll around here. I’ll go for the vegetarian options from now on. We also had polenta with a thick layer of cheese and some mushrooms - nice but very salty and heavy. The meals are a bit light on fruit and veg so far. Mountain food, I guess.

An easier day tomorrow, and then a two-night stay in a nice guesthouse.

GAS: Visso to Fiastre

 

The day started with a fried egg, ham, yogurt and a warm, freshly made cake in our lovely hotel in Visso. Visso quite a strange place as riddled with building sites and cranes and half-buildings. They’re still rebuilding after two huge earthquakes that happened about ten years ago. 

Lots of this sort of thing

We had a nice pizza for dinner on night one, and discovered some very nice delicacies in the local bakeries, including a sort of moist rock cake stuffed full of dried fruit and nuts. It weighed a ton so Jo and Louise split it in half and carried half each 😆

Setting off!

After a small difficulty identifying the start of the trail (a common problem), we walked up through pine forest and then out onto open grassy hills. The weather was great today - about half an hour or so of rain early afternoon, but not hot or too sunny. Really good for walking. My newish Altra shoes were fab, no sign of pinching or blisters all day. Yay!

Elizabeth doing her thang

We saw quite a few horses, including a largish group that didn’t seem to be behind a fence but were just grazing on the hill. Two sheepdogs with their sheep. Some big, square-looking white cows. But not a single other person all day (not even a farmer).  We had a couple of nice rest stops, including one by the gravel track where we could hear little trickles of rainwater chirping their way down.

We seemed to spend most of our time going up or across the sides of hills, and yet we have ended at a similar altitude to Visso. There was, however, a stretch at the end that was hideously steep scree and that knackered our knees and made our legs all trembly. Even harder for those without walking poles. 

Near the end - Lago di Fiastre in the background

We have a 9-bed dorm room all to ourselves tonight, in the Rifugio de Tribbio, just before Fiastre. A bit chilly but pretty comfy. Extremely high ceiling, and all stone walls. Dinner in the restaurant upstairs was good. Delicious ricotta ravioli in mushroom sauce to start, and then meat etc. Chick peas in a rosemary broth. 

Isle of Wight: Brook/Compton/Mottistone circular

 

We awoke to a deluge today, but by 9.30 or so it had miraculously cleared. 

Half an hour later!

We thought we’d do something not too ambitious, just a 7-mile circular from the house. The weather behaved quite well, just a touch of rain here and there, but it was still quite windy. I managed to take us west instead of east when we hit the coast path, but that was OK as it meant some beach fun for Mabel. 

Some road walking later on, up to Mottistone Manor where we stumped up the admission charge to go in and have a coffee and a look around the lovely garden. Lots of dahlias, along other things.

From there, a shortcut back along rather an inhospitable road. We took the opportunity to turn left down a footpath to the military road, which as it turned out was not the coast path (as is the case further west) but just a horrible A-road. Not fun at all with Mabel, but fortunately after ten minutes or so we were able to turn off down a bridle way which took us back into Brook. A quick trip back to Brighstone Village Store to get dinner, and now a lovely hour or so sitting in the sun with a cup of tea.

Isle of Wight: Yarmouth to Alum Bay

 

Today was an odd one as it felt like we did a lot of walking but it turned out it was less than ten miles. I accidentally took us down the estuary rather than along the coast from Yarmouth, which then led to a fair bit of road walking through Freshwater (and tarmac is tiring), it was quite hilly, and towards the end extremely windy (gusts of nearly 60mph!)  We decided to catch a bus for the last five miles. 

The day started off with two buses to get us to Yarmouth, a lovely little town with some nice shops, cafes and architecture. I bought a big, sturdy coral tote bag in a gift shop as couldn’t resist the colour. The sun was shining today most of the time, with a few showers but they were not the deluges we suffered yesterday.

The walk down the estuary path was lovely - swans and geese galore, and a wide woodland path. We chatted to several other dog owners. 

After a bit of a road trudge we stopped at a marvellous cafe for a superlative coffee. 

Then up into the wooded headland for cheese sandwiches on a bench, with a view down to a fort in Freshwater Bay. 

Then on to the Needles and a horrible, tasteless sort of holiday park with touristy shops and stuff, and a cable car for views of the Needles. It was shut because of the wind, one chair swinging around alarmingly. 

We eventually got to the end of the peninsula and turned back along it - a lovely walk along Tennyson Down, wide swathe of springy green with views of the sea to left and right. It was so windy that they’d closed the battery. It was about 4.30 and I decided it would be too far to walk all the way to Brook at this point, so we decided to get the bus. Picked blackberries by the bus stop while we waited and the bus route took us back around Freshwater Bay, which was quite a nice bit of sightseeing. 

Back home for baths and another salmon dinner, then the three-parter The Replacement, with. Vicky McClure. Bit of a laugh. Then a late bedtime, nearly 11pm, yikes! Not setting any alarms for the morning. Undecided about which bit of coast to walk tomorrow. Legs far more tired than I would like, given that I have a very taxing Italy trip looming up very soon. Too few hills here for training purposes. Maybe hills are what I should seek out tomorrow!