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.