My first post about Garfagnana took in three glorious walks and plenty of sumptuous pictures of the gorgeous place I stayed. With two more walks to write about, I feel nostalgic for those hikes and the stunning scenery they took me through. My last trip to Italy had been back in 1989; after my week in July, I’m determined not to leave it so long again. When we have the whole world to explore, it’s sometimes easy to forget the riches right on our own doorstep.
Our fourth walk was another circuit; not as high as other days, as the weather forecast wasn’t so good.
The weather was glorious as we set off and climbed higher, passing through a small village where most of us stopped to splash ourselves with cool, crisp, clean water from the village tap. I love the fact that in this part of Italy, the water is so good that you can quite safely drink from the communal tap.
As we left the village, we entered woodland for about 40 minutes. The flowers were gorgeous and pausing to take photos gave me a great excuse to rest in between steep upward trekking!
We emerged from the woods onto a plateau with a vast escarpment above. There’s some kind of technical term for the glacial bowl that formed the plateau but I’ll be buggered if I can remember what that is! Anyhow, it was incredibly pretty, with little stone huts and at the far end a steep-roofed church that fitted perfectly with the trees and rocks behind.
Onward! And into more woodland. The skies darkened and a storm was threatening. Our leader, Liz, reckoned we had just enough time to walk out onto the lookout point before the storm rolled in, so those of us brave enough to go, did. The dogs weren’t happy about it though!
Fortunately Liz had planned her walk well; the promontory that formed the lookout was steps away from a refuge. We started out on the ‘back porch’ but looking at the speed of the incoming storm, we quickly retreated inside. At first we couldn’t see a thing but eventually the eyes adjusted. It was a lovely little place and eating lunch on the pews of this little chapel was great.
There’s nothing quite like the freshness of mountain air straight after rain. Somehow the colours seemed sharper too. As we descended, I was stopping every few seconds to capture the delicate, glorious flowers and baccipretti.
Join me again (tomorrow I hope!) for my final walk in Tuscany.
By Carole Scott
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