Grecco to Casperia

Day Four of walking Grecco to Casperia

19 km 7 hours –

Weather – fine-

“Tough Climb at the start but easier after”!!!

I looked out the window and saw the tough part. It was straight up!!

The first hour (this usually means two for us) in full sun.

The first climb was from 700 metres to 1110 metres.

When we first read this we also read that if we wanted we could avoid the first half of the walk by getting a lift then walking the second part. Alex suggested that the first half looked the most interesting. We could get a lift at that later spot to get to Casperia.

We agreed that we would do this and we did!

 

The poles helped and the fact that we had been walking for three days REALLY helped.

I was surprised that as we got moving we were really much stronger than we thought.

I am glad that I was not carrying my overnight needs, and I was really happy with the way I had looked after my feet.

You hear of people with all sorts of issues with blisters and trouble spots but we were fine thanks to ‘compede’ and these lovely gel tubes that slipped onto the toes to provide the comfort of ‘slippers’ for the toes as we walked.

This day provided the most wonderful of views across the hills as well as the forest walks. Just so beautiful and quite breathtaking at times with just how special this part of the world is. Again, we were heading for a hill top town.

At one point we were wandering through what was very much like an English country scene, an oak forest, then there was more steep climbing before we came to the most amazing part of this day.

We came over the horizon to see this fantastic sight. Communal grazing for sheep, cattle, pigs, goats and horses There were no fences. The animals were all co-habitating the area. The sheep were being looked after by maremma dogs. There were two flocks that we could see. One lot had white dogs the second had black and white ones. This is the original area for these dogs. (Maremmano, is a breed of livestock guardian dog indigenous to central Italy, particularly to Abruzzo and the Maremma region of Tuscany and Lazio. It has been used for centuries by Italian shepherds to guard sheep from wolves. The literal English translation of the name is “The dog of the shepherds of the Maremma and Abruzzese region”.

From Wikipedia)

There were the remnants of a few houses here – in the notes they were talked of as shepherds houses

The lead cow had a bell on.

We all commented on the bucolic nature of the area.

As we wandered through we decided we had to stay longer to watch how it worked. We sat awhile enjoying this special moment (or hour)

We felt so privileged to be part of this scene.

 

Reluctantly we moved on. Through gentle woodland and down to a stream. However here we came to our first issue of erosion. The bank of the river had broken away and we had to get around it somehow!

We couldn’t go up – too steep – We couldn’t go down – the same issue. So we clambered across one at a time clinging on to the roots that were exposed. So exciting to make the other side. All in the day’s adventures!

The walk flattened out after this and we arrived at the town of Contanello.

Here we enjoyed a beer, called for a ride to Casperia where we were to stay the night and then have the whole next day off. We are on holidays. We deserved the ride.