Fog and sunshine - in the wrong order!

I got up at 7.30am this morning, not to exercise but instead to prepare a salad and some other bits and pieces for a packed lunch. Of course my first tasks were feeding the cats and opening up the goose house to let the geese see daylight. When I opened the front door, I was disappointed to find a very misty, foggy morning out there. The weather forecast had promised good weather for today - and when Mum and Dad had made their trip up from the apartment to our house for dinner last night they had reported that there were starry skies, which we all assumed were the start of the good weather coming in.

Who stole the hill from our view??

When I stuck my head out of the front door again, this time to collect some basil for the salad I was making, I was horrified to find that it was actually raining. This was not the weather we had ordered for today!!

Stuart got up and joined me in the kitchen just as I was finishing my food preparations, and after we'd both had breakfast we thought we would go and see how Mum and Dad were doing. They were up and about, but were wondering whether we should ditch the idea of going for a walk today altogether, since the weather was so dreary - and instead concentrate on some more jobs around the house/garden/land. Thankfully, they were fairly easily persuaded to at least spend the morning doing some walking (I had made a picnic, after all!), but we downgraded the original plan of driving to the Garfagnana and instead decided to try to find some footpaths in our own valley.

We therefore all got ourselves ready and headed off for Pontito - the highest village of the Dieci Castella. As we drove along, the views were completely non-existent. The beautiful vistas that we usually see were obliterated by thick cloud. Every now and then a village would appear out of the mist, and then disappear again as quickly as it had appeared.

The view from Pontito is usually spectacular, but not today! After parking up at the bottom of the village, we did manage to pick out Stiappa, and Sorana and Aramo occasionally appeared like ghostly apparitions, but the view was largely of cloud.

We found that the steep cobbled streets of Pontito - which we had struggled up in the heat earlier in the summer - now posed a challenge of a different type. In the damp misty air, the surface of the cobbles was as slippery as an ice rink, and all four of us slipped and slided our way up the steep streets - even our sensible walking boots seemed of little help!

We eventually made it to the top of the village and the church though, from where we doubled back slightly to pick up the footpath (route 54) we had our eye on, which was to take up north of the village. The walk started out well enough, but it wasn't very long at all before the path started to become very overgrown and we were picking our way through brambles and acacias, having to stop and unhook ourselves from the thorny undergrowth with each step. It soon became apparent that the path was going to be like this all the way along - and walking it, unpicking ourselves with every step, would both be painfully slow and not particularly enjoyable. We therefore gave up on route 54 and headed back down to the road where we'd left the car.

Too many brambles.

We were all disappointed, but Stuart and I had a plan-B in mind. We drove back down the road to San Quirico and took a turning off it towards the Rifugio Uso di Sotto. We'd heard that there was a nice walk up to this refuge, so we drove up the rather bumpy road until we spotted a footpath sign saying that the refuge was 4.4km away. We parked the car and set out on foot for the second time.

This time, the going was a lot easier, at least underfoot - we were basically walking up a road that turned into a wide track (passable by vehicle, but only a couple came past us). We were once again walking through woodland - mainly pine trees and sweet chestnuts - and constantly heading upwards.

We stopped for our picnic lunch after a little while, then continued on our way, up and up.

Lunch!

When we eventually found ourselves at a small chapel, we all felt that we had already walked further than the advertised 4.4km - but the signpost suggested there were still another 2km to go! We pressed on - we were still engulfed in cloud - although the tree cover meant that we wouldn't have had any views to look at even if it had been a clear day.

We did eventually reach the Uso di Sotto refuge. I'm not sure anyone was that impressed - the refuge is just a large building in a clearing, and is the sort of place you might stay if you were hiking long distance or taking a group of scouts on an overnight trip - but we were all pleased to have finally reached our goal! Before we did an about-turn, Stuart re-set the GPS so that we could see whether we had actually walked further than the 4.4km the signs would have us believe.

Not much to write home about!

In fact, the GPS reported that the signs were absolutely spot on. It only took us 50 minutes to descend to the car - so much easier going on the way down!!

We got in the car and slowly descended through the valley, the weather clearing as we went. By the time we reached our house, the sun was shining and it felt hot! After unloading the car and going to our respective abodes to de-boot, we reconvened at the table and chairs outside the apartment for cups of tea and torta crema. In the dappled shade of the fir trees, it was the perfect spot for our tea/coffee and cake, and we sat a while, enjoying each other's company and our surroundings.

Stuart then announced that he was going to go to Obi to try and get a few bits and pieces that he needed, so he headed off for Montecatini, leaving Mum, Dad and I to our own devices. While Mum started on some packing, I mowed the lawn, then Dad and I both weeded and trimmed the vegetation from the garden walls.

Stuart seemed to have been gone for a very long time, but eventually reappeared at about 6.15pm. Turns out that 5pm on a Saturday is the worst possible time to go to Obi, and the whole trip had taken almost twice as long as expected because the place had been so busy. Still, he managed to get all the bits and pieces he was after, so the trip was worthwhile in the end.

After unloading the car, Stuart and I put the geese to bed, then retired indoors to book a table for dinner at a restaurant in Vellano, shower and change. We then reconvened with Mum and Dad at 7.45pm for the drive up the road to Vellano and dinner at Trattoria Manero.

We had a pleasant dinner, and after dinner strolled back to the car in the balmy warm evening, marvelling at the clear view down the valley to the lights of Pescia - why couldn't it have been that clear this morning?!!

We drove home, spent a few minutes looking at the starry skies above, then said our goodnights. I've loved having Mum and Dad here this week, and I really don't want tomorrow morning to come.