10 th September

sentiero
crinale
carrareccia
strada asfaltata
strada vicinale
strada provinciale
strada sterrata
una carrozzabile
mulattiera
cammino

?.I?ve done them all today, up and down again and quite lousy weather to start the day with, as well.


Up a steep hill for breakfast on a slippery path. There had been heavy rainfall overnight and the sky was still overcast. When I had made it up to the first top of hill, the wind was blowing quite strong and cold so. The idea in terms of dressing was one T-shirt, a safari sort of vest with loads of pockets and sweat to do the central heating if I got a bit cold. I had to put on a few more layer now, though another T-shirt, pullover and even my bright yellow plastic poncho came out and I finally understood why it was only three francs: because it wasn?t worth more. It did cut the wind off (a bit) but I definitely had the feeling that I was under equipped in case the weather was going to turn worse than it was.
My glasses steamed up, I was sweaty cold and wet. It?s not the sort of conditions that anyone really appreciates, nor did I. The one positive thing, was that the flies and horseflies that were annoying me the day before did not like that type of weather either.
I thought my problem was going to be the heat and I sent up a request to the gods that are responsible for the VIA DEGLI DEI these days –whoever they might be – to send the water they were holding in their clouds to some place where it might be more useful (attached a list of possible places to this request). The weather eventually did get a bit better, although I do not know where the water was sent as my suggestion list was quite extensive. So whoever out there did get some rain on that they and felt it came in useful, please send me a thank you on my e-mail.
Most of the walk this day was through the woods and apart from a few blokes cutting some wood |I did not meet one single person for the whole walk. I managed to scare a few deer which I didn?t even manage to see.
There are a few spots where the VIA FLAMINIA MILITARE is still visible.
It actually took one and a half hours less than what my guide was saying., so I made to MONTE DI FO by two o?clock.
When I was doing my research for preparation of this walk, I was wondering why MONTE DI FO was the only place on the Bologna to Florence walk, there was no mention of on the Internet.
There are three houses, two of which are the hotel and restaurant and a campsite along the main road, maybe that explains why??
Quick bite of Papardelle al cinghiale and salsiccia e spinacci, a shower and siesta, which leaves me with some time to update my diary and stuff.
I don?t think you?ll hear much more about MONTE DI FO from me apart from the fact that 65ish old buddy that runs the place seems to spend his time on the phone behind the bar chatting up all the women in the area and you have to wait about 20 minutes to get a cup of coffee?.


PS Just 3 things before hitting the sack:
I?m now in Tuscany:
1/ Their accent brings back a lot of memories
2/ The table wine is light, whilst having that rich taste of ripe grapes (I obviously had some while doing this). Brings back another few memories of long time ago, doing the grape picking with Ottavio Trentanovi
3/ They actually have fairly decent quality of mattresses to sleep on, nowadays