Tag Archives: Italy

Day 1 – Monterosso to Bonassola – A baptism of fire

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Sunday 14 June 2026 – I suppose Jane and I thought that we were well ‘ard, as we had elected to go on the harder longer walk, despite the warnings from Accuweather that the expected temperature of 25°C would “feel like” 30°C. We had a leisurely start at 0945, and we used the time beforehand to wander into the village to buy fodder for a packed lunch. I was hoping to get a cheese and ham focaccia, similar to the delicious one I’d had at the Caffé delle Rose the previous day; and Trevor had pointed out a couple of recommended focacciarie for us to try out. However, the process wasn’t as straightforward as I thought it would be (well, it’s Italy, after all). We walked into the first one and looked at the array of various slabs of focaccia laid out and weren’t quite sure how the system worked. So we went in to the second one, and it was exactly equally not obvious as to whether a ham and cheese focaccia might be available. Of course, being British, we couldn’t actually ask, so we simply looked for something that might be vaguely tasty (which meant all of the varieties on offer, let’s be honest) and pointed at it. Thus we walked out with an olive focaccia for me and a tomato and anchovy number for Jane. Not what I’d had in mind, but likely to be decent sustenance if it could withstand being jolted up a hillside.

Our lead guide, Rebecca, gave the whole group a briefing before we set out and the two groups, five punters in one, two in the other, split to their various walks.

(The chap in the white stetson lookalike, by the way, is Trevor, the tour manager.)

In any case, both routes started the same way, with a walk that went as far as Bonassola Station, just five minutes away.  Our group, led by Tomaso (in the blue and white check shirt above) took the train to the next town, Levanto, and changed to the grandly-named Cinque Terre Express in order to go one more stop, to Monterosso. This is the most northerly of the five Cinque Terre villages, and the plan was for us to walk thence back to Bonassola. Here’s a map of the area, thoughtfully provided by HF Holidays, which gives an overview of the essential geography.

The five Cinque Terre villages run from Monterosso to Riomaggiore

Monterosso is split between an old town and a newer part. We would see the old town later in the week, but we started off by walking along the front of the new town.

As you can see, the companies that make beach umbrellas have rich pickings in these parts. One wonders what the procurement process is like and whether there’s cutthroat competition between rival makers of umbrella cloth.  The serried ranks of identical umbrellas indicate private beaches, at which one has to pay for one’s shelter. The less structured umbrellas indicate a public beach area, where access is free of charge. Unsurprisingly, this was somewhat better patronised.

On the right hand picture above, the headland is the barrier between Monterosso and Levanto, over which our route would take us, so we headed off in that direction. En route, looking back, we could just catch a glimpse of one of the other Cinque Terre villages along the coast – Vernazza. More of that later.

We stopped to admire a feature of a villa that had quite cunningly been built into the hillside;

a giant statue.

We had originally thought that he was Hercules, but apparently he’s supposed to be Neptune. Interestingly, he is cast in concrete, rather than chipped out of stone. He looks angry, but actually he is absolutely armless.

Having passed Neptune, our path started on the uphill track that, sighing, we realised we’d have to deal with. As ever with the hard work, there are some decent views to be noted. And used for a rest stop to gather breath, of course.

Eventually, we arrived, panting somewhat, at a spot with a splendid view of Monterosso al Mare,

and, looking further along the coast, one could see the outcrops of other Cinque Terre villages.

Vernazza in the distance

Corniglia on the cliff top, Manarola and Riomaggiore beyond it

On one of our (frequent) pauses to draw breath, Tomaso drew our attention to the signposts that marked the route.

The figures shown are not (as I’d hoped) distances in kilometres but actually time (in hours) to the various destinations. Our first destination, then, was Levanto, allegedly one and a half hours away. What could possibly go wrong?

At first, not so much. We had a decent path, with small steps in it,

but these gave way to steeper sections with less regular steps

and it was a relentless, hot, sweaty and uncomfortable climb for some of us. Soon after the signpost shown above, we reached another.

If you check back, you’ll see that even after all that bloody sweating we had seemingly made no progress from Monterosso and yet Levanto was further away. Without wishing to attribute stereotypes to any nationality (perish the thought that a British person would do such a thing), this did seem a very Italian approach to distance estimation.

This morning brought home, in the most dramatic way, the first lesson of walking in the Cinque Terre.

It’s sodding hard work.

Further, if it’s warm, it’s hot, sodding hard work. Jane and I walked the Camino Frances, which was long and a bit tough in places. Then we walked the Via Francigena, which we found really quite hard work, particularly across Tuscany. This was another level; steep, sometimes actual steps, some of which were quite substantial, and sometimes just bloody tricky to get across.

But did we complain? Well, yes, actually, we did. There was quite a lot of swearing going on among the less fit among us and only some of it was under people’s breath. Yes, that included me. A couple of our group, Tracy and Douglas, were perfectly fit and springing along; the other three of us were, frankly, suffering. But we toiled on, and eventually got to what was pretty near the high point (geographically, rather than emotionally speaking) of the trail, where there were the ruins of a hermitage, San Antonio del Mesco,

which we thought would be a great spot to stop for a bite of lunch. Sadly, a bunch of others had had the same thought

but we managed to find a spot in the shade where we could sit, take a drink and a snack, and rest a while.

The trail after that was a bit up and down but, tricky parts aside, was more or less flat, which was a pleasant change from the relentless uphill,

and after a few moments we reached another place to stop and rest a bit more,

an Italian National Trust place called Podere Lovada, or Lovada Estate. Tomaso had mentioned that it might be possible to get a lemonade or some such, on surrendering a few Euro, so I was expecting some kind of rustic farm. It was much more formal than that – basically a National Trust Gift Shop, with its own produce and other souvenir items. And beer!

It also had a delightful place out the back

where we could sit and finish off our packed lunches.

That was a wonderful break, but all good things must come to an end, and so we eventually moved on into the hot end of the day – and the downhill end, too. There were a lot of steps to get down, once again, some of which were not inconsiderable in size. It was quite tough work, but I was pleased that my knees supported me OK – not without complaint, you understand, but also without actually giving way underneath me. Part of the route led through Holm Oak (or Holly Oak) woods

which provided some welcome shade as we toiled downhill. Before too long, we got our first sight of our first target – the town of Levanto.

As we approached it, we passed a quite remarkable house, whose architect might well have been taking some ideas from Gaudi. The first hint we saw of the property was a figure in the garden.

There were other idiosyncrasies: a fountain decoration;

a lamppost decoration;

a wall decoration;

and some very unusual architectural touches.

All in all, it was quite a mad place

and absolutely wonderful to see. It is clearly possible to rent it, as we had a chat with a lady in the grounds, who said that it was her last day there before she had to move on, so she was making the most of the surroundings.

Then, thankfully, we reached the outskirts of Levanto, marked by a  castle

and a church tower.

We went into the town past the church of St. Andrea, which is very much in what’s become known as the Florentine style – alternating green and white, which may be Carrara marble and Serpentine stone, or may just be a paint job.

In the case of this church, the façade is genuine but the tower is painted. Interestingly, the rose window has 14 segments, which is not the usual number.

We carried on into the town, past buildings which featured the local marble in their construction.

Tomaso explained (if I understood correctly) that this was local stone which, though it wasn’t the calcium carbonate that gives rise to true marble, it was a hard stone which it was possible to polish to a lovely shine, and hence was called marble anyway. One place was neatly named

but we didn’t stop there; we pressed on towards the centre of the town, where we stopped for a (very, very welcome) glass of something cold.

By this stage it was getting quite late in the afternoon, and we still had to get back to Bonassola in time for the all-important 6.30 gin and tonic briefing about the next day.  It would have been theoretically possible to walk over the headland to get back to the hotel – Tomaso estimated it as being about two-thirds the effort of what we’d already done. Fortunately, there was an alternative, which was a completely flat track through a tunnel. Even the fit guys thought that this was the preferable option, so, refreshed, we set off towards it

and had our last look back to Levanto

before disappearing into the tunnel.

As you can see, it’s a well-maintained, delightfully level surface, suitable for walking and cycling between the towns. It was originally the tunnel for the railway that had been built in Victorian times, and some sections of it were quite long,

but it enabled us to get back to the hotel with (just) enough time to get out of our sweaty gear, hose ourselves down and present ourselves for the replacement of essential fluids and the briefing about the next day’s expeditions. That over, we went once again to Si Và for dinner, after which we met our Italian/Arctic friends Agnese and Karlo for a very agreeable catch up over G&Ts in a local bar. It was lovely to hear about their escapades, which included camping out on a volcano in Guatemala and other madcap episodes. It was a latish night after a full day* and we were glad to get to bed to try to recharge for the next day’s exertions.

HF Holidays always make sure that there are two options for walking (as well, I suppose, as the third, which is to do bugger all), and Rebecca and Tomaso explained each of the options so that we could make the decision as to whether to go long or short – hard or easy.

Guess which one we went for? Even better, come back tomorrow** and find out.

 

*  It might have been only 13km, but the total ascent was over 500m; the first 300m ascent was achieved over just 1.8km, which represents an average gradient of 1 in 6. So there!

**  Erm…it might not actually be tomorrow, you understand. This week has been so full on that I haven’t been able to keep up with posting each day on the events of the day. I apologise for that, and will try to get updates to these pages as soon as I can after each expedition.

 

 

 

 

 

Getting there

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Saturday 13 June 2026 – In the opening salvo for our Istanbul trip, I inveighed at some length about the horrors of an 0230 alarm call and how I never wanted to suffer another one.

Well….

Our alarm was set for 0330 in order to get us to Heathrow for our 0700 flight to Pisa.  Our taxi was due at 0430; 0431 came and went, and we were, of course, immediately worried that Someone Had Blundered and that we would have a frantic dash to an overpriced airport car park. But the taxi turned up only about five minutes late, and he still managed to get us to Heathrow before 0500, mainly by displaying a fine contempt for speed limits.

Terminal 5 was busy – largely because we were there a few minutes before the bag drop actually opened… 

Despite being lumped in with hoi polloi at the back of the aeroplane, I thought my hard-foughtpaid-for Bronze membership of the BA Club would get us through the bag drop process (once it opened) quickly, only to discover, as we jumped from queue to queue in a vain attempt to find one which actually moved, that the cattle class bag drop was entirely deserted. So we waved goodbye to our bags there and headed for security.

My backpack was laden with cameras, power banks, backup drives, cables, adapters and other technical paraphernalia, and so I tend to expect that mine is the one that will attract attention as it passes through the scanners. It was actually Jane’s backpack that got picked on this time, because of the suspicious, nay subversive, items therein – spare (plastic) ferrules for our walking poles. That little setback aside, we were on our way with 90 minutes to spare before our departure, so a stop for coffee seemed a good idea.  I peered over the edge into the mosh pit of Terminal 5’s departure lounge

and it suddenly seemed a good idea to find a sit-down restaurant for our coffee. We took our seats in the Giraffe “Feel Good Food” restaurant and donned our cloak of invisibility for the obligatory 10 minutes until someone decided that our custom might be worthwhile, and ordered coffee-and-Danish, seated in front of a screen telling us that information on our departure gate would be vouchsafed to us in 40 minutes or so.  In the meantime, Google (via our boarding passes in our Google Wallets) had told us not only what our gate number was but also promised that the flight would be on time. It’s a fine philosophical point this – is this prescience on Google’s part an impressive victory for the power of technology harnessed for the good of humanity? Or is it just a tiny but creepy? Just like the fact that, towards the expiry of a bank card, it knows the details of my new one apparently before my bank does and certainly before my bank tells me. I mean, I’m only the customer here. (Of course, since I don’t pay for my banking and therefore the service is free, it means I’m the product, not the customer.)

Anyhoo…coffee and Danish consumed, we went to our gate. While we awaited our summons for the flight, a chap in a green HF Holidays shirt and sporting a name badge came over and asked us if by any chance we were with the HF Holidays group. Something about us (maybe the Merrell footwear or the Craghopper trousers) had clearly marked us out in Trevor’s eyes as being candidates for his group of Cinque Terre visitors. And so it was that we met a significant fraction of the (delightfully) small group with whom we’d be spending the next few days. The group is just eight people, plus the very genial Trevor, who, having introduced us all round, pottered off in search of the remaining group members. This was our first introduction to the HF Holidays universe – many of the group had been on multiple HF Holiday gatherings, which boded well for the rest of our week.

While all this was going on, BA personnel were prowling the area looking for people with large bags so that they could sorrowfully tell them that because the flight was full, the bags would have to be checked in to the hold. In the event, there were empty seats on the plane (some of them, delightfully, beside me) and so I wondered why they were being so pre-emptive. Anyway, the flight pushed back early and arrived even earlier, which is not quite the good news that it might be, as it meant that Pisa Airport weren’t ready for us with sufficient buses. But after only ten minutes or so of standing in bright sunshine and 25°C temperatures while dressed in our 4.30am trousers and fleeces, a bus arrived to take us to the entry point to the terminal.

I say “entry point to the terminal” with a slightly hollow laugh. Under a canopy obviously specially erected for just this circumstance, this is what we were faced with,

courtesy of the brain-damaged decision by 51.89% of the Great British Voting Public to leave the EU. For some moments, we inched forward as people at the front of the queue painstakingly had their fingerprints and mugshots taken, before the Italian authorities decided “bugger it” and reverted to the previous arrangement. So we shot forward into a delightfully cool terminal, past the now-redundant machines

(in their defence there four more on the other side of this partition)  to

more queues. The irony of the poster beside this second set of queues was not lost on me.

The process of getting through immigration took about an hour, but it did mean that our bags were waiting for us as we clustered around Trevor in the baggage hall; he then led us off to meet our bus driver who was called, I think Jeremiah. He was in charge of a vehicle which had enough seats to accommodate us, almost enough luggage space in its boot to hold all our bags and absolutely no bloody legroom for anyone taller than 5′ 6″. It also had a suspension system designed to cope with much more weight than it was laden with today – it was a bumpy, uncomfortable ride for 90 minutes as we headed to Bonassola, which was to be our base for the week.  Trevor tried to distract us by pointing out Things Of Interest as we went; we caught sight of the roof of the baptistry building on the site of the famous Leaning Tower, for example. However, since we’d spent considerable time at the site only a year ago, not getting a better view wasn’t an issue.

Eventually we left the high-speed but bumpy motorway for the low-speed and twisty roads that led to Bonassola. Every so often, we could get a glimpse of the very attractive-looking coastline, and then we got our first sights of Bonassola itself.

Before long we had reached the limit of where the bus could take us – the pedestrian area of the town

which is very clearly a seaside resorty sort of place.

Waiting for us there was Rebecca, Trevor’s accomplice from HF holidays, who pointed us towards our hotel, the Hotel delle Rose, 

a short suitcase trundle away where we were welcomed with smiles and great efficiency, so that we were in our room within minutes and the aircon switched on. 

One of the attractive aspects of this walking holiday is that it’s not a place-to-place-to-place affair like a Via Francigena or Camino; we’re here for the week, so could completely unpack and make ourselves at home. So we did that, and then went out to get something to eat, it being by now quite a long time since the 0730 BA flapjack had hit our digestive systems. Fortunately, hard next door to Hotel delle Rose is Caffè delle Rose,

which apart from being a gelateria artigiana, does a mean focaccia panini and salata vegeteriana. And beer. So we availed ourselves of those and were joined by Jenny, one of our group, giving us the chance to get to know her a little better.

After lunch, we rested for a little while at the hotel before joining a short walk round Bonassola,

to enable Trevor to show us where the important things were in the town, particularly places where we could buy packed lunches, since (sigh) we might be short of coffee bars to rest at over the course of the next week.

The tour was, of necessity, quite short, because Bonassola is not a big place. Along one side of the main street is an embankment which was originally the support for a railway built in Victorian times

and which provided both a bulwark against the worst of the sea weather when it was bad and allowed tunnels through so that people could get access to the beaches.

It’s a charming place, particularly in the sunshine, which we’re due to see a lot of during the week we’re here. As I write this, I’m glad to see the lovely weather. Come back and talk to me as I’m toiling up the steep valley sides in 30°C heat later on in the week and I might have a different attitude, but for now it seemed like a nice-a place. There were some lovely décor touches as we walked around.

In the main supermarket in the town we had another striking “small world” encounter. The keen of memory among you will remember that we were in this neck of the woods (but somewhat south of here) a year ago when we walked the Via Francigena. In a place called San Quirico, we bumped into a Dutch lass who we’d first met the year before in the Antarctic on M/V Hondius. Today, as we queued up with our bananas, the lass in front of us was none other than Agnese, an Italian girl who we’d first met on M/V Kinfish at the other end of the earth, in the Arctic. She it was, along with Karlo, her chap, who participated, along with other people of questionable sanity, in the Polar Plunge as we navigated alongside the glacial coast of Bråsvellbreen, and now there she was in the same Italian shop as us; she and Karlo had come to visit her mum, who has a place in Bonassola. The first coincidence was pretty unusual; the second was, frankly, astonishing.

We were a bit short of Euro cash, and needed to find an ATM. The one that Trevor knew about was no longer active, but back at the hotel, Rebecca pointed us at the Post Office. To find it, she said, we had to walk past “the old men”. It was quite clear what she meant;

a sight quite common in Southern Europe – the menfolk of the town sitting round in the shade and shooting the breeze, presumably to the great relief of their spouses, who will be glad they’re out of the house.

Back at the hotel, we had a welcome briefing on the hotel’s rooftop terrace over a glass of (a very decent) Prosecco,

during which we started the process of getting to know each other better, and, importantly,  found out what awaited us the following day (a choice between a shorter or longer walk, which they accidentally kept calling the easier or harder walk). And then we finished off the day with dinner at a local restaurant, Si Và, just round the corner. This was to be our regular dinner restaurant, as the hotel kitchen, alas, was not operational because the chef had retired and, as yet, no replacement had been found for him.

The food was very good, but the restaurant suffered from the serious flaw which afflicts so many Italian restaurants in Italy – such is the expectation that diners want wine that they don’t have any gin.  Sigh….well, a Campari spritz will have to do. We followed dinner with a final cuppa back on the hotel terrace.

Thus ended our journey to the outskirts of the Cinque Terre. Tomorrow we get the chance to explore at least one of the villages and work out for ourselves exactly how hard the walking is going to be (by all accounts, quite hard, incidentally). Stay tuned to see how much we suffer, why don’t you? 

 

 

 

 

Day 22 – La Giustiniana to Rome. Well, all roads lead there, don’t they?

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Friday 5 June 2025 – Our last day of walking, then. 16km, eh? On roads through Rome’s suburbs? In 30°C heat? Have you taken leave of your senses?

For some reason, the 30° heat here has been, at least for me, more enervating than the 35-40° heat we encountered when we walked the Camino Francés. I was only two years younger then – can those two years have made such a dramatic difference to my tolerance for higher temperatures? Except that I haven’t done any cycling for those two years, I’d say my fitness now is about the same as it was then. But I’ve found the conditions for the last 100km, since Montefiascone, to be really quite oppressive. People we’ve talked to seemed to think it was unseasonably hot, too.

Anyway, the practical upshot of considering the lunacy of walking the final 16km was that Jane Made A Plan.  This is how the day unfolded.

Yes, it says “Walking” at the top, but I cannot tell a lie: we took the train. It was a short walk from the hotel to the local station, and a €1 (each) fare to get us to a station called Appiano, which offers a viewpoint of the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, whence we walked into Vatican City to get our Testimonia.

The train ride provided one of those coincidences that leaven the weary flatness of life. We knew that the French couple we’d chatted to at Monte Gelato the day before yesterday (and then some more that evening in Campagnano, as it happened) were planning to take the train towards Rome because they, too, were finding the heat oppressive. Astonishingly, when we stepped onto the train – there they were! Same train, same carriage, same seating area – a very unlikely combination.  They got off a couple of stops before us so that they could walk through a nature reserve as part of their final day, whereas we wimped out and detrained a little nearer the final destination.

At Appiano, one can take a short walk along paths which include the cursed strada bianca

to a belvedere, offering this view:

The dome of St. Peter’s is clearly visible and you can make out the walls of Vatican City, too. From there, a path leads to a coffee bar

which, had we known it, was almost back at Appiano station. We refreshed ourselves with a coffee and then walked down the winding path that takes one towards St. Peter’s. By and large, the route was pretty much standard crowded-city-on-a-hot-sweaty-day, but there was some slightly classy graffiti to be seen.

Getting round the outside of the Vatican City walls

made us sharply aware of the contrast between the almost total solitariness of the countryside we’d traversed and the realities of life in a capital city, which is not only a pilgrimage destination but a popular tourist site. There was lots of traffic and noise, and tour groups everywhere;

tourist tat shops ubiqutious;

and, as for getting into St. Peter’s Square, where the entry is through the right-hand arch?

It looked daunting, but Jane did the sort of thing that wouldn’t have occurred to me and Asked The Way. Anyone who can show a credenziale can skip the line!

So we followed the gent in the dog collar and actually whizzed through. There was a security check, and I’m glad I’d decided to leave my penknife in my suitcase, but within a few minutes we were through and into St. Peter’s “Square”. There is a special entrance for pilgrims

which leads to its own security lane, past a selfie point

and towards the place where volunteers were awaiting us to give us our certificates. It was a bit of a zoo,

as lots of other things are on offer in that corridor, but we had a very warm welcome from the two volunteers who were providing testimonia and timbri. Having got these, it then transpired that we were free to enter the Basilica itself, with no further queuing!

Well, almost.

Just as we were about to mount the steps, another volunteer held us back and closed off access. He explained that it would only be for a few moments, but there were some special processional groups who were preparing to enter the Basilica, and they took priority, which is fair enough.

Actually, three processions went through, one of which sang as they went, which I thought was a nice touch. Meanwhile

we waited until the nice man let us through, when we charged into the Basilica!

Well, not really.

Here’s what it was like to get into the church.

I suppose it’s inevitable when you are at the centre of a global religion with 1.2 billion adherents that there will be crowds. Some of them might even be Catholics. Inside the Basilica, magnificence is in plentiful supply,

as are people.

There’s a slow and steady shuffle of punters, all waving cameras in the air and taking selfies. The place is extraordinary, but too big and too crowded to do it any kind of photographic justice. So we shuffled in and round and marvelled at the place and then shuffled out in search of refreshment. We caught a change in the Swiss Guard

passed a statue, the “Angels Unawares” boat by Canadian artist Timothy P. Schmalz, dedicated to the world’s migrants and refugees,

and tried to capture a photo of the arena outside

but it’s too big (is it always full of chairs, or is this for something special?) and I think that if I’d launched the drone there might have been comment. So we took a last view as we left St.Peter’s Basilica.

There’s a cafe nearby, but it seemed they didn’t want us to invade their privacy, and the streets nearby are loaded with eateries and drinkeries

which we thought would be crowded and probably expensive, so we decided that it might be better to head off to our hotel and see if we could check in.

Our accommodation was the Dharma Style, which is near the central station, so it was straightforward to get to on the Metro. Our room was, indeed, available, but our bags hadn’t yet arrived (probably stuck in some ghastly traffic jam somewhere). So we headed out into the street where there was immediately a restaurant that was thronged with people. We decided to lunch there, even though it showed pictures of the food, and enjoyed a good lunch (including gin!) before retiring to the hotel to rest and recuperate for the rigours of the journey home.

For tomorrow we go from Rome to home, or that’s our plan; we’ve yet to see what BA’s plan for us is, but we’re sanguine that we will have a joyful homecoming having walked 394.47km of the Via Francigena and nearly 100km of related sightseeing.

As an experience, it’s been significantly different from walking the Camino in Spain, which after a moment’s thought would be bleedin’ obvious: hundreds of thousands of pilgrims a year enables and sustains an infrastructure that hundreds of pilgrims a year can’t. The walking here in Italy has been tougher than almost all of the Camino paths, and some of the scenery more spectacular as a result. The heat towards the end made the experience somewhat more trying than I would have liked; and I am looking forward to getting back to a country which serves hot coffee in large cups; but we’ve enjoyed this big adventure and all the small adventures that have gone to make it the experience it has been.  We have plans for some other long walks, and you can rest assured that I will use these pages to rabbit on about them; I hope you will stay in touch to read the result.