Tag Archives: Scenery

A Musk-see sight

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Saturday 23 August 2025 – In yesterday’s post, I said that the plan for today involved tramping around looking for local wildlife. The activity was described as a “safari”, which conjures up images of hot, sunny conditions and being ferried around between exotic photo opportunities in a robust 4×4. However, we’re in the Norwegian midlands, and so realised that it wasn’t going to be hot, and the forecast suggested that it wouldn’t be sunny, either. So our getting-up activities involved a certain amount of rumination about how much protection we’d need against the almost-certain cold and the apparently likely rain. We also knew that there would be, as I said, a certain amount of tramping about, quite possibly up and down the side of mountains and maybe even in and out of Norwegian woods. So I was also concerned about not getting too hot, since the forecast temperature was some 12°C. In the end, I opted for more protection against the rain than against the cold.

At breakfast, and at the suggestion of the hotel staff, we stacked up a couple of sandwiches each so that we could take a packed lunch with us for the day, and set off for the two dozen kilometres to Hjerkinn, where we would meet up with our guide for the day. On the drive over, we noted a couple of things to be explored on the way back.

We arrived at a windswept car park which featured a few huddled groups of folk who, like us, were expecting a safari,

but there was no immediate information about what to do. There was a troll there, which was laughing at us,

but that was it. I realised at this point that I had probably got the balance between wet and cold wrong in my gear selection – it was chilly and there was a stiff breeze.

After a while, though, some chaps emerged from the building and it became clear that they were the guides for the day. There was a bigger group, around a dozen, who were going with one guide; and we had our own chap, Jakob. But we all piled into vehicles together and headed down the road for a few minutes to the starting point of the day’s safari. Jakob immediately led us off on our trip. I asked him what the plan was for the day, and it was straightforward enough: walk for a couple of hours in the hope of finding our quarry; spend some time eating lunch and watching it; and then walk a couple of hours back. Simples!

We crossed a river,

went under a railway and then headed along a track up the side of a hill.

The scenery was immense

and the wind was strong and cold; but walking up the hill was a nice warming activity. At one point, Jakob stopped and said, “Ah, I can see them already”. He was doing that thing that expert guides do all over the world and which annoys and impresses me in equal measure – picking out an animal from its surrounding scenery, even though it’s entirely invisible to my eyes.

Believe it or not, there’s a Musk Ox in the middle of that picture. In fact, it became clear that there was a small group of them, maybe some 700 metres away, which I could just about make out if I used the 30x telephoto of my phone.

It was clear that we would have a bit of a trek to get to the point where even I could see them with my naked and streaming eyes.

Jakob gave us a choice of route – we could take an easier, but longer way round, or we could do a shorter yomp across the intervening brush which should get us near the animals more quickly. We opted for the brush route, which took us across and through moss, lichen and small scrubby plants of various sorts.  The going was not easy.

but it conveyed the authentic Norwegian safari experience wonderfully well.  We even got to see Musk Ox poo.

Before you get too excited about that, let me show you the scale of this defecation.

This, remarkably, is the poo of an animal which might weigh half a ton. Jakob explained that it was winter poo – more details promised later.  We also, by way of balance, came across some summer poo

which was larger and, unsurprisingly, fresher. This demonstrated that we were actually using a track that a Musk Ox might choose as a route from A to B, via W and C.

We finally got to a place where even I could make out the beasts, some 250 metres away.

We were not the only people out looking for Musk Ox; I hope this picture gives some perspective of what could be seen with the naked eye.

We were not allowed to go any closer than this to the Musk Oxen. We had been told before we embarked on this diversion that that this was the case. I had thought that it was in order to afford the Musk Ox some protection from the ravages wrought by humankind. That’s not the case. The distance rule is for the protection of humans, of whom Musk Ox are not even slightly frightened. Jakob explained that the animals are very protective of their rather large personal space, and can be aggressive if people get too close. In fact, a handful of people get killed by Musk Oxen every year.

So – 250 metres.  Time to get the Big Camera (or, rather, the Big Lens) out.

We could see a family group – female, male and two calves. They seemed utterly unaffected by the proximity of the E6 main road going close by.

The E6, in fact, is a barrier – if they stray beyond it and can’t be shooed back, they have to be shot before they cause aggro.

Jakob had brought a spotter scope with him and was able to assist Jane in getting a couple of shots through it on her phone,

and the results are pretty good; but I was pleased with the results I got, particularly when three of them formed a nice family group photo for me.

Female on the left, 4-month-old calf in the middle, male on the right, distinguishable by the bulk of horns on his head.

I took a little video, also.

We spent probably an hour watching these, whilst we ate our lunch, and Jakob gave us a great deal of information about Musk Oxen, on which he is something of an expert, having written a thesis on the beasts at University.

They are not, despite the name, cattle. They are actually related to sheep and goats. Once you know this, it’s obvious from looking at the heads and eyes. It also explains the habit of the males during mating season of establishing superiority, and hence shagging rights, by running full tilt at each other, which is a disturbing sight.

They are mind-bogglingly stupid, apparently. Several die each year because they will charge an oncoming train, for example.  The area we were in used to be a Norwegian Army training area, and one Musk Ox apparently charged a tank several times. He actually survived, but minus one of his horns, which must have felt as odd to him as it would have looked to us. They are very agile, and will climb steep mountain sides, a la goat, but should they lose their footing it rarely ends well. They are also subject to dying from pneumonia. That said, they are very tough creatures, being able to survive in winter temperatures down as low as -60°C. This explains their winter poo – during extremely cold weather, they stop growing entirely in order to conserve what energy they can derive from what grazing they can dig up from beneath the snow. In summer, when the temperature climbs, they can simply go higher in the mountains to avoid the worst of the heat. And their poo reflects a more normal metabolism.

The big surprise to me is that they are not native to Norway, having gone extinct here some ten thousand years ago.  They were reintroduced from Greenland, a process that was far from straightforward and which took several attempts over the course of centuries, starting in the 18th century and only really succeeding in the 20th.  The group we were watching was part of a population in the area which is managed to only around 200.

We had been joined by the others in our larger group, and they drifted off to watch another pair of oxen just along the way.  We passed them on our trek back to the start.

There are a couple of Musk Ox there, honest.

We took the longer but easier way back to the van.

The way out (3km)
The way back (5km)

and Jakob explained to us a somewhat left-field, but lucrative, industry based around a lichen, the White Curl lichen, which is ubiquitous here. (By the way this is one of the several species collectively known as “Reindeer Lichen” because… er… they form the major part of the diet of reindeer).

These tiny little clumps are prized. People pick them dry them and then sell them – to model railway enthusiasts, who use them as trees. It’s a million-crown industry, apparently.

Generally, the colour and variety of mosses and lichens in the area is remarkable.

So ended our Musk Ox safari, six of the possible 200 animals sighted, altogether a satisfactory day out. The expected rain never materialised, further underlining my poor clothing decision-making ability. Although I found it very chilly at times, it could have been a lot worse; but I really could have done with an extra layer. Never mind – we saw our Musk Oxen and we were happy.

On the way back, we stopped off at the two places we’d noted on the way out.  Firstly, Dovregubbenshallen, which is a remarkable huddle of buildings just beside the E6. The wooden construction and turf roof is in the traditional architectural style called “Gudbrands”, which is a feature of the Gudbrandsdale valley, this region.

Translated, its name means “Old Man’s Hall”, or “King’s Hall”, and it has links with the well-known saga of Peer Gynt. Ibsen’s play confers the name “Dovregubben” to one Jotun Dovre who fostered and raised Norway’s King Harald, called Dovefostre as a youngster. I’m not sure that Edvard Grieg, in writing the part of his Peer Gynt suite called “In the Hall of the Mountain King”, had the cafe there in mind…

The cake (well-deserved, I’m sure you will agree) was good though.

The other place we wanted to visit was, again, a set of striking buildings beside the road.

This was Fokstugu Fjellstue, Fox Cottage Mountain Lodge, which turned out to be a pilgrim hostel and retreat, based upon a sheep farm.  There’s a pilgrim route, Olav’s Way, stretching from Oslo to Trondheim, on the coast, and this is a place where pilgrims could stay.  It looked a bit run down, frankly – the church was closed and some of the building structure was crumbling. But it’s a handsome site.

And that was it for the day – an active and full one, and perfect preparation for my deerburger evening meal back at the hotel.

We have one more day in Dovrefjell before heading back to Oslo to mooch around there. No formal activity is scheduled on our agenda, but Jane has just informed me that she has a few ideas.  I’ll come back to these pages tomorrow to see what it was we got up to.

 

Day 12 – Radicofani to Acquapendente – Down, Right Cheating

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Sunday 25 May 2025 – I’ve just learned that today is Towel Day. I hope you all know where your towel is. Today, mine was in my backpack against the need to dry my feet in case of an unsuccessful Ford (Prefect?) crossing. Admittedly, that likelihood was faint, as there were no fords on today’s walk, but still; I knew where my towel was.

Another thing I learned is how to pronounce Radicofani. I had been putting the emphasis on the “fan” bit of the word, but this is wrong. It should, rather, rhyme with “cacophony”. I hope this nugget comes in useful for some of you at your swish dinner parties.

And so to today’s walk, which was dull, but had points of interest and produced many photographs. The dull bit was the actual walking, which was largely downhill, on dirt roads and in pitiless sunshine. The temperature was not high – still around 20°C – but it was hot in the direct sunlight; and we spent some two-and-a-half hours walking downhill, on the gravelly, dusty strade bianche (the “white roads” of Tuscany) under those conditions. I am normally as in favour of downhill walking as I am sullenly against uphill work, but 150 minutes of quite steep descent is quite hard work.

Before we started our downhill walking, though, we were given a good breakfast and taken, along with another couple of British pellegrinos, to the centre of Radicofani. Time was getting on by that stage, so we didn’t spend a lot of time in the town, but did look around a bit before starting to walk towards our destination for the day, Acquapendente. (I should point out that Acqua was not at all Pendente during the day – the forecast was for sunshine, with no rain.)

We looked first into the cathedral, the church of St. Peter.

The altar piece is, unusually, ceramic (terracotta with polychrome glazes) and by Andrea Della Robbia, a 15th-century Florentine sculptor.

A side chapel held what was possibly another piece from the Della Robbia workshop.

Across the street is the church of St. Agata with yet another such piece.

Neither, sadly, provided us with a Timbro, a stamp for our credenziali passport.

The lady who drove us into the town pointed out a square we should visit, the Piazzatta del Teatro, as a very Tuscan square. It is, indeed, very pretty.

It’s also, probably, the last typically Tuscan thing we’ll see, since Radicofani is the last town in Tuscany if you’re heading south on the Via Francigena.

The tower that makes Radicofani so easily identifiable from distance is a fortress and is up a bloody steep hill from the town, so I hope you’ll forgive us for not toiling up there. I suppose I could have tried getting a drone shot at it, but frankly we wanted to get on with the walking (this being before it was borne in on us how tedious it would be).

The fortress has a personality associated with it, the local equivalent of Robin Hood, Ghino di Tacco. In 1297, he took possession of the Fortress, dominating the territory with his deeds and raids, but always taking care to leave his victims enough to live on. To some he was a “punisher of injustice and powerful men”, for others simply a “daring bandit.” In Radicofani, there is a square with his name

with, at the far end, an artwork portraying him in action, which can be seen with the tower in the background.

So we departed Radicofani

and headed down on the endlessly downhill dirt road

which at least gave us a decent view back up to the fortress and tower.

Because we were still at altitude, we got fabulous views to combat the tedium of tramping downhill. The favourite local volcano, Mount Amiati, was clearly visible

and you could just make out steam rising from a local thermal pool driven by the volcanic forces at work;

there are, apparently, five thermal baths around the area, courtesy of the local volcanoes; Radicofani sits atop the other.

A word here about water. A fellow walker (and much more adventurous hiker), Ian Burley, who is currently scrambling up and down dangerous slopes in Spain, asked about the availability of water along this route. His current wanderings have taken him to the wilds of the Spanish wilderness where he is undertaking the sort of hard-core hiking which Jane and I will never do; he has to take litres of water with him every day. We, however, have never had any problem with keeping hydrated. We take maybe three litres between us each day and have yet to finish half of what we’ve taken; possibly a reflection of the relative coolness of the weather at the moment. The Via Francigena is well supplied with sources of potable water, which are well signposted.

The Radicofani tower dominates the landscape for a long time as one descends along the Via

but one can sense the landscape changing,

and becoming less suitable for arable farming and better suited to sheep.

We came to another of those unusual junctions where the correct way is down, not up.

and grimly carried on down.

About half way down the descent there was a rather nice pilgrims’ rest point

better suited, I suppose, to those going up than to those descending. There’s even a selfie point.

so a solo traveller can set up his or her phone to take the selfie using the frame.

A corn bunting watched us carry on down

and we passed a heap of sheep.

Quite why they were bundled together like this at the top end of a field we don’t know. The geology showed that some significant land movements had happened over the aeons

which is why the land is unsuitable for crop farming, I guess.

Eventually, we reached the bottom of the descent, at Ponte a Rigo. The S-cape app said that we could take lunch there, and we were hoping that a bar that had escaped the notice of Google Maps would materialise; but no.

Just a church.  A sign shortly before had had the icons of a fork and a cup, which had raised our hopes, but presumably they were referring to the picnic spot there.

It was occupied when we arrived, but the people, a Swiss couple of bicigrinos, were just departing and we had an affable chat with them, and wished them luck on their onward journey – up into Radicofani! Bloody lunatics.

The tedious descent in the pitiless sunshine morphed into a slightly less tedious walk in the pitiless sunshine along a farm track beside the road, past a few rural features of note: an enormous multi-arch irrigation boom;

some aestivating snails;

and a field full of flowers that we didn’t recognise.

(I realise that the category “flowers that Steve doesn’t recognise” extends to almost all of the botanical universe; but Jane didn’t recognise them either, and that’s unusual). At first, Jane thought it was just a field overtaken by weeds. but it was clear there was systematic planting at work

so Jane consulted the internet to discover what this flower was,

and read that it was buckwheat – just before a sign showing that the internet isn’t all fake news.

The crop belonged, we think, to the farm we next encountered, which had an encouraging sign that maybe there was a punta ristoro we could rest at.

Don’t ask me why that aeroplane is there

And there was;

there, beside that dirty great truck.

I suppose we could have availed ourselves of it, but it wasn’t that attractive a prospect and we weren’t that desperate. So we moved on. We passed a possible resting point with some kind of reference to Pope Boniface on it,

an Agriturismo establishment at a place called Torricella

and the border marking the end of Tuscany.

Shortly thereafter, we came to Centeno, another place which the S-cape app inaccurately had told us that there was the possibility of a rest stop. Google Maps was of the opinion that there was a trattoria there, but it would be closed, because it was (a) Sunday and (b) after 2pm. And so it was.

From Centeno, for the next 5km or so, walking the Via simply means walking along a main road, which is unpleasant and potentially dangerous. Our arrangements involved phoning a pre-arranged number to be driven along that 5km stretch and dropped at Ponte Gregoriana so that we could complete the walk to Acquapendente. Since this involved an uphill pull, I was thinking “bollocks to that; let’s just get a lift to the town”. Fortunately, Jane was of the same opinion as me. Sitting in the shade by the trattoria and the town defibrillator, Jane made contact with Senora Morena del Segato and she said she would be along in 10 or 15 minutes. During those minutes, a couple of ladies came by looking dispirited. They were, like us, Brits walking the Via, and had set their hearts on that trattoria being open, and were really despondent that it wasn’t; plus one of them wasn’t feeling too well.  It transpired that they were also headed to Acquapendente and so we invited them to join our lift; fortunately Morena was open to the idea and she whisked us off to the centre of the town. This means we’ve sort of cheated, in that we didn’t walk that final 4km or so up into Acquapendente. But you know what? I don’t care; deal with it.

Having cheated our way into central Acquapendente, our next game was to get into our accommodation, which was a B&B called “Il Teatro”.  Jane found us the theatre OK

but getting into it was another thing. Fortunately, Jane had the contact details for the owners and they WhatsApped us directions so we could get in. Just inside the door, reassuringly, were our suitcases.  All we then had to do was to manhandle them up three storeys to our room. Once Jane had sorted things out with the owners, it all worked rather well – a decent room with breakfast materials provided in the little kitchen (including Twining’s finest Earl Grey!) so we could construct something for ourselves in the morning.

It was nearing 3pm by this stage, and we both wanted some lunch; so, for once, eating took priority over hygiene and we set out in search of a restaurant in our walking gear. A central restaurant, Albergo Toscana, was still prepared to serve us lunch, so we took our seats near the bar whilst, in the neighbouring room, a raucous gathering of Italians was also embarking on their lunch.

We were a bit surprised, halfway through our lunch, when Morena turned up at the restaurant. She explained to us that the group were celebrating someone’s 80th birthday. I may be rude about Italians and their predilection for noisy conversation; but I have to hand it to them for the singing. When Brits sing “Happy Birthday” they inevitably start in the wrong key and miss the high notes; but the Italian crew were bang on in their rendition.

We had an agreeable meal – no gin available, but the beer was good – and then, to settle lunch down, we went for a walk. Obviously.  Acquapendente isn’t a tourist town like San Gimignano; it’s largely just this place where people live and work; but there were one or two things worth exploring.

For a start, this is the first Italian town we’ve walked through where there is a decent amount of street art.

There’s a fine town hall

and some attractive corners.

The church of St. Antony and St Catherine

is obviously Confessional Central for the town; there were no fewer than four confessional booths in the church! It has some nice trompe l’oeuil work around its paintings, so it’s difficult to work out what is and isn’t marble, for instance (spoiler alert: none of it is)

and there is an intriguing dark-faced figure on one wall, which we think is a black madonna and child in the tradition of Madonna of Loreto.

There is a cathedral

with some very dramatic artwork on display (though we’re not, frankly, sure what each artwork represents).

Some, like this one, have been made from flower petals – very impressive work.

The final thing we went in search of was the Barbarossa Tower, a clock tower. This is (sigh!) above the town, so we toiled up streets and steps to find it.

At least, after doing all that climbing, we got a decent view over the town.

And so a day of tedious walking has, in fact, been rather interesting; our “cheating” meant we got a decent chance to wander around and appreciate Acquapendente.

We have a couple more walks to do before we get another rest day. I think my underwear supply will hold out until then. Tomorrow, we head to Bolsena, some 23km away. On paper, it doesn’t look too arduous a trek, but I’ve been wrong about that before now; but at least we are promised a rest stop about halfway along. Stay tuned to see how the day unfolded, won’t you?

Day 11 – Castiglione d’Orcia (almost) to Radicofani – Ford Focus

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Saturday 24 May 2025 – We knew that the day was likely to be a longish and toughish one, as the overall distance was going to be over 20km, but not as tough as it might be – despite the total lack of coffee stops. We were also aware that there were three fords to cross, a couple of which could be problemmatical after heavy rain. However, the weather has been dry, and so we hoped these wouldn’t present a problem; but there’s always the tinge of doubt in the back of the mind.

The “official” stage end should be Radicofani, which is at the end of a climb which the S-cape app describes as “challenging”. We, however, will stop short at an Agriturismo; tomorrow morning they will give us a lift into Radicofani, I’m glad to say.  All the above means that the elevation profile we had to deal with went as far as the chap in this pic.

This left us with a walk of about 21km and a climb towards the end of over 300m.

We bade goodbye to our room, which (as Jane discovered yesterday) has a great view of the Rocca fortress,

and headed down to breakfast, which was served in the restaurant linked to the B&B, the same place we’d had lunch yesterday, and was served from 8am – a bit later than we’d like, but never mind. It was a slightly rudimentary breakfast, and so we were on our way before 8.30. We passed the Pieve, of Santi Stefano and Degna, which was open, so we looked in.

Stained glass, presumably of the church’s two eponymous saints

Inside was the friendliest church cat

which was happy to meet both of us, and sat, possibly mournfully, watching us as we departed.

To get back to the offical Via Francigena, which doesn’t pass through Castiglione, we headed (steeply) back down the way we had (steeply) come up into Castiglione the day before. We made things slightly tougher than necessary by missing a turn and having to pant back up to it, but eventually joined the Via and got under way. In the extreme distance, we could see the tower of Radicofani’s fortess, which itself is quite a lot higher than the town.

Looking back, we had a great view of Castiglione in the morning sunshine.

The scenery was great, as one would expect on a sunny morning and viewed from altitude

and in the distance we could see Radicofani – just about.

For a long while we were on a dirt road, and this led us to another slip in navigation. The Via departed from the dirt road, but the signposting was very poor – practically invisible from the direction we were walking. Luckily, Jane noticed that we’d once again passed our turning, and we hastened back to get on the right track. It led past scenery of which one could say, in one’s Chandler Bing voice, “could it be any more Tuscan?”

At around halfway through the walk, we came to the first ford

which, as expected but still somehow to our relief, was not at all difficult to cross. Shortly after, there’s an abandoned hospital, Le Briccole (where St. Francis of Assisi is rumoured to have stayed at one point) and the chapel of San Pellegrino,

which we’d hoped might provide somewhere to sit in the shade for a bite to eat. Sadly not, but we benefited shortly after from the beneficence of Gruppo Trekking Senese, the Siena Trekking Group, who placed a picnic table along the track.

This provided a welcome rest stop, where we shared a banana and actually ate one of the Mule Bars which I’d carefully bought to fuel us for our Camino Francés a couple of years back, but which, until now, had remained uneaten. Thus fortified, we walked on, past a second

and a third ford.

Since there has been no rain of any pith or moment recently, these were easy to cross, but one could see that the third one could be quite dangerous if a flood were running through it.

The track became grassy

to the point where once again we sometimes found ourselves wading through waist-high grass. I was pleased to get a photo of an Old World Swallowtail butterfly

and we were generally well-serenaded by the wildlife as we walked along. Sometimes it was the frogs, but we also heard larks, blackbirds, blackcaps, swallows (or swifts) and, delightfully, nightingales. Over the kilometres, we’ve had a great selection of birdsong, including golden orioles and bee eaters, but I’m particularly pleased that we’ve heard nightingales in so many places along our walk.

The fortress tower of Radicofani was often visible in the distance, and sometimes the road even seemed to be leading us that way.

We passed a couple of places where sheep were being farmed; almost all the farming we’d seen so far was arable, so sheep were rare.

Our track led beside a river, the Torrente Formone.

Its name seemed a bit optimistic, but one could also see that it could be quite a sight in the rainy season. I was beginning to flag quite seriously at this point, and it seemed that Gruppo Trekking Senese had my number, as we passed another of their excellently-positioned picnic tables

(a crap view of the main road, but a very welcome rest point).

It seemed to me, in my weary state, that our destination was receding as we walked. Our destination was some 4km short of Radicofani, and seemed that we always had 4km more to go.

We forded the Formone (again being grateful that there hadn’t been heavy rain)

and started the long pull up to our accommodation, an Agriturismo establishment called La Selvella. Wearily, I took a photo of what I hoped might be it

but it wasn’t; it was much further on and much higher. Of course.

That establishment, though was very much agri but not turismo. We passed it, watched by (I assume) the farm cat

and later on (and yes, higher up) saw the sheep that they were farming.

Some of them had been saddle-sheared, leaving a patch of fleece on their backs; we’re not sure why. Anyway, it was their lunchtime and so they all ran off to collect their food when it was brought up.

Courtesy of the ICCE, we got an update on our journey;

only 147km to go, now!  I felt it was shame that the ones we were covering at that particular time were so emphatically uphill. The temperature wasn’t hot – maybe only 20°C – but we were in the direct sun all the time, and I was finding it hard going. I had to stop and take photos of the scenery now and then to give myself a bit of a rest.

Eventually, though, we got to our accommodation, whose gates were

closed, of course. Jane got on the blower to one of the numbers listed and they opened the gates and let us in.

We were checked in by the very friendly Max, who showed us (and, to our relief, carried our bags) to our room, which is all very nice – large, seemingly comfortable and equipped with the things that make our lives good: extra pillows for the bed, a bidet for Jane’s feet and a kettle for some of Twining’s finest Earl Grey. Dinner was not until 8pm, and so there was nothing for it but to relax (I indulged in the first bath I’ve had since 2002) after our fairly heavy day.

Tomorrow, as I say, we get a lift into Radicofani, for which I’m exceedingly grateful – the last 4km into the town are even harder than the last pull we had up to La Selvella. Then we head for Aquapendente, but things are a bit complicated, as one section of the trail runs along a major road and we have to phone someone to be driven along it, as it’s too dangerous to walk. So we probably only have about 20km to walk and most of them are downhill (but we can’t see any coffee stops). Who knows how this will work out? Not us – but we will report back to let you know.