Trying to make Italy feel better

Our first week in Italy has been and gone, and to be honest, it just hasn't worked out for us yet. Rain, storms, terrible roads, road blocks, a million and one hairpin turns when you don't want them and an absence of decent camp sites has made life hard. This is where we have to dig in though. 

Serious efforts were made to get into the Appenine mountains between La Spezia and Parma. Being here now is starting to help a little. A morning swim in a heated pool, glorious sun breaking through the autumnal leaves and a warmth on our backs, means we are being optimistic that a new week will help us out. Poor weather is returning though, so we have to make the most of the sun whilst we can. 

Speaking though of autumnal leaves, our drive yesterday was horrendous. Just a torrid journey that meant when we were within spitting distance of our destination, we had to turn around due to a landslide. This gave us at least a 50 mile detour, which isn't that far when the roads are straight, flat and of a sensible quality. We had none of those, so a few hours later as we neared our destination once again, we weren't able to fully appreciate the beautiful landscape we were in. Spindly white trees standing naked with a carpet of a rich red fallen leaves was quite a contrast, but we weren't in the mood for stopping!

To help this, today we then went for a walk in the woods.

 

The directions we were given in a sort of Italian and English combination and resulted in us losing our way. Despite this, we found a nice place to go and have a picnic whilst a cloud began to envelope us. We realised that Autumn is truly with us now. The colours across the valleys that we drove through, and the mountains in the background really gave a colourful backdrop that was beautiful. We could see clearly across to Pietra Bismanto (the flat topped rocky outcrop in the picture).

We gather that this may be the last of the "good" weather for a bit that may have given us the chance to enjoy outdoor Italy to its fullest. We've started doing our bit though now as we head onto some real touristy stuff hopefully in Pisa soon!

Ed