Walking through the beech forest in the Monti Picentini in Campania (Naples and Campania tour, May 2025, places still available!).
This is a very special Friday: Gelato Fiore di Latte by Biraghi in the beautiful Piazza San Carlo in the heart of Turin. It’s the only ice cream they sell. It’s made from 3 ingredients: the best milk, cream and sugar. It’s made fresh every hour. It costs 2 euro and it is absolutely delicious. Yummmm!
This group was incorrigible. Despite two hours of steep climbing, they sailed on towards the Passo del Turlo (nearly 3000 mts asl) without missing a beat.
Stambecchi (Ibex) are the symbol of the Alps. They were almost hunted into extinction. At one stage in the 1940s there were less than three hundred creatures in all the Alps, mostly in the Grand Paradiso National Park in the Val d’Aosta.
Now there are around 47,000 throughout the Alps. They are no longer hunted, so not as timid as they used to be. This young ibex was hanging around the chair lift that took us up to the rifugio where had lunch at a height of nearly three thousand metres. We were very lucky!
Every group above a certain altitude must take a qualified alpine guide. We always use guides from the Alagna Alpine Guides, who were founded in 1872 and are the second oldest in the Alps (after Courmayeur). We gad lunch at the Rifugio Mantova, which is 3600 mts asl.
We got there a bit early so the guides fave us a demonstration of how you retrieve someone from a crevasse. Fortunately there was no need for us but two days later alpinists died in a crevasse on Mont Blanc.
Scottish longhorns. Cute cows and very convenient as, I believe, they can be left up here for the winter but some of the locals grumble about the introduction of these new critters and the impact they are having
It was a perfect morning for frogs. Matteo, one of our guides who has been on the Trails tours since day one nine years ago, is a master critter wrangler. We had just crossed the second pass for the day, with the third in front of us.
Setting out from our accommodation (another sanctuary).
Big day today not so long (I think about 15 kms) but a big climb at the end: 1200 mts gain, 3 kms distance - pretty steep - up to a ‘rifugio’ (one of my favourites!).
The gang did it with ease!
We are very lucky to have Luca, a local Beilla, chef and many other things, to work with us for the first four days of the hike. The first night we have a special dinner at his restaurant Autentico. Then, for the next three days (until we hit the serious mountains) he miraculously appears to provide us with a delicious lunch, each featuring a different aspect of Biella’s food.
After conquering Vulcano, well… walking up to the top of the volcano, we found a nice little bay for a swim and then enjoyed lunch prepared by our captain Salvatore.
On top of Old Smokey. Vulcano is one of the seven islands of the Aeolian archipelago. It’s a dormant volcano, ie it is still active but closely monitored. Its a slow trudge up the sandy path but well worth it for the views on top (on a clear day you can see all the islands plus Etna and Calabrian coast).
The smoke on the top is from the ‘fumaroles’, vents that go down into the burning bowels of the volcano. It’s pretty cool!
Leaving Panarea with Stromboli in the distance. Our boat is a converted fishing vessel. Our captain the redoubtable Salvatore. Heading back to Lipari.
