Category: My blog
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Day 16. Mercantour National Park/Santa Maria Della Verza
We have spent the past few days with some members of our walking group in the Mercantour National Park in Southern France about an 11/2 hour’s drive from Nice. It’s a beautiful park with great hiking . The area was devastated by a storm back in 2020 and work still continues on the roads and…
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Day 9. Cinque Terre – Corniglia to Riomaggiore
We’ve done it! All the paths we could hike have been hiked. As with the first day, today we did two sections together and it was brutal. Following true “mad dogs and Englishmen “ tradition, we ended up starting our walk close to midday so had the added difficulty of very hot sun and I…
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Day 8. Monterosso-Levanto
Flipping heck. I thought the train yesterday morning was full but today really took the biscuit. When we arrived at the station it was swarming with people trying to buy tickets. As we already had ours, in order to get past the hoards I naughtily ducked under a barrier, only to get my walking poles…
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Day 7. Walking the Cinque Terre – Monterosso to Corniglia
For anyone who hasn’t heard of the Cinque Terre, it’s 5 pretty coastal villages connected by a path that weaves its way through ancient terraces and looks out over the sea. It’s iconic and it’s been on our “ to do” list for some time. We would have preferred to walk it during the Spring…
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Day 6. Avigliana-La Spezia
I was quite sad to pack up and leave our posh pad this morning. No more sitting on the roof terrace listening to the church tower bong and watching the bats fly about. Today we headed off towards La Spezia, our base for the next 5 nights. We are aiming to walk the Cinque Terre…
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Day 5 – Avigliana. Big Lake and Little Lake(Lago Grande and Lago Piccolo)
Lago Grande and Lago Piccolo sound much more romantic but they are basically called Big Lake and Little Lake. Not terribly imaginative but there you go. We decided an 8 mile potter to the lakes was in order today, rather than another 14 mile, 900m of ascent, hiking marathon. I have developed a rather revolting…
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Day 4 – Avigliana. A hike to Sacra di San Michele
The Appartamento Palazzo dei Duchi’s golden touch even managed to help me get 8 hours of unbroken sleep. I love this place. I also love shutters on windows. Sleeping in total darkness is wonderful. I could sleep until 4pm and have no idea of the time. Today we decided to hike to the abbey Sacra…
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Day 3 – Macon to Avilgliana
Budget Ibis turned out to be a real find. Our hotel was between a motorway, a major road and close to a main railway. Didn’t hear a thing. Plus we were able to have a second visit to Carrefour mega/hyper/absolutely huge store and buy loads of stuff. Heaven. We hit the road again, really quite…
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Day 2 – Saint Quentin to Macon Crèches
Getting out of our chambre d’hôte was even more tricky than getting in. Lugging a heavy suitcase while descending a spiral staircase should be an Olympic event except it’s probably too dangerous. We were on our way after a quick stop at the local Intermarche to buy lunch and fill up with petrol. I really…
Middle-aged flash packers 