I had a very nice dinner at my B&B last night. An interesting dish was a salad of fennel, orange and little violets which grow wild in the forests of northern Italy at this time of the year.

 http://www.novarbora.com

My walk took me straight up and over Monte Adone, one of the mountains named after gods that gives this walk it’s name . The path up was quite steep, muddy and slippery in parts.


The mountain is largely composed of sandstone and is noted for the presence of fossils. The Appenines were underwater in the plesocene era.

The view from the top was spectacular . Even though the day was cloudy, many distant mountains were visible as well as the valley below with the Bologna – Florence freeway .

There was a cross on the peak with an attached metal box with a exercise book inside. I added my name and comments to the hundreds of others.



After my descent, I followed a medieval mule trail for quite a while. It was in excellent condition .

I passed by Monterumici. There’s not much to see here now, but the fortifications formed part of the so called’ Gothic Line’. This was a series of defences stretching across Italy intended to stop or at least slow down the allied advance up the Italian peninsula. Incredibly, the Germans held out here from October 1944 until April 1945.

By now, I was getting pretty hungry. It was a cold and windy day with little sunshine , maybe 4 or 5 degrees.I was despairing of finding somewhere out of the weather to eat my bread roll and smelly cheese when I arrived at the Ospitale Di Monzuno. This was a medieval hospice for pilgrims but is now in ruins. However, it offered welcome respite from the weather .

My smelly cheese by the way had come with me from Bologna and is getting smellier by the day. It comes from the Alto Adige region and is called Puzzone Di Moena.

The path followed what seemed to be a recently built road branching off from a roundabout and bypassing the town of Monzuno. However it was blocked off to traffic. I soon found out why !

I had a fine view of Monte Adone that I had walked over earlier in the day before climbing over yet another mountain ridge.

 I came across an interesting landscape devoid of undergrowth . It was an old chestnut and hazelnut plantation, if that’s the right word .

 There were many stumps of chestnut trees but some have survived like this this old beauty.

‘Not that old chedtnut!’ ( sorry couldnt resist that one)
There were a few man made eyesores along the path including this one and a set of wind generators. It was clear though why they were here – it was veryhigh and

windy and I was getting colder by the minute.  
What’s that peeping through the trees?

I finally arrived in the little mountain town of Madonna Dei Fornelli around 4pm with frozen hands. Tomorrow I’ll have to get my gloves out. It had taken me 7 hours to cover the 28 km with a total climb of 1,400m.

I had an interesting and inventive meal at the little restaurant next door, including tortelloni with radicchio in a cheese based basket and pork fillets with berries. The cook’s dream is to come to Australia !

Tomorrow is a long day – 40km!