We have spent the last two weeks moving slowly across Italy on and off the Via Postumia. Our best days are always the ones Andrea Vitiello has carefully planned on either the cycling or walking Via Postumia . For reasons of time and availability of affordable accommodation, however, we are sometimes cutting corners and taking more direct routes. These straighter routes are more efficient, but ...
There are few things more annoying than reading endless blogs about beautiful towns and villages. Wouldn’t it be refreshing to read for once that we arrived in a cesspool of a place that smelled like sewer gas and looked like a dollar store exploded in the central square. Sorry, no such luck. As far as I can tell Italian towns smell like jasmine and roses, ...
I’m sitting in the waiting room in the hospital at Cittadella. I had a brief glimpse of the intact medieval walls before turning into this large modern brick structure. Yesterday a watched a blood engorged tick backing out of my leg after a good feed. I could almost see the satisfied grin on its face. The area is still red and looks a little like ...
After a 34 km walk and half a tub of ice cream Gord was still up for a walk around Treviso. Italy is amazing; step into a Cathedral and stumble upon a painting by Titian. In Treviso it’s his Annunciation. We also were treated to some frescos in the crypt from the 13 or 14th century. Gord and I love this stuff. It’s great being ...
We are staying at a lovely house with our host Lilica in a small community halfway between Portogruaro and Treviso. I offered to cook spaghetti carbonara and she laughed and said that’s what she was going to make. She insisted on making us dinner and we had a lively conversation through the meal. We toasted Google Translate, that allowed us to talk freely about everything ...
Yesterday was a rain day. It was only the fourth soaker on the trip so far. It feels like something magic when the rain stops. Suddenly an overcast day is fantastic and a small square of blue, or a ray of sunshine makes me feel jubilant. Today we had a number of these moments after being chased across the landscape by occasional thunder storms. It ...
Today we left Slovenia and walked across the border into Italy. We made our way across Slovenia on the Jacobova Pot between the Hungarian and Italian borders in 13 days and 323 kms. We have now come 751 kms from Budapest. The Camino in Slovenia is well signposted for walkers and cyclists and is enthusiastically supported in person and on line by the Jacobova Pot ...
Tomorrow we climb out of the village of Podraga in the beautiful, deep Vipava Valley and say goodbye to Slovenia. It was our first time in the country and certainly won’t be our last.When we first crossed into Slovenia in stormy weather, one of the members of the Jacobova Pot pilgrim association warned me, through their Facebook page, that the ferry crossing of the Mura ...
Unlike other Camino routes we have done, this trip has no English guide. We have a gpx line on our phones, an accommodation list and, of course, a smart phone. Without a guide telling you what you will encounter along the way it has been a daily encounter with pleasant and beautiful surprises. As a result of the rains Gord has also been walking the ...
Trying to make a generalization about a country or its people is just dangerous - full stop. Trying to do it after only three nights in the country is ridiculous. I don’t care, Slovenians are so freaking friendly! You know there is something good in the water when teenagers say hi to you as you pass. Teenagers!! Here I am in a new country with ...