Bonus Episode: Capturing the Essence of the Way of the Gods

Via degli Dei Bonus Episode

[00:00:00] Edo: Welcome to this special companion episode of Go Far, an adventure podcast where we take you on an immersive journey along the way of the gods or the vie day. And the best part, we've recorded this episode on the field two years ago with all the sounds and sensations of this epic track captured in real time.

Also, don't forget to check out the studio produced episode on the way of the Gods, which you can find linked in the description below. Those two episodes go together like jam and peanut butter, so make sure you listen to them both to get the full experience as we near the end of the trail. You'll feel the elation in our voices as we realize we've completed the journey and accomplished something truly remarkable.

Just like our episode on Lake Como, this is not just a travel log, but a sensory journey that will transport you to the heart of Italy's most beautiful landscapes and historic sites. So sit back, relax, and let the sounds of the way of the Gods guide you on a truly unforgettable adventure.

[00:01:20] Anna: Hello everyone. We got on the train at 7 25. We left Rome, then arriving in Florence around nine. We met Ed's friend Carl, who had gotten us the. And we had a quick breakfast with him. We walked through the main squares of Florence to fill up our water bottles from the one city fountain in Florence, but they did have fresh, fizzy and still mineral water at pi.

We walked past the duomo and then headed towards the piazza

where we saw the church that I used to go to when I lived in Florence. And then it was a good four to five kilometers walking outta Florence. But it's a nice, it's a nice walk. They're nice neighborhoods. And then we began to go up the mountain, the hills. We had a beautiful view overlooking Florence. We could see the duomo and then we continued climbing.

Well, you 

[00:02:48] Edo: forgot to mention what that mountain was. Okay, 

[00:02:53] Anna: so this mountain called Yeah. Is where Leonard Da Vinci went to test out his flying machine when he made like the, the wings, like a bird to see if a man could fly. So he climbed up to the top of the this mountain and have his friend jump off of it.

[00:03:18] Edo: It's funny that he didn't do it himself. He had a friend do it like his assistant, so, Let's take a moment here because this is beautiful. So it's worth pointing out that this is the morning of our second day because our plan was to write our journals yesterday night, um, and then record this, but we were so exhausted that we just went to bed.

So right now, I mean, look at, it's so beautiful. So right now it's uh, uh, five minutes to eight in the morning. Obviously it's nice and cool, and we're walking on this gravel path and we have the sun to our right. That's kind of just like, um, risen. Well, not really. I mean it pro, it probably rose like two hours ago, but when the, when the alarm went off at six in the morning, it was still dark.

In the room. So, and yeah, we're walking up this uphill, uh, gravel path and I just interrupted Anna for a second because it's so beautiful and there's, I just saw a few yellow leaves falling from the trees and see back there. See, and before when we were back there, I could see these yellow leaves like falling against this golden light of the sun, and it was magical.

So now I'm done with this, uh, part. I'm gonna hand the microphone back to Anna, who was being. Very diplomatic because we climbed up this hill and I thought it was terrible. And we, we met this, uh, family from Florence who had driven up there, and we told them that we were headed to ul. We had walked 10 kilometers, five of which were uphill.

Uh, and we went up to an elevation of like 450 meters from 50. So it was a bit of a climb over a few kilometers, and it was horrible. And, but th this family, the, the dad told us, well, if you're going to Olmo right now, all you need to do is just follow the road. And it's just, hey, kilometers up the road. And Olmo is only like a hundred meters, 150 meters above from where we are.

And we thought, sweet. Got rid of the hard part for the day we were wrong. And no will tell you why. 

[00:05:50] Anna: So actually the, um, the guide took us off of the, off of the road, the, the road for the cars, the road for the cars. It, um, it made us go on a path that climbed another huge mountain. And so we begin, um, climbing up this quite steep path on loose rocks.

They were. Like big rocks. It wasn't gravel. So, um, we had to be very careful of the, of the path. We have our sticks. There's, um, fair amount of, of sun. There's, I mean, a few trees, but at this point it's maybe two, three o'clock in the afternoon. So there is quite a bit of sun, and we keep meeting other walkers coming in the opposite direction and they, they, we, we ask them, oh, how much to the, to the top and they would say, Half an hour and then we'd meet, maybe 20 minutes later, we'd meet another group of walkers, say, oh, how much to the top?

And they'd say, half an hour. So we're climbing up and up. Meanwhile, most of these people coming from the, they started in bologna. Most of them young guys from, from Tuscany, from the north of Italy, they're all looking for water. So they had wanted to pass through the little town of PI so they could get water.

We had our water, but we're wondering where the top, when the top of this mountain would come. We finally reached, it rested a bit. It was 

[00:07:38] Edo: pretty glorious. Yes, we got our, uh, the, the roll. The roll that we have, busted it out and just lay there for what, like 30 minutes, maybe even more. Cuz we were so exhausted and everybody that, I mean, uh, some people were like very surprised that, uh, we were going from Florence to bologna.

They said that, uh, it's actually easier if you do it the other way around. But we studied the guide and we decided that out of six days we would rather have two very hard days and four easy ones rather than six medium ones. Uh, so for example, today after having climbed that big, big old mountain again, we got up to an elevation of 700 meters.

That's over 2000 feet for you Americans out there. And, um, And the thing is, it was very tricky because the other, the other mountain was winding. The, the path was winding, so it was kind of easier. But this one was just like a straight shot up the mountain. So the, the, the father of the family, he said like, that road actually goes around the mountain.

We didn't know, but the vie day went up and down the mountain. Um, anyways, 

[00:09:04] Anna: yeah, the down the downhill part was really beautiful. It was a nice, gentle downhill through the woods. 

[00:09:11] Edo: I mean, it wasn't particularly gentle. Wasn't particularly gentle, but 

[00:09:14] Anna: it was nice. Nice to go downhill in the woods. Yeah. And we were, we were being careful with the sticks.

[00:09:22] Edo: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, we were very tired by then, but, We finally got to Hotel Dino where we had an amazing dinner. I ordered so many things, but luckily I managed to cancel like half of the things that I ordered cuz I was just too tired and full. 

[00:09:38] Anna: So, and again, at the hotel, including Dino, everyone's kind of laughing every time we'd say like, you're going the 

[00:09:45] Edo: other way.

What? Yeah. They were just like, oh, okay, so where are those? Well we'll know tomorrow, like at the end of tomorrow, cuz tomorrow we have a really hard day. But that's a story for another time. We we're at the end of the gravel path, so, uh, we have to figure out where to go from here. And yeah, this has been our, um, Uh, report for the first day of walking, and now we're ready to start our second one.

Yeah, supposed to be doing like yesterday, approximately 900. I see. 919 kilometers, but uh, it's mostly downhill, so yeah. All right, bye bye. So today is August 17th. Um, it's currently, uh, 20 past 10 approximately. And you might be asking yourselves, what are you doing recording this at 20 past 10? Why are you not walking?

Why have you not been walking for the past two hours? We'll get there. Um, First we're gonna talk about, um, yesterday, yesterday's walk. So, um, we last recorded a message, uh, a little over 24 hours ago. It was past eight in the morning, and we were, uh, we had just left the hotel Dino, and we were going up that gravel path behind the hotel to join the, um, the, the vi day.

And there were the leaves coming down. It was very beautiful and we felt, uh, very energized, right? Yes, yes. Um, we were a little stiff. Uh, luckily we had our tiger bomb that's like miraculous. And, uh, so yeah, we had a, a good night's rest and we were very ready to tackle the, the day. So let's start by saying that we started the day with a relatively.

Short but challenging. Climb up to the, uh, Monte scenario it's called, 

[00:12:00] Anna: but it was very beautiful. We passed through like a, almost like a field overlooking Florence. There are these beautiful views. Yeah, 

[00:12:12] Edo: it was like up on top of the hill and so not at, at the top, top of the hill, but getting there. We took this amazing picture.

Uh, cuz we saw a couch like sitting in this, um, what'd you call it? A meadow? Like it wasn't really a meadow. A meadow, yeah. I mean, it was just a grassy thing overlooking Florence. It's amazing. You could actually see Florence in the dome of the duomo. It was amazing. And again, it was early in the morning. I mean, the sun was beating down, but the air was crisp.

It was nice. And we found this, uh, selfie station after we saw this couch. We were like, what is, what is this doing here? And we thought, who abandons a couch like on a trail? I mean, it was a lot of effort to bring it up there, just leave it somewhere else. But then, uh, a moment later, we saw this post that had this groove cut into it and a little sign that said selfie station.

So like you could. Put your phone in that little groove, set the timer, take a picture, which is what we did. And um, and by then we were probably halfway up to the Monte scenario, so we keep, we keep climbing. Uh, it was a gentle climb. It wasn't that high, I think. I think we were up a little over 800 meters in elevation.

So again, around 2,400 feet. And we had climbed maybe like a thousand feet to get up there somewhere around like 700 to 1000 feet. Um, and so we get to the Monte scenario, which was amazing, and I'll let you talk about it. 

[00:13:56] Anna: And so, Monte scenario was founded by these seven Noble Florentines, who in the. 13th century who left their, like warring families.

They're very rich, and decided they wanted to begin this order. And so they went out into the, the mountains outside of Florence, and it's the, and it's still a monastery. It was very beautiful. They had a nice bar. Yeah. And a bathroom, which were very much needed. And the church was really beautiful, and they're particularly devoted to the Madonna.

It's the, the image of the Virgin Mary with the seven swords sticking out of her heart, and she's usually wearing like a blue, dark blue veil and she looks very very much in pain. So that was a really beautiful spot. We got a little bit of refreshments. I got some holy cards, and it's such a beautiful place.

High up in the mountains. We walked uphill, but through this beautiful woods to get there. There were other. Pilgrims, other, other tourists people, um, who had, who had gone up there. So that was, that was really nice. That was one of the highlights of the, of the places that we got to see today. 

[00:15:28] Edo: You mean yesterday?

Yesterday, 

[00:15:30] Anna: yeah. And 

[00:15:32] Edo: that was pretty much the only high point of the day. 

[00:15:37] Anna: Bye bet. The other two. We saw other two beautiful places. 

[00:15:42] Edo: The the castle you mean? And, and the abandoned. Oh. But yeah. Okay. 

[00:15:49] Anna: So then we, I'll keep 

[00:15:51] Edo: going. Okay. Yeah. So cuz I'm a lot more cynical. So basically again, we were very energized after an early morning climb and we thought, hey, it's basically all downhill from here, except like at the end there's like a short climb right before the, the thing, the, the city where we were supposed to stay.

So basically what we had to do at that point was, so the whole, the whole day was supposed to be around 18 kilometers, but turned out to be over 19 because we did that little detour to get to the hotel where we stayed at two nights ago. Um, And so we felt cool. We get to go down the mountain and it's gonna be easy.

And I thought it was also, there was this thing that was kind of funny cuz um, when we descend, obviously, cuz again we're doing it the opposite way. Uh, everybody's doing it from bologna to Florence and we we're doing it the other way around. And so yesterday when, no, sorry, two days ago when we were climbing, we kept asking people like how far to the top.

And yesterday we were the ones being asked how far to the top and we were trying to be as helpful as we could. Um, so we thought that was funny. So again, I'm. I'm a beginner at this. I think I only went hiking like a handful of times in my entire life. Um, so I thought, cool, we're gonna go downhill. And while I know that going downhill is challenging just as much as going uphill, it felt like it was even more challenging.

So we started going down on the, like the, the, the grade was pretty, pretty steep. Um, again, we saw that, but the other which is an abandoned, what was it? Like what's up? I'm not really sure what it is like, um, 

[00:17:50] Anna: Like a 

[00:17:50] Edo: monastery. Okay. So we, we saw that from a distance because, um, like it was abandoned and there was a gate and this sort of driveway that led up to it and we couldn't go past it.

So took a nice picture of it and we kept going down. There were some bits of road, especially past the ba, uh, that were very steep because basically we're on the, uh, the a panini right now. So it's this, uh, huge mountain range that pretty much goes all the way down, uh, Italy. Um, it divides Italy in two pretty much.

And so what it's made of is just a bunch of like mountains. So we have to go up and then we go down, and then we go up and then we go down. So it's pretty intense. Um, and so we went downhill and. That's when, I don't wanna say that disaster struck, but like things started to get serious because when we finally got to the bottom of the hill, we were pretty tired.

I mean, the interesting thing is that I'm not like, we weren't physically tired, but parts of us were aching. Uh, Anna had problems with her shoulder, shoulders. Um, when I took off my backpack at the end of the day, my left shoulder was aching and I'm like, my feet were hurting so much. So my an my left ankle a bit too.

So that's the problem. Um, we're not physically tired, like our muscles don't a, it's like joints and pressure points and contact points and there's not much we can do about that. So we got to the bottom of the hill and it was devastating because we still had like seven more kilometers to go up a hill and down a hill.

And that was steep. It was kind of steep too. Uh, cuz we had to go up like 200 meters and just like two kilometers. So it was a lot. But then we finally make it after several stops. Um, I got pretty demoralized at one point. I was just like, I have to sit down. Um, and this was after we had climbed the hill.

Um, the last one. So it was on the way down. Uh, but it was very steep. Like, like most Italian, like little mountain towns. To get up there and to get back down, you have to go down these, up and down these roller coaster roads that are just like so incredibly steep. They're almost vertical. So, and we 

[00:20:27] Anna: passed this 

[00:20:28] Edo: castle Oh yeah.

On top of this 

[00:20:30] Anna: last hill. On top of this hill, which was very, the view from it was very beautiful. It's one of those, you've probably seen it in like pictures. One of the, the square shaped, um, towers with the, I don't know what they're called in English, those little kind of eve things around the, um, the tower.

Very beautiful. That we could see from a distance right underneath the castle. We couldn't really see it because we were walking along like the out buildings in between the cypress trees, the castles now, um, private properties. Yeah. Who couldn't really get close to it. But again, this is up at the top of a hill, which we then had to descend to go into 

[00:21:18] Edo: San Piero, which is where we're currently.

Um, I forgot to mention before that we were up high in the morning and then we went down and I thought it was just amazing to see the change in ecosystem, like how quiet it was up in the mountain and how green and lush it was. And then as soon as you descend, like let's say something like a thousand feet maybe, Everything got barren and you could hear crickets.

It was just so weird. So this is the issue, like Anna's been describing the castle, which I don't even remember because I was so focused on just pulling like one foot ahead of the other, trying to get there. She stopped for a picture when we could see the castle, uh, before we actually got to the top of the hill.

And I was just like, I'm sorry, I'm gonna keep going. Like you, you join me. When you're done. So this brings us to the reason why we're still in our hotel room at what is now like 10 30 in the morning, which we also have to leave soon. Today we were supposed to tackle the hardest, um, leg of our walk, which, um, wanted us to walk 24 kilometers, which is what, like 15 miles, um, with an elevation of 900 meters.

Like we were sup supposed to climb 900 meters and the sand like 200. So, um, 2,700 feet and 600 feet. We were just in so much pain last night, like, I don't think this is, Like, I'm not exaggerating. We were in pain, right? Yes. Yeah. We had to buy, well, Hannah bought for me, uh, those little, um, band-aids, the comps for the, how do you, how do you call them?

The, the mahi in English? The blisters? Yeah. Yeah. I got bli, like I had to use six of them on both 

[00:23:20] Anna: banking, which, you know, how we feel about blisters and it's just so scary. Which is another, I, we were talking a lot about why, you know, why stop, why take a die off? Because the blisters are really scary. He has them un like underneath his toes on the side and just if, if your blisters pop, if they get out of hand, then you're done, then you're done.

[00:23:46] Edo: Yeah. So considering that, uh, we still have, well, we only walk two days out of six. And, uh, and considering that today was supposed to be very hard and we're stiff still, like our backs are stiff and our shoulders, our legs a little bit. So what we decided to do today was to skip this incredibly hard stage and just hop on a bus that leaves in four hours.

There's sort of like one for the day, which will take us up to the top of the mountain where we were supposed to stop. So we hope that, uh, By doing so, we will be giving our bodies enough time to recover so that we can tackle the three remaining stages. That will not be easy either. Like we have a short day tomorrow, which is just like 14 kilometers, uh, with not a lot of climbing and not a lot of descending.

It looks quite even. But then we have 2 24 kilometer days, um, which hopefully we will be able to manage. Um, but I mean, this taught us a valuable lesson. Like I decided, we decided that like it's not worth being in pain cuz if you're in pain, even though physically you might be able to still go through, you won't enjoy the sight.

Cuz I noticed at one point that all I was doing, I was just looking at my feet at the ground and just, you know, willing myself to go forward and I wasn't enjoying the sight at all. So, We're still on holiday. This is like our one week of vacation of the year, at least for me. So we decided to take it easy and that it's okay.

Like it's, it's hard to um, accept this sometimes, but it's okay to not even quit, but you know, just get some help. And even if we were to have to quit tomorrow or two days from now, we'll make the most of it. Like we'll just go to Bologna and spend a couple days there if, if we want to. Um, but yeah, so, uh, this recording was twice as long as the one as we did yesterday cuz we were walking.

So now we're just gonna. Pack our bags and go in some sort of cafe, like maybe the milk bar of San Pi writer in our journals. Read some books and uh, wait for the bus to go on top of the mountain where we will be taking lots of pictures. Yeah. Yes. Alright. See you all tomorrow. Bye. Bye. Day three, walking.

Anna will tell the story of what happened yesterday because we did tell about the day that we, we, yeah, yesterday we, we recorded yesterday, right? But it was the morning, so yeah. The day that we decided to, to skip. So yeah, what happened yesterday, Anna? 

[00:26:51] Anna: So we. We were kind of hanging around San trying to figure out the bots, which there was not really a schedule even.

Even the locals didn't really know. There, the schedule was not accurate, so we just kind of hung out close to the bus stop at the train station. Well, to be fair, the 

schedule 

[00:27:19] Edo: kinda was accurate, but it took a very specific skillset to be able to interpret it, which we did not possess, and apparently neither did.

A girl that was, she helped us out. She was like, look, I don't know, I just, I'm just waiting here for my bus. Eventually it will show up. And we were like, okay, there you go. 

[00:27:43] Anna: So we did get on a bus, little van finally for Barbarino, where we, we sat and wrote in our journals, read a bit, had a cold drink. 

[00:28:00] Edo: I feel like you, you're skipping quite even there an important detail of the Not of the, of the bus cuz um, the bus that took us to Barbarino.

So first of all, like our journey was supposed to be divided into two buses, one to Barbarino and one to uh, which is where we stopped for the day. And, uh, And this was just like a little van cuz most of these things are operated by private buses, private bus companies. So it was a little confusing and the guy was just like, yeah, come on board.

Like, who cares? You have a ticket, I don't care. So that was kind of sketchy, but that was the easiest part of the day. We didn't know that yet cuz then what happened? 

[00:28:52] Anna: So then the second bus, as he was parked there, smoking inside the bus 

[00:29:01] Edo: with all the windows closed and everything, 

[00:29:05] Anna: then we got on and he was driving very fast along this road, which you'll, you'll see the video and very fast along this road.

It was like, it was a very steep 

[00:29:21] Edo: mountain road and with these tight hairpin curves and he just didn't care. He was riding with one hand, sending voice messages with the other. It took him like 15 minutes to go on a 30 minute, uh, leg. So that was fun. 

[00:29:42] Anna: And then we arrived at Pa la Futa, where we went up to see the German military cemetery, where over 30,000 Germans soldiers are buried, or their names are written on this beautiful monument.

So we explored 

[00:30:07] Edo: there.

Can I tell some details about the cemetery? Yeah, so basically it's a monument to peace, which we think is beautiful. Um, and then we found out more details about this place. So there was over 30,000, uh, some, um, sorry, soldiers that are resting there, some of them are resting there just with, uh, Like, um, uh, a gravestone or just with, or their, 

[00:30:46] Anna: their memory.

[00:30:47] Edo: Yeah, just with a naming en uh, engraved on a, on these big marble slabs because then we, we did some reading and it turns out that this area, which is beautiful, by the way, we're on top of the Paso del Futa right now. We're gonna climb a little higher up to 1200 meters, which is over 3,600 feet. It's 

[00:31:09] Anna: the first day.

It's a little bit chilly. I don't even know what this feeling 

[00:31:13] Edo: is. Yeah, no, I mean, I'm wearing long pants today and Hannah's wearing a little, uh, sweater. Uh, but yeah. Anyway, we've been told, and we read around that this area, uh, used to be a huge battlefield. By the end of the war, like 44, 45. And in fact, all of the soldiers that are buried there died in either 44 or 45.

And it was haunting to see just how many of them were so young. And most of them, some of them were like 19 or even younger. And the person that we met later on today, yesterday, sorry, I won't, I won't just tell you yet who he was cuz it's part of the, the story he told us that, uh, those were the kids that were just sent by the Nazis, like desperately kids, just barely fresh out of school.

Who barely knew what her rifle was. And so again, many of these soldiers, like thousands of these soldiers, I think their bodies were never recovered, but like name tags were found. And this person that I just mentioned said that the German soldier, or Germans in general tend to write a lot. And so there were a lot of written documents and written records of their presence in the area.

So maybe just a letter, a uniform dog tags were recovered cuz this area is steaming with, uh, history buffs that scour the woods looking for war memorabilia. And so they find the occasional, uh, I don't know, name tag, uniform helmet, maybe with a little letter or something. And we were reading this article that was posted inside the cemetery, uh, which also a little side note, the cemetery is maintained by what is known as the vbo, which is a German, uh, private run, I don't know what to call it, like group, um, whose main goal is to find as many dead soldiers in Western Europe, um, and give them rest.

Uh, the cemetery that we visited, uh, was built in the sixties and it opened in 1969. And then again, the funny thing is that, well, it's not really funny, it's kind of morbid, but, um, there are bodies that are still being found to this day, uh, by people who are like digging around again for memorabilia. They find bones.

And, uh, what happened was, I I, I was reading this article that was posted in there that was posted in the cemetery that, uh, dated uh, 2007. Uh, where it said another body was found and somebody had found these bones and they just picked them up, scooped them up in a bag and dropped them off in front of the cemetery gates and the curator of the cemetery, the, I don't know, the groundskeeper, I don't know the custodian sat in this article like, please call us when you find these bodies, like you won't risk anything.

Uh, it's not like you will be charged. It will actually help us to know where the body was found and find out more about this poor soldier. And, um, another thing that this person that I mentioned earlier told us is that to this day, dead soldiers, dead German soldiers are being found like in the foundations of homes when they're being like renovated or rebuilt.

Because there was a very terrible thing that used to happen during the war, which is , which is that, uh, whenever a German soldier was found dead in Italy, the German army would kill 10 villagers, 10 Italians. So if somebody had the bad luck of having a German soldier die on their property, on their homestead, then.

See, this is the where we should have gone yesterday. Um, if they found a sol, a German soldier dead on their property, then uh, what they used to do was just hide it like under their homes to make sure that the German army wouldn't kill, uh, 10 people for that. Let's try to figure out where we're supposed to be going and thinking here, right?

Yeah. So, uh, yeah, that's the story of the cemetery and. Which is wild enough. But now let's go on to the second part of the story, which Anna will tell. 

[00:36:20] Anna: Then we walked two kilometers to Hotel Yolanda, which is the only hotel at Paso La Futa, which is about 1000 meters above sea level. And we, we walk to the hotel, go inside, there's another two walkers behind us, and, and we, we say the, um, the name, our name, and they say, That they do not have a reservation for us.

Also, this other couple that had called the morning before to make a reservation, there's no reserv reservation for them either. So then we figure out that they, they find my phone number, I had given Ed's last name. They had gotten it a bit wrong, but this their sort of mistaken version of kaki and my phone number was written down and they said, no, it's been, um, it's been canceled.

It was never confirmed. When I called to make the reservation, they did not say, you need to confirm. I, I made a reservation 10 days ago. I had the, you know, on my phone. The, the record of call. The record of the call, but they said, no, you never confirmed. Which they did not tell me. And so I had spoken to this older woman, this Nona, who made, who makes all the reservations, and even this other couple, they had called the day before to make a reservation.

So it seems like in the confusion, They take reservations, but as walkers show up, they just give away the rooms. And as we, and this other couple had arrived at six o'clock in the afternoon, they'd already given away the rooms. So they try, 

[00:38:29] Edo: we were a best disheartened by that fact by them. Uh, cause we were like, this is the only hotel This is the only hotel in the area.

Like there's more but like 5, 6, 10 kilometers away. And we were, I mean, granted we didn't walk like the other guys did, but it's not like we had a car available, so we didn't really know what to do. And the bad thing was that at the beginning, this, this old lady who apparently fumbled the. The bookings was pretty much like, well, I mean, there's nothing I can do.

Like I can call other structures in the area and see if they have availability. But apart from that, apart from that, There's not much I can do. And we were like, well, yeah, that's not, that's not very comforting. Uh, but then luckily their, their daughter came along and she was very helpful. 

[00:39:29] Anna: She found us a another, um, a place to stay in.

Um, In a hotel hostel that was 10 kilometers away. But, um, they said, okay, so we can, we had dinner there with this other, this other couple who were very nice and then we went to the, the other hotel, which 

[00:40:02] Edo: yeah, there's just pin getting our sticks out. Yeah. Um, yeah, let's just finish the recording here, 

[00:40:08] Anna: which, um, so.

Then this, the, the no takes, usri takes us on the, the 10 kilometers on this very winding road. He's driving on the opposite side of the road, driving through. They have those little red lights. Yeah, red lights that, that they have in the mountains when the road becomes like one lane. So for the oncoming direction, he didn't 

[00:40:34] Edo: care.

He didn't care. He just went through, I was hugging my backpack so hard cuz there were like five of us in a very small 

[00:40:39] Anna: car. And said this, this lady, the lady from Milan, she's like gripping onto my knee, like frightened. Um, we get to, we get to the room, which was actually kind of like a little, uh, a little apartment.

They had a bed sort of. Close to the door, but, um, they actually left quite early this morning because going in the opposite direction. They had a very big day today, which is the one that we skipped yesterday, which we skipped going towards Florence. So they left early and they had their kind of bed set up close to the door.

Um, 

[00:41:14] Edo: whereas we actually had a room with a door and they didn't, uh, but with 

[00:41:19] Anna: one bathroom in this little apartment. But, um, but fortunately the, the people at this, at this other hotel were super nice. Yeah. This morning after breakfast, She, um, she brought us to, I 

[00:41:32] Edo: mean we did to the trail. We did have to pay, uh, to be driven to the trail, but the people from the other hotel that they didn't have our, uh, our room anymore, they said, oh, you can call us.

We can take you there for free, but we'll come pick you up and we'll bring you back. And I thought, you know, like, I don't know when we're gonna wake up. I don't know when we're gonna have breakfast cuz this is a short day for us today. It's only 14 kilometers. So it's not like I wanted to wake up like at six in the morning.

And obviously these people are working, they have a hotel to manage, so yeah. Anyways, um, we're at the bottom of a pretty steep segment. It's, it's, it's shorts beautiful in the woods. There's the sun shining through these trees, and again, there ferns on 

[00:42:13] Anna: the forest floor. 

[00:42:15] Edo: I'm just amazed by how green everything is and how different it is from like two days ago when we were lower in altitude.

And the temperature is nice. The temperature is nice. According to my watch, we're at 935 meters, which is almost 3000 feet. So we're pretty high up. And yeah, we're gonna wrap it up for now. This was our adventure of yesterday, and we'll be recording another segment, uh, about what happens today. We have no idea.

Every day is new. Every day is an adventure. Every day is unexpected, and this is what makes it nice. Uh, but yeah, so up we go. Bye bye. So we're currently in, um,

We recorded this morning on the trail. Yeah, we did. Yes. So this is a few hours later. Um, we're currently in our room at the Hotel Poly in Mad, which is packed with walkers. It's packed. Today was the one day where we saw, I think we saw like so many walker, 

[00:43:26] Anna: many walkers, so many walkers. Everyone, everyone going in the 

[00:43:31] Edo: other direction.

Yeah. Not a single one coming our way. No. And it's funny because now we're getting to the end, like towards the end of our journey. So this means that the people that we're meeting now are like at the beginning of their third day, at least the ones that we, that we met today or maybe even the second day.

Cuz some of them are, um, putting all of these things together. Um, And it's funny how like we got these different opinions because when we were starting out everybody was like, oh, it's much harder like what you're doing. Cuz maybe they'd gotten used to descending. Um, but the people that we met today, we met a few of them who were uh, very jealous of us cuz we were going downhill and they were climbing up.

And for the first time we heard I think two distinct groups of people saying it's easier what we were doing. Mm-hmm. Um, so that was funny. But anyway, we're here. It's full of walkers as we said. And today was, was our shortest day ever cuz it was only 13 kilometers. It took us like less than three hours and a half.

But it was beautiful. Uh, it was absolutely beautiful. Um, Basically, um, we, all we did was just walk through basically, uh, the top of the mountains where there was a, also an ancient Roman road that we read about, and that was built to follow the, um, well, the top of the mountain. So it was easier for the Romans to travel and.

They didn't have to cross the new rivers. They didn't fear any, uh, ambushes cuz they were up high 

[00:45:29] Anna: and it was, and it would, would go between bologna and P Near near Florence. 

[00:45:35] Edo: Florence. Yeah. 

[00:45:37] Anna: Um, that was, that was really neat to see. We saw, we saw that. Yeah. And the woods were just, it was just beautiful walking the woods in the shade, um, trees walking up and down my 

[00:45:52] Edo: g p s Well the, the tracking app said that the, uh, average temperature was 24 degrees today.

Mm-hmm. For us, so, It's a far cry from the 36 degrees that we had like on our first day. Uh, the people who that we met yesterday, they said they, they left on Sunday too. And uh, they said they had 38 degrees in bologna. So, I mean, it's believable. So yeah, it was just beautiful. All we did was just walk through the woods and we saw the Roman road and we also saw furnaces, 

right?

[00:46:32] Anna: Yes. These ancient Roman furnaces where they would, um, make, um, 

[00:46:42] Edo: you don't know, uh, 

[00:46:44] Anna: che che, which is, um, like ceramic. It's not ceramic. No. It's like marble dust. 

[00:46:55] Edo: Isn't that the thing that goes like in between bricks? Wait, lemme Google you, you talk here. Okay, 

[00:47:03] Anna: so the, um, the Romans would, would, um, burn the, the cal chip in these, in these furnaces.

And so we saw one of, 

well, 

[00:47:15] Edo: no, they would, they would first mine the rocks and then like, then, and then they would cook this rock, 

[00:47:21] Anna: cook this rock at a slow temperature to get this, um, material that was used in building. Yeah. And 

[00:47:30] Edo: it's lime. 

[00:47:31] Anna: Lime. Yes. That word was not coming to me. Yeah. Sometimes I totally tell the tourists, I'm like, it's like Marist.

Yeah. No, it's lime. Lime. I'm sorry. Okay. The lime 

[00:47:44] Edo: originates with its earliest use as building mortar and has the sense of sticking or adhering. 

[00:47:49] Anna: Okay. So very important for construction. And so there were, we saw one of the furnaces, the others have not been excavated, but 

[00:47:59] Edo: both, like they were in a sort 

[00:48:01] Anna: of, in this kind of like, uh, crater.

But both this furnace and the road, the ancient Roman road, the, the flame flame, the military flaa road. Yeah. Were, um, were discovered by archeologists, or they were, the actual evidence was dug up in the 1970s. They, there were records. They knew that their, that the ancient Romans had built this road in the second century BC like 1 71 79 bc 180 7.

180 7 BC. But they thought, they believed that there was no evidence that it had gotten completely washed away because it's up here in the mountains. But then the seventies, they actually found the, the archeological evidence. We saw those pieces of road as well as this, um, old furnace. So it was, it was a pretty easy day, even though we didn't pass by any, any towns, any fountains.

But we were fine with our snacks and water. And then we arrived at Madonna Day 

[00:49:10] Edo: for Nelly. Let's give some like technical details. So we walked 13 kilometers, which is, uh, eight miles, something like that. Eight miles? Yeah. Mm-hmm. I'm thinking. Um, so not a whole lot. Um, we still climbed, uh, around. 1500 feet, um, around 500 meters, a little over 500 meters, and we descended just as much.

I think so, I mean, it was easy compared to the first two days, but I don't know if it's because I'm getting tired or like my feet hurt, but, or it's as you said before that even though like, I don't know, like your mind, your brain gets used to like the amount of kilometers that you had to do, you, you have to do in a day.

So even though we, even though we only had to do 13, it still felt like a full day of walking, even though we actually walked only three and a half hours compared to the four 40 of the first day and the five hours of the second day. Mm-hmm. So, but yeah, then we actually, when we only had three liters of water each, I barely touched mine.

Because it was so cool in the, in the woods. Then we stopped, uh, we sat against like an abandoned, I don't know if it was like a barn or a stable or something, um, to eat some snacks, uh, currently putting on tiger bomb and it's very smelly. Um, and, but yeah, not much else to say about today. I mean, it was a beautiful day.

I think it was even in terms of like landscape, it's been beautiful throughout so far, but today just takes the cake. It was just so amazing. The woods were so silent early in the morning and we had this, um, for maybe the first like hour, hour and a half or something. It was just us, literally just us in the woods.

Um, and then later on during the day when we were like, you know, like halfway there or something, we would meet the people that were coming from the other direction. And there were many and they were allowed. Um, not that I'm complaining, but then again, I had this thought today, uh, we're like, I'm actually happy that we're doing it the other way around so it doesn't feel like we're all in a, a big group just following somebody.

You know, we're doing our own thing. It's the same thing as the other people, but it's just the other way around. And it's good to, you know, like you still see people, you still meet them, but it's better cuz you can ask them like, what can I expect? What's up ahead? And they ask the same of us. Um, which is something that I think they can rarely do.

That's why like most of the, well, not a lot, but a lot of people, Not everyone, I meant to say, but a lot of people actually asked us for information. Especially these three men that we met. Two of them were not our age, a little older. Um, and one of them had like this swollen ankle cuz he said he twisted it the day before and it was like, like really swollen.

Mm-hmm. And, and he was one of the, one of the people who said, yeah you have it, it's easier for you cuz you're going down. And I'm like, yeah, but we had to climb to get up here anyway, so, but yeah. So this is what happened today. And what time is it now? It's, uh, six ish. Yeah. So now we're just gonna chill and uh, catch an early dinner.

Possibly go to bed early cuz I'm a little pooped. Mm-hmm. And. Little preview. So tomorrow we're supposed to walk something around 14 kilometers. It's funny because the guide says that we're supposed to walk 23, but we're stopping two kilometers before the end cuz there's just a mountain there. And, and that's where we found the place where we're gonna stay.

And also the guide suggests that we skip something like five or six kilometers cuz it's just on like the motorway. So we're gonna, we're gonna try to skip that if we manage to find the bus, which shouldn't be too much of an issue for us cuz we will be arriving at the city. And then we can just wait in the city for the bus, whereas other people just have to wait like at a crossroads in the middle of the motorway.

Mm-hmm. So we'll be doing that. So tomorrow I'm expecting to walk like 14 or 15 kilometers, another short day, which is funny cuz then we're probably gonna have to walk like around 30 on our last day, which is gonna suck. But, uh, we'll make it, um, Yep. So signing off now. I'm gonna take a nap and then we'll go have dinner.

Bye. Yes, say bye bye. 

[00:54:37] Anna: Good morning. Good morning everyone.

Sog right underneath looming us, which is looming above us. So begin, before we begin our ascent, we wanted to talk about yesterday's walk. So we left Mon Day fort after a very nice breakfast. We loaded up on foot thing. Medications? Yeah. 

[00:55:10] Edo: Yeah. We bought some extra bandages. Which I've used this morning. So, yeah, no, I mean, Madonna de Fornel seem, seemed to be a little town designed for, uh, walkers like us.

Cause we went to two different places and apart from all the merch they had for the VI day, they had, uh, um, well, you know, like foot creams and, uh, what is that? Chickens Okay. Foot creams and bandages and bandaids and all that sort of stuff that one might need, which my, my feet look like a pharmacy with the amount of stuff that I've put on them.

And, uh, Yeah. But anyway, we had a good breakfast there and we must have seen what, like 400 people, I don't know, like so many people in Madonna, Elli, which kinda makes sense cuz it's probably people that decided to skip the, uh, the really hot, uh, week that ended the day that we left. So, um, That was clever on their part.

Here you talk. I'll try to figure out where we need to go. 

[00:56:28] Anna: So we left Madon Elli and it was a nice walk through, mostly woods, a little bit of. Up and down, but a pretty good, um, gentle walk until we came into Mulo. Which was, which is another town which basically survives because of the walkers. Plenty of bars, hotels, places to sit down, picnic tables for for walkers, selling merch you could buy.

It's funny though. 

[00:57:14] Edo: Shoes. Yeah. Cause they were selling the Clon shoes, deck of lunch shoes, like a stock. Uh, and they were just reselling them. So, 

[00:57:24] Anna: and coming into Zuo, this was very exciting. We actually met someone who is doing the via day in the same direction that we are, 

[00:57:34] Edo: and he was just as surprised as we were.

[00:57:39] Anna: So we stopped there, had some sandwiches at a bar, got a stamp, and then, um, stocked up at a grocery store because our AK actually is sort of in the middle of nowhere and didn't have, didn't have a bar or a restaurant or anything. So we got food for dinner and lunch the next day. Today. Today. So from Zuo instead of walking four or five kilometers, probably five plus kilometers.

I don't know. It's, 

[00:58:16] Edo: it's, it's interesting. It's funny cuz some people said four, the guy said five, some other guy said seven. So, uh, the, the guys we had met the day before, uh, with whom? With whom we shared the, uh, the apartment in Nuo. They said it was like a four minute, uh, bus ride, but it felt longer to me, so I don't know.

Anyway, we still took that bus. We have to go here on the left. Okay. 

[00:58:47] Anna: So we took the bus to save us from walking these kilometers along the, along the shoulder of a road under the sun. Yeah, 

[00:58:56] Edo: because by then it was like 1:00 PM Yesterday was a bit of a weird day because we only ended up walking 11 kilometers and it, I mean, It was kind of funny.

The guide said that we were supposed to walk 24, so now that we're towards the end of our walk, I can kind of safely assume that this guide isn't particularly accurate. Uh, have been recording everything with my little g p s computer. So, but anyway, this is just me being technical. But, um, yeah, in the end we ended up walking just a little bit over 11 kilometers, uh, because we did 8.5 until Zuo, and then only like three and a half from Zuo to our Ag Agri Tomo.

Now, granted, para Agri Tomo was on the Fi side of, uh, Monte, whereas the guide recommended stopping on the other side of Monte. Now, this has some pros and cons. What we did, the pros, the one pro mostly, is that we didn't have to tackle Monte, which we're tackling right now at the end of the day, and well, I mean at the end of a walk.

And basically at 2:00 PM or 3:00 PM the hottest hours of the day. The, uh, disadvantage of this is that we're tacking on four more kilometers from what is a really long day, uh, on what is a really long day by itself. So, uh, I mean, before we get to what we have to do today, tell us about. Where we stayed. 

[01:00:56] Anna: So the AMO was called

and it was a really beautiful, this really cute kind of wood decorated lofted apartment. Really, really nice with a swimming pool. So we got to relax in the swimming pool, laid out in the sun, red in the hammock chairs. And it's a place that, um, a lot of people from Northern Europe come and stay for a week or two with their families because it's a great base to go out and explore Bologna region, Tuscany.

And the place itself is beautiful. It had a really nice kitchen. So we cooked, we had dinner outside on our little patio. 

[01:01:49] Edo: Yeah. And I mean, I had a chat with the owner and she said that we were kind of different from the customer base that she usually has because we only stayed one night. But even so, I. We had actually arrived a little bit after 2:00 PM, like two 20, uh, because we took the bus like at one, and then it was just like a 50 minute walk.

And, uh, so it was good because we had actually a lot of time to enjoy the pool and the garden. And we read a lot and, and she said, well, you see most people that get here, um, arrive late at night, well, late during the day. The walkers obviously, and she doesn't really cater to walkers in general. She said she wants to build little wooden cabins.

This is a very nice, oh, this is the, I'm gonna take a, let's stop here for a minute. Um, so yeah. Uh, that was, she said, usually she has these people from Northern Italy who visit all the area, including Monte Sole, where her historical battle was fought. Uh, to which end I suggest either reading or listening to the great audiobook Silence on Monte Sole written by Jack Olson and narrated by yours truly.

Uh, but yeah, so just to keep it short cuz we've been talking for nine minutes, we have uh, approximately 30 kilometers to walk today. We just have to climb Monte in it and then it's a straight shot down to Bo. So we might update this later when we get to Bologna or we're gonna have plenty of time on the train to describe what we did.

Alright, bye 

[01:03:45] Anna: bye. Talk to you later. So we are back in Rome after a very, very long day. So we. Started, we did a, we recorded this morning. Yeah. As we were making our way towards Monte. Um, we did, which you can see on the map. We did get a little turned around, but that was okay. And then we made the ascent up, Mount Adonis.

And we saw, which was a fairly tough, um, uphill climb, but the views were completely worth it. These are the, this is the view that's on the, the front cover of all the guidebooks for the vi deli day. We were looking out towards the b and b where we stayed the last night. The views were just incredible. It was completely worth it.

And then we, we started to head back down, fortunately as like crowds and crowds of people were coming up from the other side up from Bologna. 

[01:04:57] Edo: There must have been like at least 15 people on the summit. And it was still kind of early in the morning. It was like nine I think. So it was a little bit late.

Uh, I mean, not too late, but considering people were probably leaving from Barlo, which was a good five kilometers down the road. Um, but yeah, like it was, it was crowded. We saw so many people coming up and we tried to take like decent pictures, which we managed with the help of a guy. But there at one point, so at the top of Monte, there's a, a big cross there and we didn't even get to really look around much, cuz there must have been at least 10 other people with us.

And it was a little spooky because that place was, I mean, it, there was just this sheer drop, there was this cliff and 

[01:05:58] Anna: there's no, there's no protection. There's no, like walls or ropes. Or fences. And also, especially on the, especially on the way down, It was, um, it was dusty. There were really steep kind of steps down.

Fortunately, with the sticks, we used our poles and we were just, Being really careful on, at one point we had to kind of like hold onto the trees. Yeah. But it was definitely a place where you didn't wanna really hang around with like a crowd taking pictures, taking selfies in this like slippery dirt dust on the side of 

[01:06:39] Edo: a cliff.

And also by Mont by the time we reached the top, I'm not sure like how far we had gone, but I'm thinking maybe like three or four kilometers. So we uh, we still had a long way to go. I thought it was gonna be around 30 kilometers, which we did end up walking 30 kilometers, even though I stopped recording earlier, but we'll talk about this later.

So yeah, it was a pretty tricky descent because it was very dusty and. It wasn't just dusty, like it was dust on rocks. So like our feet, what are you doing? It was gross. Our feet were just like slipping on this, on this dust. But we made it down and then there was a little bit, um, a very, a very small climb again in the woods.

And the issue with me is that surprisingly, even in my condition right now with my feet destroyed, I could handle the climbs fairly well. Must have been because of the way, uh, my weight was, uh, distributed going up, it was probably easier. I don't know. I just felt that like, on the sense I could use my leg muscles that are, um, well developed from all the cycling.

So, and I wasn't putting as much strain as on my feet, whereas going downhill, that was really hard for me, especially because we went down a lot today. I mean, we ended up climbing over 600 meters closer to 700, I think, and we went down something like 900. So it was a, it was a pretty tough day. But basically after Monte.

We kept pretty much just going down and down and down. And at one point the dissent got really steep and my plan was to originally stop at around what I thought was going to be halfway, so like 14, 15 kilometers. But we saw this little clearing in the shade. It was just like even terrain, like grass, uh, nice and flat.

And we saw another girl resting there and my feet were killing me. So we decided to stop. And by then we had gone 11 kilometers. So like It was noon. It was noon, yeah. We had been walking, it took us like over three hours to walk a little over 11 kilometers because of Monte in, in the middle. So, We decided to stop there, to have lunch.

We ended up stopping there for over an hour. I massaged my feet and it, it took me a bit to get going again, but then I just went, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, 

[01:09:57] Anna: it was a, it was a, a great second wind. I don't have the great second wind. And so we were able to fortunately, really, um, really fly, which was good because there was, it wasn't, it wasn't bad, but there was a bit of, a bit of sun, um, a bit of asphalt.

[01:10:19] Edo: Yeah. So after this other descent where we kind of stopped halfway down this, uh, slope when we had lunch, when we got to the bottom, basically, um, This really long stretch that a lot of people told us about, began, and it was just this like flat stretch under the sun, very little cover and kind of boring and dull for the most part.

And which is this, like, this annoyed a lot of people that we met, uh, who were going up. They said, there's just this part that sucks because it's, it's not interesting at all. And especially coming from the mountains where everything is so beautiful, that really didn't, didn't really help, but we got through it.

Uh, somewhere along there before the boring, like the really, really boring part, we saw this old lady who gave us a big bottle of water. I mean, we paid for it, but it was totally worth it cuz we were almost out of water and it was cool from the fridge. And then basically we kept walking and we only stopped for a second break.

Um, so again, we did like 11 kilometers in three hours and something. And then we did like the following. 12 and a half in like two hours and 40 minutes. So that was pretty amazing. And we stopped at the bottom of the, uh, hill that led to the sank, which I'll let you talk about. 

[01:12:04] Anna: So we, we stopped and had a quick snack in this, um, kind of like a, sort of like a park that I guess the ese go to.

And then we began climbing up towards the San Ju of San Luca. 

[01:12:21] Edo: Not from the park, but not from the side where everybody came from. I think we should mention this cuz we were on the other side. 

[01:12:29] Anna: Yeah. And so this, it was a really, really steep ascent, kind of rocky going past stations of the cross, which I don't know who does those stations of the cross because it was.

It was like a really, really steep, difficult path. And so 

[01:12:49] Edo: short cuz it was only like a kilometer and a half, so a mile basically, but oh my God was, it's steep, 

[01:12:58] Anna: but really, really steep. And then we get up to the, the road because there is, there is a road that goes to this sanctuary, this church, um, you know, it's, it's a pretty like tour buses go to this church, buses of pilgrims go to this church and the little train, and they have like one of those little trains like in Villa Geese.

So we see at the road when we get to the road, ed o checks the um, Google Maps and he's like, okay, it's. 700 more meters and it closes at six o'clock. So then we start like, so we like this hoing it. Yeah. Along the, um, the road, which is still uphill because I wanted to, you know, at least go inside the church, get, get stamps there maybe.

So we're like booking it. We get to the, we get to the gate, we go past where little train and the buses stop. We get to the gate and see that it closes at six 30. So we get to relax a bit. It's a really beautiful baroque church. It's red and round on top of this hill, and it has on these kind of like two stair, like round staircases that go up to it.

It's quite, um, it's quite particular, very baroque, um, kind of almost. Maybe a little bit like the church of, um, Aldo in, in Gio. Not in terms of the style, but it's way up on a hill like that and has this grand staircase going up to it. So once in, I thought, I 

[01:14:36] Edo: thought it looked like the, the milk kinda, but also it had like this Russian vibe, you know, like the Yeah.

Cause it's sun baia. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With that big dome. Mm-hmm. I don't know. Yeah. But that's what I thought. Maybe I was just like hallucinating such a long day. 

[01:14:56] Anna: But it was very beautiful, this big red round building with the dome and the amidst the green trees and then the, the blue mountains, the blue sky.

So we went in, I, we saw the miraculous. Image of the, of the Virgin Mary covered in, in silver, the sanctuary, the sac sacristy was already closed, so we did not get stamps, but I got holy cards, which we're gonna put in our, yeah, in our credentials. And, um, and then we, then we began making our way down a portico, which is the longest portico in the world.

Yeah. 

[01:15:41] Edo: It's, which people enjoyed, 

[01:15:43] Anna: which people enjoyed it seems like ese of all ages, all types of people. Everyone was like running or walking this portico, which is, we were going downhill. It's this kind of gentle downhill slope with a few stairs every once in a while and it. It's like four kilo, four kilometers long.

The whole thing. It's almost four kilometers long. It's really, really long. And it goes all the way into the net attaches to a portico that goes all the way into the city center. 

[01:16:15] Edo: The one that like the part until we got like on that sea level basically, that wasn't four kilometer, that was probably like two.

Yeah. But then it attached to another one, so maybe, yeah. Okay. I don't know. Um, we walked through at 

[01:16:32] Anna: least two kilometers of at least, yeah. A portico and then, 

[01:16:35] Edo: and then more when we were, I don't know if that counts as the same one when we're like, we were at the bottom. I think so. I don't know. Anyway. But yeah, like there were cyclists that were, I saw a guy that actually went up twice.

Mm-hmm. Cause he got to the top, then he went back down and then he went back up. Yeah. And. People would just like run up these steps in this, this sink line and then come back down and we were just barely trying to keep it together. Uh, especially again, cuz for me the descents were just so hard. And so, yeah, it was long cuz it was a little tricky.

So the last few kilometers of every day are all, are always tricky cuz then you start, you stop counting the kilometers and you start counting the meters and that's not a good idea. But, um, we were going down and I was very tired. Everything hurt. Um, and it, it was very difficult because we were there. We were basically in bologna.

But bologna is deceivingly big. At least it, it felt, it felt deceivingly big today because whereas it was only like four kilometers to get out of Florence, like from the middle of Florence to get out of, to get on the vik

We were at the sanctuary and then not only we had to go like all the way down this Portugal and then at the end of that we had to walk through the city to get to, 

[01:18:19] Anna: to get to majority where there, where there duomo is like the main, main square. Yeah. And then, 

[01:18:26] Edo: and then, I mean we stopped there for a second fortunately and we were looking at um, train tickets and we found one, I guess it was kind of overkill to spring for like the business class cuz nobody was on the train anyway.

But you know, you only live once Yolo. So. We decided to, we found this train. It was at uh, 8:37 PM and we got there at seven 30. Like past, it was 7 36 cuz the first train we saw was gonna leave like at nine. At 7 57. And there was no way that we would've made it. So I was like, okay, when's the next one? Like eight, can't do it.

8 27, can't do it. 8 37 seemed tight. And there was another one like at 9 37 and I didn't really wanna wait cuz we wouldn't have had time to really unwind and have dinner. Mm-hmm. So we decided, okay, let's just have a little drink at the Piazza and try to get the 8 37 train. We. Booked the ticket right away.

We had a drink and then we just lagged it to the station, which was another 1.6 kilometers away from where we were exactly one mile. And let me tell you, like one mile, like 1.6 kilometers after having walked almost 27. That's what it said. But again, I believe we walked more. I think we walked more, but in total, I think we must have gone at least 29 kilometers with the walk to the, to the, um, to the station.

So, and then finally we get on the train, they gave us some food. It was, we were kind of rushing. Um, for some reason the train arrived like 20 minutes earlier. That never happened to me before. Yeah, that's nice. Which was very nice. The bad thing was that we're like in car number two. But it was at the end of the station and we had to walk all through tain.

It must have taken us like 20 minutes to get outta the station. I don't know, it just felt like an infinite amount of time. And, but you were from there. What 

[01:20:57] Anna: your final thoughts on the trip? 

[01:20:59] Edo: My final thoughts on the trip is that I don't think I've ever loved something as fiercely as I did this trip. But at the same time, I don't think I ever hated anything as fiercely as I did this trip.

So there were a lot of highs, there were a lot of lows. Um, The scenery is absolutely stunning. Like that is the one thing that I absolutely cannot, um, speak ill of because it was just so amazing. And all the people that we met, the, the people that we exchanged conversations with, people whose names we don't even know.

Uh, we ended up spending like almost an hour with this girl today at that stop, and we have no idea what her name is. And this is just so special. I think. Um, the food we ate, the places we stayed at these six days that just every minute. Every minute was endless. But then these six days just, I don't know, just went by so fast.

It it's, it's just so weird. It's like what they say about kinda like when you're getting older, you know how they say that, uh, days are really long and years are super short. It, it felt the same way. But what are your thoughts? 

[01:22:35] Anna: I have a lot, um, similar, similar thoughts. Um, it's definitely different than, than other walks I've done and different.

Different because we were doing it like in the opposite direction of river of everyone else. We met this man in the, the park in Bologna, and he was like, you're only the second couple I've seen this year do it from Bo, from Florence to Bologna. Like, and I see hundreds of people doing it, the other from Bologna to Florence every morning.

Um, and so it was, so it was interesting to, to meet people and to be able to give them helpful hints for what they would be encountering and we would be meanwhile looking for advice from them. So it was really interesting and kind of comforting to, um, to, it was a really like exchanging of advice and information rather than, rather than just kind of comparing, oh, this is what it, it felt like for me.

We were really kind of helping each other out, which was neat. And the. It definitely gave me what I was looking for, just to, to be in the, be in nature, clear my head, not worry about all of the usual stuff I worry about in my life in the city. So that was, that was really nice. Climbing up and over. The aines was, A really beautiful, difficult experience, but I can definitely understand at fir I didn't understand why, why this walk, why, um, bologna and Florence.

But now I, I do really understand between the, the nature, the, um, experiencing these little mountain towns going from the change from Tuscany, from Florence, Tuscany region through these mountain towns and then to the capital of i Emilio region was really interesting. So I can see why this walk has become, it so popular and is, is becoming more popular.

[01:25:03] Edo: It was really, really beautiful. Um, also very hard. I just used a new app today. Just for the last segment, and it said that expert hikers and a high level of fitness was required. And again, this reminds me of the, of when we did the because a very similar thing happened. That thing being, if I had known how hard it would've been, like if I had any idea, I wouldn't have done it.

So I'm glad that I, that I was just so unprepared going in, cuz we still did it. Um, it was tough. We walked 90 kilometers over five days, um, which is an average of like 18 kilometers per day. And, and we climbed a lot of mountains for sure. So, but I'm glad we're back home now. Um, we can rest, uh, cuz we're back to work on Monday, but we got this weekend to, you know, like finish writing our journals, collect our thoughts, edit this recording and all of the other ones and package it nicely.

So yeah, uh, if you made it this far. Thank you for listening. Um, We hope you enjoyed traveling with us. Kind of. Um, yeah. Till the next trip. 

[01:26:34] Anna: Till the next trip. Bye bye.

[01:26:43] Edo: And that's a wrap on our immersive journey along the way of the gods recorded entirely on the field. We hope you felt as if you are right there with us, experiencing every sound and sensation of this epic track. Thank you for joining us on this raw audio journey, and we can't wait to bring you more immersive travel experiences in the future.

So until then, happy travels and go far.