Ancient Ruins and Wild Boars: A live report of the Cammino dei Tre Villaggi

Edo: 0:00

Hey everyone, and welcome back to this special episode of GoFar An adventure podcast. This will be the second one of its kind, the first one being the one on the way of the gods that we recorded a couple years ago. So Anna and I went on this amazing short walk called Il Camino dei Trevillaggi and we brought our trusty field recorder with us. So what you're about to hear is an unfiltered, mostly unedited version of what happened in those several hours in which we hiked those I don't know 20 kilometers or something. So, again, expect something very raw, and you will be hearing all of the sounds that we've heard. You will even be hearing some conversations that we had with other people, so hopefully it will make you feel like you were there with us.

Edo: 0:51

So our adventure begins with us borrowing a car and driving 80 kilometers north of Rome to Villa San Giovanni, the starting point of this amazing adventure. That took us through pristine forests, and we had to cross small rivers and we saw ruins that were over 2500 years old, and we even crossed a little medieval bridge and we even saw another bridge that was way older than that. So all of this is coming up in this raw and unedited episode of Go Far. We hope you enjoy it. So it's currently 8.09 in the morning or something, and we're in the car I haven't driven a car in a few months now, but it's fine and we're heading north, north of Rome, close to Viterbo, to this place called Villa San Giovanni in Tuscia, where we will begin what is called the Cammino più piccolo d'Italia, which is the shortest, the smallest trail in Italy, they call it, and it's very interesting because it's around 22 kilometers. This lady is not really that good at parking and we've been stuck here for a while. Oh, she gave up. Okay, so it's 22 kilometers or approximately, i would guess, like 10, 11 miles or something. No, a bit more Like 15 miles, i don't know, and it's.

Edo: 2:55

I mean, we will be having a full episode about it with all of the details, but what we know so far is that it's really well organized, as if it was like a longer multi-day trip or track, because there's going to be a little pilgrims, passports, it's just. In this case we're not going to be pilgrims, we're going to be wayfarers, etruscan wayfarers, to be quite precise. So thank you for letting me through. So it's apparently a whole thing that was organized by a group of volunteers who, like our friend Jan, want to give more value to their territory, to their land, and so they organize this little path apparently it's very well waymarked have been following them on social media and they often go out to maintain the trail.

Edo: 3:48

And we will be walking through three small villages, i think, and we're going to get our little wayfarers passport and we're going to put stamps in it and at the end of it, at the end of the 22 kilometers we're going to. I think I'm going the wrong way, so maybe I should focus on driving now, and at the end of the 22 kilometers, we'll get a little wayfarer diploma. Anything you want to add.

Anna: 4:18

We're very excited to just get out and do a walk, even if it's in a day, and we like the idea that they how it's marketed, because it seems like a larger, a longer walk, but in the way that it's organized. But it's just a day, so hopefully we'll get the feeling, the benefits of a journey of a few days, but in just one day.

Edo: 4:44

So we're going to focus on driving now and we'll keep you updated as we go bye. Okay, so we are now in Villa San Giovanni, in Tusa, the starting point of the smallest Camino. What's that? What's like an English word for Camino? A walk, yeah, but like a walk. anything can be a walk. A walk can be. I'm going to go on a walk in my neighborhood A trail maybe, but it's not even a trail.

Anna: 5:29

Okay, so I think we need to do a distinction, because I was what Or like a pilgrimage, or I find, speaking with other, with family members and friends who do walks, we often use the Italian or the Spanish word Camino, camino.

Edo: 5:46

Yeah, I mean it's pretty universal. So yesterday I was talking to my personal trainer shout out And I told them about this thing that we were going to do and I made this little distinction because I said it's not really a trail in itself, because a trail is something that not. I mean it could be way marked properly. We're going to say something.

Anna: 6:14

Well, and this is actually more than one trail, it's a few trails put together. There's three little villages that we're going to walk through and then are kind of check points, so it's more than a trail.

Edo: 6:31

Yeah, exactly. So I think what these guys did was get oh, look at the big butterfly like the one we had in our bathroom this morning. What they did was get pre-existing cai trails, which are the Centro Alpinistico Italiano, i think. Anyway, they're like official trails, hiking trails that can be found all over Italy, and they kind of joined them in a loop, they mapped them out and everything, and so, yeah, we will be crossing the small city of Blera No, that's the last one.

Edo: 7:12

So Villa San Giovanni in Tusa first, then Barbarano Romano second and then Blera. In all of these places we will be getting our little stamps. So this is what makes it a Camino and not just a normal hiking trail. It gives you the same feeling, the same experience as a multi-day trail like the ones that we've done, like the Camino di Europa or the Way of the Gods, but in just one day, which I think is pretty awesome. We already got patches to put on our backpacks, we bought the smallest guide for the smallest Camino and we have our little passports and we're more than ready to go. Is there anything you might want to add?

Anna: 8:01

So I did want to mention here that the little tiny village of San Giovanni in Tusa, it's very, very cute. On the main square There's a couple guys sitting on a bench under a tree, chit chatting people going into the bakery. There was a woman picking fruit, i guess, from a fruit tree, just there in the middle of the square. It's very tiny but very sweet, with this lovely office welcoming center for the Camino that has a little museum of local pressed flowers and plants that we're going to see along the trail. So already it's a really nice start. There's a couple of bars, a bakery, so it's a really nice place to start, plenty of parking, so we're excited to see the natural and historical sights along the way.

Edo: 9:10

There's one other thing that I wanted to mention, and so apparently they've just reopened the trail whose official name is Camino dei Trevillaggi, so the Camino of the three villages, and they just reopened it because we've had a couple weeks of really bad weather here in central Italy and there were some pretty heavy storms, and he said that they've just reopened after like a week or ten days of forced pause because the little creek or river, whatever you want to call it overflowed and it invaded, it flooded the trail. I love how these people are basically just volunteers and they just went out in the trail and cleaned everything up and they asked us since we're the first ones to go back on the trail after these storms, they asked us to document and see and let them know if there's anything out of the ordinary or if it's impassable or stuff. So we're kind of pioneers over here, even though I think this trail opened officially like a couple years ago maybe, but yeah, so I have no idea what to expect in terms of elevation gain. We know it's 22 kilometers. What 400 meters? I think 400 meters. Yeah, over 20 kilometers, it's pretty flat. Yeah, no, it seems Okay, we'll let you know.

Edo: 10:51

We have the GPS app running, and so right now we're walking on the hottest part of the trail. He said, oh, look a guy on a horse. So the horse is getting spooked by an SUV. So we're walking, but the guy defined Pasquale as the hottest part of the trail because, well, there's no shelter from the sun. We're still walking in the little street that's leading outside of the city. You can probably hear the horse now. Good morning, yeah. And so we're looking for oh, there's a cat right there, there's ducks, so it's good to be back in nature. It's been a while right since we last went on a hike. Yeah, how long has it been?

Anna: 11:50

At least a few months.

Edo: 11:53

I think the last one was maybe Europa with your family back in September.

Anna: 12:00

So we did a little walk in, didn't we? in October?

Edo: 12:09

Did we Maybe? Yeah, okay, so we're going to focus on walking now and we'll probably give a little update as soon as we stop for the first time. All right, see ya.

Anna: 12:37

Hey everyone, we are here at this lovely rest area. They've got Bunches, picnic tables, barbecue, a little snack bar, water fountain, so the trail has been very nice. It's a little bit overgrown, because of the rain, i think, but it is kind of nice walking through so many beautiful, colorful wildflowers. There was a little bit of mud, but I do have to admit that that muddy part was where we went off the trail. So we had to climb up a hill up to through a field where we saw a very long snake, and then at the top of the hill there was a fence. We realized that we had gone off the trail and had to climb back down through the mud.

Edo: 13:26

But it was all right. It's the trail, like on flat terrain. It's always like uphill.

Anna: 13:33

Where there's mud and snakes as well, and we are about 6 kilometers in.

Edo: 13:43

I think so 5.6.

Anna: 13:49

Okay, 5.6 kilometers in and we have gotten our another stamp here. little rest area And we've got about 17 left.

Edo: 14:02

Yeah, we haven't recorded much on the trail. There were some nice sounds, but it was stuff going And we're very glad that we saw this little rest area here. Coming up is one of the first well, the first of the three villages, which is Barbarano Romano. So what did they say about this? This was where, like, there were no signs or was it here that there weren't any signs? This park, this park where we are right now Sorry, there's a helicopter.

Edo: 14:51

So by that reckoning, i think that if from here to here it's like 6 kilometers, i think we have less than maybe 3 to go, maybe 2 and a half before we hit the city. Or I guess we could have lunch in the city. I guess we're gonna get there in like an hour, which is like exactly lunchtime, and then we have a real long stretch to Blera, which is probably going to be at least 12 kilometers. But he said it's gonna be nice there because we will be walking along a river, so it should be flat. So we'll be here. If you notice, back and forth will be up. Still, i go up there to the left of theка, in and out from the p? בא, i hope. But yeah, we're just enjoying our little chips and we'll be getting on our way soon. Catch you later.

Edo: 16:07

Okay, we just stopped here for a moment. These are the Palazzine tombs. I guess they're called that way because Allora, 8th century BC. Palazzine is the folk name of the two big semi-dado. What does that mean? They're like half-dice, half-dice. Okay, so the folk name of the two big semi-dado tombs, characterized by a facade of a lined doors which give access to as many funeral rooms with sloping roofs and beds sculptured in rock for the deposition of the dead. Besides the Doric doors, the outer decoration of the monuments presents architectural cornices crowning the top of the facades and consisting from the top of Fascia, torus, astragal or owl beak fascia bell. I don't know what that means or what that entails, so I'm going to give you the expert.

Anna: 17:11

So it refers to the kind of shape, this sort of carved architecture, the carved decorations around. So these are Etruscan tombs. So the Etruscans were the people who were living in this area back in the 6th century BC. This area here of Tusha, north of Rome So it basically includes northern Lazio, umbria and southern Tuscany, and the Etruscans were a pre-Roman civilization. So the height of their civilization was around the 9th century BC. Rome was founded in the 8th century BC And then eventually the Romans made their way up north, conquering the Etruscans and kind of integrated them into their society.

Anna: 18:12

But they were kind of a mysterious population because they didn't leave a lot of artwork or architecture besides from their tombs. So when they buried people in these kind of half dice type tombs, inside were little rooms that were supposed to look like bedrooms. So they had this idea of bearing the dead It's like you're going to sleep And so they laid the bodies on what looked like beds and they were buried with their belongings. So the Etruscans believed that you could take it with you or you would need your belongings for the afterlife. So that's where basically the only Etruscan artifacts have been found inside of tombs like these ones.

Edo: 19:09

Oh, there it is. So we were a bit confused as to where to go, because we're currently walking on rocks and kind of like fording a river a little. It is a dried up river, but we just saw the sign. Again, i was a little confused. So I'm going to put the microphone away now because this is tricky terrain and it's very slippery. So, yeah, maybe that way. Yeah, go that way. Okay, talk later Because the Cabine and Mount Levera also, i'm complaining. So basically, what happened was that I think we went on a wrong turn at one point and was very confusing. It was extremely confusing. This is probably some feedback that we have to give them. Okay, so, like little side note, pasquale did warn us that in this area that's like a national park. What is it?

Anna: 20:08

A regional park protected area.

Edo: 20:10

Yeah.

Anna: 20:12

So he explained that, like a lot of people, they come up, they design these little trails and they put like markers and stickers and then they stop taking care of it. And so the park says we don't want people putting a lot of marks in this protected area. So there are not any of the Camino trail markers but there are markers for the CHI, but there's not that many.

Edo: 20:40

And at one point we were tricked because we kept following what was very clearly a trail And we followed it and we actually went to another one of those Etruscan tombs. That was very nice, very well maintained. There was a sign outside of it And so I thought, cool, like where we're meant to be. But then, as it often happens, the trail just vanished from under our feet And we were on top of this hill in a big old field, and we went back a ways. But then I didn't feel like going all the way back down the hill because we weren't really sure where we were. And this is on me, actually, because Pascuali said do you want the GPX track? And I was like, nah, we're going to navigate like in the 1800s.

Edo: 21:45

Not that I would have done much, because, well, maybe I could have zoomed in a little more and get my bearings a little more, but, for example, google Maps doesn't really know where we are. There's not a lot of signal here. So, anyway, we went up this hill, we crossed this field, we got out to the other side of the field because I thought look, there's buildings. We know that we're supposed to hit a road, a little country road, and I thought there's buildings, it's bound to be over there. And so we did go. Look at Donke. Look at that Donke, there's two Donkeys. Sorry, i woke you, let's keep going.

Edo: 22:38

We have like five middle-aged men following us and they have very poor trail etiquette They're so loud. But then again it was very reassuring because at one point when we got to the top of the field and we went towards the road, we turned left And it was the wrong way to go. Then we saw the signs and along with the signs we heard these five men very loud, very loud. You can probably hear them in the background. So we're trying to put some distance between us and them now, but at least we're back on the trail. That part in the woods was a bit sketchy, but again, maybe it was on us. So at one point we You know we were deep in conversation and at one point we had to go over a bunch of Americans I'm not even kidding Like there were a bunch of Americans.

Anna: 23:30

American students sitting in the middle of the trail eating their lunch.

Edo: 23:33

Yeah, and they got there with like a little truck or something up Yeah, a van And so we thought, well, we didn't think we kept going, but maybe we had to turn there, maybe where they were, and maybe we went on a detour. There's plenty of those. It's kind of confusing because there's a lot of signs that point you towards the Etruscan tombs, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you're on the right way for the for Barabara and Oremano, where we're going right now. So we're back on the road now, out of the woods, which is good and bad at the same time. It's good because it's easy going. We're on a paved road, there's no brambles, no mud, no animals. But the price you have to pay is that more like directly under the midday sun, even though it's 1 pm And it's almost lunchtime. So the sign said that Barabara and Oremano was 40 minutes, like 10 minutes ago. You can never trust these things really. But here, what do you think?

Anna: 24:50

I think we'll be there in maybe half an hour, maybe less.

Edo: 24:55

I mean, we left from that little rest area an hour and 20 minutes ago, so my estimate was wrong. Surprise, surprise. But yeah, we can stop there today, as Anna pointed out. What day is it today, thursday? No, you set it this morning at breakfast.

Anna: 25:18

This is the 22nd of June, so it's the second longest day of the year. So yesterday, the 21st of June, was the summer solstice.

Edo: 25:30

So this means that we got plenty of time. We're not going to be caught in the woods after sundown, but anyway, let's see. Let me give you some middle of the road stats. So, as I said, it's 1 PM exactly and we've walked 8.3 kilometers, so we're a little over one third of the way done, but we started three hours ago, or at least we've walked for three hours. I don't know if this was paused when we stopped, but I mean the video that I did see on Instagram when I first found out about this said like keep eight or nine hours to do the whole thing. So it's 1 PM now. I'm going to keep this like for posterity, to see what happens, like I could say now Hi, this is Ido from the future. Well, not really the future, but I'm in the studio and editing this episode together. What you just heard is the voice of one of two Italian gentlemen that we met, who were resting under a tree, with whom we stopped to chat for a little bit. So what follows now is a brief conversation in Italian that probably goes on for a couple minutes, and we were talking about where we were going, where they were headed and what we saw, what we were going to do, etc. So we decided to keep it in to maintain the authenticity of this. You know episode of this on the road format, but feel free to skip ahead if you don't want to listen to this, i won't mind.

Edo: 27:17

Back to the trail now. We are in Tusha, san Giovanni village. We are now in the middle of the road. We did 8.5 km. We have to go back there. We have 14 more.

Edo: 28:00

It's an organized path. It's called the path of the 3 villages. It starts from San Giovanni, i don't remember what it's called. Then we passed there In the woods for the necropolis. We didn't see the church. We lost it At some point In.

Edo: 28:20

The guide says It's a deviation to do. We lost it at some point. We have the map, the application has it, but there was no sign in the woods. No, it's very indicated. We just skipped a point. Yes, in the sense that We had to follow this road Until we reach the provincial, and there are other maps.

Edo: 28:45

You can't go to Barbarano. Yes, we can't go to Barbarano. You can go to the left. Yes, the one that was cut. The one that was cut. Yes, it's under Barbarano. Yes, i saw that We have to do this in the map.

Edo: 29:03

There is a good water. There is a good water. Yes, nice. Then we continue. There is beautiful. The necropolis, there are many. It's very beautiful. Do well, it's beautiful And it's not very complicated. There are some The branches here and there, because they explained that it rained a lot. We saw it rained a lot At some points. There are a few. We are a bit graffit. Yes, indeed, we continue that. We have a lot of road. The fan still. Good day to you too.

Edo: 30:00

We met these two gentlemen who were coming from the other way and a dog. They were impressed that we have been walking 8.5 km. They confirmed to us that we are on the right way Before we started chatting with them. For posterity, it's 1pm now. Let's see if I can be back in the car Like by 6pm, and this is like the last famous words We are going to be in the car like at 10. I hope not, but we will see what happens. So he said we are going to have to turn left And go down like a Fosso. What's a Fosso? again, like a ravine, a ravine, and after the ravine, Technically, we are going to be In Barbarano. That seems quite nice with the pictures And I am looking forward to maybe Eating our sandwiches.

Anna: 31:06

In the guidebook It says it's like a bonbon.

Edo: 31:10

Oh, it's one of those Italian charming medieval bonbons. Yeah, so I mean, it's a Thursday, it's 1pm, everything is going to be closed. That's Italy.

Anna: 31:23

But we have our sandwiches.

Edo: 31:25

We got sandwiches and apples and protein bars.

Edo: 31:28

We remembered to bring Yeah because we followed Our own advice from our last episode, the, the last one. Well, go listen to it, it's like the one before this one. So signs to Barbarano Romano, plenty of signs. So it's good, and I mean this is part of the adventure, right, when you get lost and you don't know what to do. So, again, you always get lost, like in the middle of the woods, never on like a nice paved road With benches on the side. But if we wanted that, we would have stayed in the city Signing off. Okay. So It took us exactly two hours To get to Barbarano Romano, even though I said, oh, it's going to take me an hour. So no, it took a little longer.

Edo: 32:31

So We are currently in this little Medieval I guess it's medieval Village, but I'll have Anna give you all the information. I'm just going to give you the first impressions. They're storeists, so I guess you can't really escape those. It's like it's very loud. You can probably hear all of these loud people. So we walked through the city gates, i guess like past some walls And We're inside the main street, if you want to call it that. It's very nice, though all of these buildings are made of. Oh, here's our drinks. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We ordered some drinks and some food, so all of these Buildings seem to be made out of The same rock stone, whatever That the tombs are made of, right, yeah?

Anna: 33:31

So it is a Natural, natural volcanic stone, the two foes. And this is the Two foes. It's the Pepperon yellow Two foes. I don't know how you say that In English, but it's kind of this Yellowy color And it's what The passageways Cut into the rock. The little paths that we walk down Are cut through These two foes. Walls, the stones of the Buildings, the city walls, the tower are all made out of it, because it's Quite easy to cut And then it gets hard when it comes into Contact with the air. So we came into this little Into the main city gate. We I went into A little tiny Church Which it was redone in the late 1900s but it Looks probably older than that. They had A black Madonna statue, the type like In the Sanctuary of Graglia Which you can hear all about In our podcast on the Camino de Europa. Yeah, there's a few people around, few tourists, workers. It's a very, very cute little town.

Edo: 35:07

It's very empty I was going to say Quiet, but it's not even though there's Like ten other people here, but five of them Are super loud. They're the Gentleman that we mentioned In the previous segment. But it's a very nice little Town and We ordered some piadine, which are Taco. They're not really tacos. What are they? It's like a flatbread, like a really good. It's like a not rolled up Burrito. Yeah, it's flatbread folded in on itself.

Edo: 35:46

So, even though we have sandwiches, we decided to stop here, get some drinks, because it wouldn't have been nice to order drinks And eat our food, and also it's good because We can make use of the resources That are available to us right now And not, like, deplete our own. We're going to have to find a fountain, maybe to for our water. We'll find that out, like. I don't know, like, how much water I drank, how much is left Out of the three liters that I had, but we'll figure it out. So for now, we're going to eat.

Edo: 36:21

Okay, a little update. It's currently 3.40pm. There are these Loud noises That we don't know. Did you hear them? Wait, and we've been hearing them all day. It's kind of yeah, i hope you heard that. Okay, there it goes again. So we're currently in the middle of the woods, the long stretch that goes from Barbarano Romano, which is town number two, to Blera, which is town number three, and from Blera we will only be like an hour away. Now these woods are enchanting. We saw, what did we see? Here you talk I'm gonna go walk in the water.

Anna: 37:22

So we saw the three molla. So molla is like part of an old water wheel, yeah, part of a water mill, and so maybe during medieval times there were mills here where they worked the grain. So not much is left of these, just the sort of like an ancient wall looking stone wall. And then the third one. So coming out of one of the windows of the old mill, was this beautiful waterfall into like a swimming hole. There were kids swimming, we felt the water. It was pretty cold but not icy, a little murky though. And now we're walking along the riverbed, so along rocks, where maybe in the springtime, in the winter, there's there's water, but now it's kind of a path next to the water. It's really really beautiful, nice and shady, lush green, kind of looks like Jurassic Park, and these beautiful dramatic walls of the two-fold rock.

Edo: 38:59

So you heard some of the little babbling brook. Now we're gonna get back on the trail. There were a lot of Americans we saw out here. We just passed a girl sunbathing. I have to say like I'm kind of envious Bear with me on this one Because like, put yourself in like her shoes, maybe she's here and like some sort of student exchange program in this amazing place And after a short hike you go into these woods by the river and you can sunbathe and maybe even take a little dip. So go on, you nameless, presumably exchange student. Okay, so that's the trail. We're gonna go back and we'll talk to you once we are in Bletta Update. So the last thing we said must have been like an hour and a half ago, i think. We were at the Mola when we were talking about the exchange student. We were one of the. Maybe we just passed the third one where the kids were. Was that the third one? Okay, anyway, that part was beyond interesting. Here you talk, you tell them about it.

Anna: 40:38

So it was beautiful. We are walking along the river constantly, like every couple of meters, every like six, eight feet. We had to look for the marker, but it was very, very beautiful. At one point we walked over this very narrow medieval wall, part of the fourth Mola.

Edo: 41:07

It was very, very tall and very narrow, but really A couple feet across or something, and we were probably well, not that tall, but maybe four meters high.

Anna: 41:24

Yeah, and walking on on quite a narrow little passageway 12 feet up in the air. And then the last portion we walked through. They kind of look like tombs dug into the Tufo rock but they're probably more like medieval, maybe storage places, stables at the edge of Blera. And then we walked into Blera, another very small town. The local old guys sitting at the at the bus stop, couple people at the bar.

Edo: 42:14

There's a very important thing to point out in Italian culture, especially Italian culture and small villages like this one. So I can't really say I grew up in one, because I was born in Rome and I was raised in Rome, but we would spend all of our summers in a town you can't even call it a town like it was one road with a bunch of houses and a bar and a gas station. That's it. That was founded by my great-grandfather, by the way. Anyway, you would see all of these people doing particular activities at certain times of the day, and the afternoon, like, let's say, from after 4 pm, is when these people get out of their homes to escape the hottest hours of the day. They go back home for lunch and then they take a little nap, because that's what we do here in Italy. So, like 5 is when you would go to the little piazza of the village or of the town, or, in this case, by the bar or the bus stop, and you just meet up with your friends and you just hang out and pass the time of day until it's time for dinner or until it's like time for a piti-tibou at around maybe 6.30 or something, and then you just go back home and then, especially during the summer, then maybe you go back out and play a game of cards at the local bar. So yeah, going back to the trail, anna was being It's like a cafe. It's like a cafe, yeah, but we call them bar. But yeah, it's kind of like a cafe, if you want to put it that way. Careful, you have a spider right in front of your face. Oh no, it's a leaf, never mind.

Edo: 44:07

So, going back to what Anna was saying before, she made it sound easy. It wasn't. So we just stopped at a cafe for a drink and an ice cream and I was telling Anna how, compared to the other things that we've done, this ranks as one of the highest, like the hardest things that we've done. So there are a lot of factors that come into play when you try to rank an activity such as this one and I thought look, so so far the hardest thing that we've done was the way of the gods, which was covered extensively here on this podcast.

Edo: 44:52

But that was hard for different reasons. It was hard because we did it in August and because there was a lot of climbing. There was a lot of elevation change, which there isn't as much here, but the terrain here is way more technical, while the way of the gods can be tackled by someone who has never done anything like this and all they need is just to be slightly in shape. This thing here we had to use our wits a few times and try to, you know like, get our bearings. Where are we Check the map? We're supposed to cross the river here. Look for the markers, the path is overgrown.

Anna: 45:49

We had to cross the river, so being careful to step on rocks that were, you know, mostly submerged, but trying to get across without getting our feet wet. Edo has fabulous waterproof boots. I do not. To try and to keep my feet dry, i'm going over and under branches of trees that had fallen across the path.

Edo: 46:13

So lots of Due to the storms that happened, some trees had fallen on the path and maybe those were the trees that had the markers on them. So it's not really physically taxing, even though it's hot and it's muggy here in the woods. And right now we've been walking since like 9.30 in the morning. We took a couple breaks, but it's been non-stop and we've only gone like 18 kilometers. So it is physically taxing But, like, as I was telling Anna before, when we did the way of the gods, it was in August, so like peak hiking season in Italy and thousands upon thousands, i think, of people had walked that before us that summer, which helps in, you know, defining the path. Never once we got lost on the way of the gods, right? No, and here we got turned around many times. But then again, i think the guys that created this and that are taking care of this have done an amazing job, an amazing job, and it's not their fault.

Edo: 47:36

The weather has been horrible. We had some really, really heavy rain. There was some damage in Rome too. So here, especially with the river that flooded the trail, trees that fell and blocked the way, and then, especially after, like a huge downpour like the ones we've had over the past few weeks. The vegetation goes crazy And so a lot of it grows on the trail. And the guys that take care of this trail, they're all like volunteers and they're all young people, from what I understood, so they all have jobs. So what they're doing is admirable. So I don't feel like this is necessarily a negative thing. All I'm saying is that it's good that we have experience. I'm thinking that now I'm gonna give the microphone to Anna and hear her opinion, but I don't think this is a beginner's walk right.

Anna: 48:50

No, it's not. It's not a beginner's walk. It's definitely entertaining. It's the. it's a beautiful walk, beautiful woods, you get to see these, these tombs, interesting little towns, but not for a beginner. I did really enjoy being in the woods because it was shady It was mostly in the shade and it was nice to only carry a day pack, which, for me personally, i find usually my biggest problem when going on a longer walk is the weight of the backpack. So that's usually the one thing that bothers me the most are my shoulders, and as much as I try to lighten my backpack, after eight hours of walking it does start to hurt my shoulders. So it was nice to just only be walking, basically with water, a few, you know, a couple of apples and my wallet. So that's nice. And, yeah, we haven't touched the food that we brought, but it's always always good, as we, as we've mentioned before, to have your food, to have your water, because I mean here, fortunately, there are these little villages, but you do spend quite a bit of time in the woods.

Edo: 50:16

I mean, they're quite spread apart. I think the villages, because we hit Barbarano Romano after a good couple hours of walking, i think, or more, well, more, because we got there at 1.30 and we started at 9.30. Granted, we did take a little break at 11.30. So we've been moving, let's say, almost four hours, and then it took us a good two more hours to get to Blera, and now we have one extra hour to go. Well, it did say 50 minutes, so from where we are now, i think it's a good like 30 more minutes. So, yeah, it's good to have your own food and water and supplies, just in case. And we're about to sign off now Probably gonna get back to you when we get in the car. Just wanted to point something out as a reminder to myself too is like how amazing this trail is in terms of natural scenery, like environment, because we walked by a river. There were a couple of waterfalls Yeah, i was getting there. I was getting there, yeah, like this amazing mix of. And the bridge Yeah, i was gonna say Yeah, because we also saw this bridge that's 2600 years old. And then we also saw the Mali that were. How old were they? Well, medieval times, yeah, so that's pretty amazing. That's not definitely not something that you see every day. So, but again, this was more of a reminder, because there's gonna be More information about this on the full episode once we have time to do some proper research.

Edo: 52:28

Read the guidebook that we bought. It seems like We're out of the woods now. We're almost done climbing. What does it say? Villa San Giovanni, 40 minutes. According to that sign, we only walk 10 minutes. We've been recording for like 12. Well, this is it for now, and We'll let you know Once we get to Bletta. So we just had, we just had a bit of a funny encounter. We saw tracks of these animals, didn't see them, so we were walking. We had stopped for a moment because Anna needed her sunglasses, and then I heard What I thought was what and we're on this.

Anna: 53:11

We're on this on dirt road next to an olive Grove.

Edo: 53:15

Yeah, that's right. We have an olive Grove to our left, we're one kilometer or so away from the town, and So we're basically on the home stretch. So we stopped for a second and I heard what I thought was like a very loud, suppressed burp. So I turned to Anna. I'm like, well, bless you. And. And She's looking away in the distance and sounds like was that you? and she said no. And then what happened?

Edo: 53:42

and then I Saw it, a large dark snout looking at us, and I thought, oh no, it's a chingale A wild boar It was, and we've been taught Like that you're not supposed to mess with boars, especially boars that have maybe that they're young with them, and so that bore was looking at us And I thought I want to take a picture, but I also, like, don't want to risk it and I was thinking, do they charge?

Anna: 54:20

like how fast would it take for this wild boar To get across the olive Grove and charge?

Edo: 54:26

at us. How far do you think he was or she it?

Edo: 54:28

20 30 meters. Yeah, let's say like A hundred ninety feet, eighty ninety feet or something. He wasn't that far, we could see him clearly Under the olives and And so we were like, okay, let's go. And at one point he starts running And Anna goes Oh my gosh. And I thought ah shit. And I thought ah shit. But what are we gonna do now? Like I don't know, i don't know how to deal with like a charging bore. But then they were running away. They had a baby boy.

Anna: 55:05

They had a baby bore. We saw it.

Edo: 55:08

So we just heard this Thrashing and galloping and it took us a second to register and see that they weren't running towards us. They were running away from us. Luckily, because I don't know what I would have done. Maybe this is something that we should research. You know, like, if a bore charges at you, like what do you do?

Anna: 55:28

I've actually I've actually heard that they are, that they're very frightened of us. So they will, they they could attack, but only if they have a bunch of young and you're really close to the young and are threatening the babies. But Usually if you, if you're far away and you don't charge at them or make threatening moves, they, they're more scared of you and you think they're experts on like human body language.

Edo: 55:59

Anyway, we just felt like we wanted to add this little site note as a Little flavor thing. Okay, we are on the actual paved road now. I think we can kind of see some houses in the distance, so I'm pretty sure we're almost there. It's okay to get very cute. So I brought my leatherman with me and I haven't been using it at all. It's just like pulling my pants down. So, yeah, okay, yeah, this is like the joys of recording in the field. We get very candid. Yeah, i wish you could smell us. Anyway, yeah, talk later.

Edo: 56:52

All right, so we realized that we didn't have an update yesterday when we were done. Our last recording was about the boars that we saw and we were less than one kilometer away from the, the arrival point, and We just went back. We talked to, though, another one of the organizers of the trail, damiano, right, yeah, very nice guy. He told us a lot about the trail and their plans for the future. We would like to go back. He shed some light on On where we got lost and how we got lost, and he said, oh, you were supposed to turn here. And he said, yeah, but there were a bunch of Americans in the middle of the trail. So we got distracted and he said oh yeah, those Americans are actually working on a dig. They're digging up Etruscan sites, which we did saw. We did see an active dig at one point. So All of the people that we saw, even in Barbarano having lunch, and we thought they were exchange students, they were all Archaeologists, so that was fun.

Edo: 58:08

We drove back home. It was, it took a little bit over an hour, but I was. I was exhausted as exhausted again Physically, i know. Yesterday I said that it wasn't as hard physically as other things that we did. But No, i'm going back on what I said. I was completely Battered by the time I got home and when I went to bed and today I'm sore all over, a little sunburned too, but Totally, totally worth it.

Edo: 58:48

You always tell me to put on some luck, but I never do it. So it's 10 past nine in the morning of June 23rd, so it's the following day. You were in our apartment now. I Think I must have slept for I don't know, a good 10 hours at least. And yeah, no, i mean it was. It was super, super fun and we're gonna go back. They said they were going to show us other things that they were working on, because We decided to skip. There are two options. Once you get at a certain point, like one kilometer away, you can either go up a little hill and do the scenic route and look at all of the three village from, like above a ridge, from a pie, but that would have added three kilometers and it was already kind of late in the day. But I do want to go back and maybe just do that little scenic route loop.

Anna: 59:55

And also when, when we took the wrong turn, when we saw the, the archaeologists, we missed this Tomb, will all this like hill tomb, which is supposed to be really big and really beautiful, which I mean we felt like we definitely saw a lot of tombs and it was really impressive, so we didn't really feel like we missed out, but it would be kind of cool to like see that, see that little part that we, that we missed when we took the, the wrong turn. So there's definitely other things to see there and it's Just definitely such a nice walk. The Domino mentioned that from that, that upper ridge, the, the vegetation is really different and There's just a lot. There's a lot to see in that area between the weight.

Edo: 1:00:47

We didn't mention the vegetation. They mentioned the vegetation down by the looking, but down by the river Up there it's kind of like being in South America, with all the ruins and stuff.

Anna: 1:00:57

Mm-hmm so didn't he also say it was more like like more met Mediterranean, like dry or like sun Vegetation?

Edo: 1:01:06

I don't know, maybe I was too tired to.

Anna: 1:01:09

Is that the month?

Edo: 1:01:10

the as well. As said, down there by the river it was like the Amazon.

Anna: 1:01:14

Yeah, it was very jungly but then Damiana was saying that up above, because it's it's higher up, it's more sunny, it's more of like Mediterranean Okay, hot, um, i don't know. I was sun baked trees type. But anyway, this, this walk, there was so much to see in terms of vegetation, tombs, the three little towns had plenty of bars, cafes, open, so it's definitely a place to go back to to to maybe see other things and Experience these things again. There's a lot, there's a lot there.

Edo: 1:01:50

So So I wanted to give you some details about the whole hike. We walked for 20.05 kilometers, which means let me just do a quick conversion here It's a little over 12 miles. It's kind of depressing when you convert it to miles because it's such a smaller number, but we will convert it to feet with the elevation, because that makes it sound cooler. So, 20.05 kilometers or 12.4 miles Wait, did I calculate it wrong? It feels like I did something wrong. Wait, no, it's right. Yeah, it's right. So 20.05 kilometers and 450 meters of elevation, which is, in feet, 1476. Now I looked at the elevation profile from my app and, look, did you expect it to be mostly downhill? I mean, it kind of makes sense because we were following a river.

Anna: 1:03:25

I did kind of feel that.

Edo: 1:03:28

So the lowest point was like at 250 meters and the highest was 400. So there wasn't a whole lot of you know noticeable elevation. But considering it was by these tiny Italian hilltop towns, most of the elevation was pretty much vertical, because when you get to the bottom of the town and then you need to go up, and these towns are at the top of a hill and then they have walls and stuff, so you just have to go straight up the hillside to get to the town.

Anna: 1:04:08

Sometimes that was straight through these Etruscan pathways, cut through the rock. Yeah, So it's like a very very narrow path with kind of big rocks in the middle.

Edo: 1:04:23

Yeah, so it was fun though, and, as I said, 20 kilometers and 450 meters of elevation, moving time was five hours and 40 minutes and our average speed was 3.5 kilometers per hour, which is what? two miles an hour, basically. You see, when we talk to our friends and you know, we're like, oh, we're gonna go on a 20 kilometer hike, and they're like, well, 20 kilometers, you can do it in like under four hours. Yeah, usually, you know, our normal walking speed is maybe six kilometers per hour, four miles an hour. Right, it's my usual walking speed, but on flat terrain, on flat paved roads in the city.

Anna: 1:05:17

Yeah, this walk was definitely a lot of. It wasn't maybe less physically challenging. In a different way, It was a lot of like avoiding, avoiding sticker bushes of fording rivers, trying not to slip on, you know, slippery rocks in the river.

Edo: 1:05:41

Climbing over fallen trees.

Anna: 1:05:42

Climbing over fallen trees trying to find the markers, maybe going up ahead, having to turn around and go back a few meters to look for the markers. So it was definitely slow going, slower going, but very entertaining.

Edo: 1:06:01

I woke up this morning and I'm sore all over, which means it was like pretty much a full body workout. I don't know if maybe it was because, as we said yesterday, we were one of the first people to walk this trail after the huge storms, so maybe the trail was a little harder than it normally is, but Damiano told us I really hope his name is Damiano, if it's not like forgive us, i don't remember, but I'm pretty sure it is He told us that they marked it as medium, difficult, right, okay yeah, just stop.

Edo: 1:06:46

Even on normal days it's medium, difficult. There are some you know categories. Our friends from Biela, francesco, told us about this, i think it was him. Like if a trail is marked E, it means excursionistico, which means anybody can do it. It's like a fun, leisure thing, leisurely thing to do like a normal walk. And then it goes from facile, easy, medio difficile, medium and difficult. And this was between medium and difficult.

Edo: 1:07:27

He said it's not like one of those, like it's a 20 kilometer hike in the mountains, which is what we did when we went to Lake Barma a year ago. There's a helicopter flying over my apartment. Wait a moment. Oh, this reminds me of what he told us. So there were. in one of our recordings you could hear loud bangs and we were very confused as to what those were. And both at the beginning and at the end of the hike we saw a big military helicopter or those big transport helicopters and I thought that's cool, that's neat. And when we got back we asked Damiano, we said we heard these weird bangs and they weren't like rifle shots, right? Sometimes you hear those. Remember when we went to the San Minerito Lake and there was a hunting reserve nearby.

Anna: 1:08:31

And often hiking, because we've done a lot of hiking in Umbria, the region north of Rome, and it's a big hunting area certain times of year and it's very well regulated and very safe, but you can often hear the hunters at certain times of year You hear gunshots and stuff.

Edo: 1:08:54

So we heard all of these bangs that we couldn't really define. And then he told us, no, look, there's a military training ground and they're shooting cannons. So I was like, ah, this makes sense. And he's like it's 20 kilometers away though, munturomano. So that was interesting. But I was about to say something else before the helicopter flew over and I can't really remember right now. Oh yeah, so he said they marked it as medium difficult, because it's not like a hike up a mountain Again, like the one that we did in Lake Barma, where it's 20 kilometers like around a round trip, but like the first 10 are hard because you climb up the mountain right.

Edo: 1:09:43

Then, based on the difficulty, obviously it's that changes. But then maybe the remaining 10 you're going downhill And depending on the kind of person you are, it could be easier. I mean I'm big, i'm heavy, so I'm slower going downhill, and then, if it's not steep, i mean obviously you spend less energy going downhill than going up in normal situations. So he said this is a loop, that's pretty much it. You go up and down and up and down, and up and down for 20 kilometers straight, and I was talking about something similar with my personal trainer recently and we will talk about this in other episodes.

Edo: 1:10:24

When we're cycling, we're like I generally dislike cycling uphill, but whenever you cycle uphill then you get to coast downhill.

Edo: 1:10:32

So we have this conversation where, like, what's more tiring going up and down, like going up a big hill and then coasting for like 20 minutes and spending no energy or pedaling on flat terrain all day, which is what we did both when we cycled from Alitso to QZ, and that was 70 kilometers of just flat terrain, or when we cycled from Mantova right to Ferrara Remember when we were cycling along the Pa River and there was no shelter from the sun and it was just flat or even when we cycle the Danube cycle path, because if you're cycling on flat terrain, then you need to keep pedaling all the freaking time, otherwise you just stop moving.

Edo: 1:11:19

So that's why he said it was considered to be medium difficult, because you look at it and you're like, okay, it's 20 kilometers with less than 500 meters of elevation, cool, but it's in pretty rough terrain, it's you're in a jungle and you have to cross rivers and stuff. It's absolutely beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful, but I can say with some degree of certainty that you really do need to be fit to do something like this. And I'm I'm not really like ultra fit, i work out and we have some experience now in doing this sort of stuff. But all of this is to say that if we were to have gone with like some friends, i probably would have felt responsible for them because I didn't research it that much.

Anna: 1:12:22

But I think this would be a really I think if you went with friends that were less experienced hikers, i think to do it as a two-day hike would be really nice. Yeah, if you, because that way you can take it really really slow, because it's it would be slow going and if someone you know has maybe bad knees or is just not as experienced walking on slippery rocks. But to do I think to do it in two days would be really nice. And again, you're, you're walking into these little towns that have they had a couple of nice like simple restaurants, the area I mean they have like great food in these, in these little towns. So to do it as like a weekend with maybe a group of friends who are less experienced doing I think the 10 kilometers a day would be doable.

Edo: 1:13:18

Yeah, no, it was 10 kilometers a day approximately.

Anna: 1:13:22

Approximately. I can probably check again The division, like on my map.

Edo: 1:13:27

Let's see if Strava no, it doesn't show me the, i'll probably like if I export the GPX I'll see it. But approximately, i think Barbarano Romano is a little like. It's a little. It's not really halfway there maybe. Maybe it's like nine kilometers in. No, we were like 10 kilometers in, i think, in Barbarano Romano. So, yeah, you were approximately like halfway there and Damiano even said yeah, you could go to Barbarano Romano and stop there for the night And then just walk back the following day. So, yeah, that could be maybe an idea or if we want to go back, you know, but yeah, so this is it for now. We're gonna sign off for the moment.

Edo: 1:14:23

We hope you enjoyed this episode. We will be working on the full version of this episode. Obviously, the timeline is a little messed up because you're listening to me now. I recorded this on June 23rd. The two episodes are probably gonna come out together, but yeah, never mind, it's always weird, like I don't always know how to address people that are listening. But anyway, the whole point of this sort of format is to make it as real and natural as possible. So we will be working on the full episode, which I guess you can listen to right now, because it's probably up already, i don't know. Anyway, yeah, we hope you enjoyed it and off to the next adventure.

Anna: 1:15:11

Thanks for listening and be sure to tune in for the studio studio episode of this great walk.

Edo: 1:15:22

Yeah, we will be having more. You know we will have time to research more and give more, you know, historical information on the ruins and the territory and more details on how to go on this walk, should you feel so inclined. Signing off now. See ya, thank you for joining us on yet another one of our adventures. We really hope you enjoyed this episode and make sure to check its companion episode, where we tell you all about the Camino dei Trevillaggi in a normal, fully produced studio episode. Make sure to subscribe on whatever app you use to listen to the podcast and tell your friends about it. We would really appreciate that a lot. Thanks again for traveling with us and, as always, go far.