Retrospective

This trip was a great change from the usual ones done in the UK. For a start, my multi day hikes don't normally end in a city. Rome is amazing and I shall go back one day. The weather helped, although the trip overall had its fair share of rain. Italian rain is as wet as UK rain.

There had been a lot of rain in the period before we arrived in Italy. This made camping difficult in places as water was just pouring out of fields on to the roads we were walking along. Camping was often not easy anyway. I was told that the Italian people like their comforts and so do not camp much. Consequently, there weren't many campsites along our way. There tend to be more nearer the coast. Wild camping was not easy either. In the UK, it is usual to find fields with either open gateways or gates to be climbed over. Certainly in the part of Italy we were in, there weren't the same sort of fields. There were many olive and other types of groves and they tended to be securely fenced with high locked gates and notices saying, "Attention de cani". It just wasn't worth the hassle. The hotels we used weren't too expensive and there really wasn't any alternative much of the time.

Italian maps, which I'd bought in the UK, are a joke. I really think that our Ordnance Survey ought to offer its services to the world and earn a lot of money in the process.

All in all though, the trip was memorable. Too much road walking but hey. I just love Italy.