I Would Walk 1000 Miles

I was up, packed and on my way by 8:00. I packed my boots and wore sandals to give my sore heels a much-needed rest. The tourist map I got in Tende showed some of the road north towards Cùneo which I was taking, and the first town on the way was Vernante. Sadly, it’s not on my AA map as the scale’s too big. If you’re ever in the area, check it out for breakfast (I did) or lunch.

It’s a one-street town that in the 1960’s decided it needed to drag in the tourists outside of the snowy season as well. Someone decided on Pinocchio as the focus of the tourism aims and murals were painted everywhere. Souvenir shops sell little wooden puppets. There’s a statue on the way out of town. There is no connection at all between Vernante and the stories or creator of Pinocchio. But it’s cool! Judging by the many murals, there’s a lot more to Pinocchio than the Disney film, but that’s not surprising. In addition, the town has a huge fireworks display in mid-August which I’m reliably informed is not to be missed.

I picked up breakfast there, as I said, but searched in vain for a public toilet. This lasted the entire walk to Cùneo where Giuliana - a fellow Couchsurfer - met me and escorted me to her parents’ flat. After a shower and change I got the whistle-stop tour of Cùneo followed by a rather delicious ice cream - before dinner! This was some great pasta and wine which I was forced to eat lots of (it wasn’t difficult to force me). Giuliana describes her parents as her own personal sit-com and I can see why. Even when you don’t understand a word of their language, they’re funny people! I just hope I ate enough and drank enough to make them happy.

I finished Harry Potter (thank you for the kind gift, Gosia) which I’ve left with Giuliana. If she doesn’t read it, she can pass it on to another couchsurfer. Bad news, though, was that as I’d run ahead of schedule (well, managed to get back to the original one after the late start) my planned hostess in Turin can no longer accommodate me as she has other surfers visiting. If I can blast three days’ walking into two, I could make Turin by the 7th and Giuliana may be able to host me there as well… But I need to stay in Turin for a couple of nights to give Irene (yet another couchsurfer) the time to get there and join me as she wants to do some of the walk.

Oh, how I love scheduling stuff.

Breakfast at 8am was jam and bread with a huge bowl of hot chocolate. Afterwards I walked into town to see the tourist information people who were incredibly kind, giving me a decent map and some good directions all the way to Limone Piemonte. I stopped by a mountain store to get a new water bottle, but decided against it when the owner told me there was a water source about halfway up. He lied, I discovered later. Grr.

I decided not to stay an extra night in Tende and instead pressed onwards and upwards so as to stay on schedule. After a decent lunch, I packed and set off up to Col de Tende. This is another 1km climb, but along a fair horizontal distance so not as punishing as the previous day.

I was rather heartened when I made it to the highest point (Fort Tabourde) almost an hour ahead of schedule. From there I walked to Col de Tende itself in around ninety minutes and had a quick look around the old fort there before searching for the path down the other side that was clearly marked on my map but not in real life. Eventually I found it was was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of marmots on the way down.

At Limonetto, I bore right towards my target, Limone Piemonte. Another 45 minutes later - around 8:30 - I was sat in an Irish bar, watching footie on TV, eating a delicious hamburger and using free internet. My only problem… nowhere to camp. The lights on the roads stop at the town’s edge so I couldn’t safely walk into the country.

Eventually I ended up "hiding in plain sight" in front of a building / monument / thing up a hill in front of the town. I hoisted my tent right between two upward-pointing lights. Between them and the slope of the hill I was quite well hidden from public view.

Though how I managed it I don’t know. I have a nasty burst blister on my right foot and my feet ache but I’m just glad I made it. Later today I hope to clamber over the mountains and into Italy by 8pm.

There’ll be a more complete update when I have more time and an English keyboard! I’ve got some videos I intend to upload to YouTube as well, diary-style.

A quick thanks to Gareth from Another Chance To See and Ben from Black And White And Read All Over for their kind donations. Please keep the cash coming in, folks!

Today was a day for dead things - a sheep, a snake, a lizard and I thought a horse… until it got up and walked off.

I had a long walk today. I arrived in Saorge around 9:30, over an hour ahead of schedule. I’d taken a different route to the advertised GR52A along the nearby valley rather than climbing up and down. Saorge is a beautiful little town poised on a hill overlooking a monastery and a river. It’s made up of a maze of little streets with overhanging houses. Pure medieval loveliness.

I spoke to a man about an alternative route via Fontan, but I worked out it would be just about as long as the one I was intending to take anyway. It is a hell of a climb from Saorge to Baisse d’Anan - 1000m vertically. The direction markers (red and white painted stripes along the way) were very sporadic so I stopped at a cottage on the way to make sure I was going the right way. The brought out a map, assured me it was fine and offered me food and water for the trip (which I had to refuse as my bag was full and I’d had breakfast in front of the monastery an hour earlier).

The climb up almost killed me. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything more difficult, including climbing Fansipan in Vietnam. At least then I only had a small daybag. Psychologically it’s a nightmare as you can never see the end. There’s a plateau at around 90% of the way up where the signage just vanishes again and you have to more or less guess that you’re going the right way. At the summit I found what looked like an abandoned camp and wolfed my lunch down there before starting on the steep, gravelly descent. Freeze’dried cous-cous followed by jam tarts.

At Col de Géréon I encountered a very helpful lady who advised me to take the road route instead of the GR52A as it was quicker. As I walked down, she caught me up in her car and told me of another short cut just after a junction coming up. Great stuff. I arrived in La Brigue at 5pm - good time - and asked some locals directions. I ended up chatting to them for about half an hour and they offered me a lift to Tende as they were heading that way anyway. I turned the lift down (and the offer of a beer!) and they beeped their horn when they passed me about to rejoin the GR52A at the other side of town.

The reason I keep asking directions is that these hiking paths can become a little disjointed where they pass through a town. It’s often hard to get from where you arrived to where you need to go. This was a great excuse to talk to some lovely people and I’m glad they understood my limited French, though one of them spoke pretty good English. They all seemed pretty impressed with the whole "Walk" thing as well, and they remembered that we’d once had a Frenchman play for us ("Ginola! He play for Newcastle!").

I climbed around 200m and then walked down a long, winding road into Tende where I found signs for a G&icarat;te which I followed. EURO18.6 for B&B isn’t too bad when you’re feet are aching and you’ve not slept properly in two nights. I was also lucky to get the last bed - they were full the next night.

The g&icarat;te had a wonderful view, a hostess who spoke English, hot showers and comfy beds (though they squeaked something rotten). I made use of the shower, tidied myself up and went in search of food. I felt I’d earned a decent meal and found the Pizza Fue de Bois fit the cost/meal size bracket very well indeed. Highly recommended! EURO20 including a beer for three very delicious courses indeed. I can’t believe how quickly I went through all the food, including two baskets of bread.

Back at the hostel I got through another four chapters of Harry Potter before donning earplugs (snorer in the bunk above) and plunging into sleep.

I was awake at 8am to find the inside of the tent covered in condensation. Apparently this is something that does happen, and I need to leave the vents open a bit more next time. My aim was to be in Sospel by 11:00 and I made it… just. It’s a nice town and I bought some fruit and Coke, bothered another tourist information person for directions and began the hike to Breil–sur-Roya. I intedned to catch up on my original target of getting to Tende by the end of day three. Making Saorge, the original day 2 target, would have been great but a step too far.

I got to Breil-sur-Roya just as the information office was closing, but found out where the GR52 continued before buying some grub to cook by the riverside from a nearby Spar. I walked until night started to fall and picked a fairly poor spot to camp as the ground was rather bumpy. Not to worry, my aching feet stopped me nodding off for half the night anyway.

Sounds ominous. It was. The tent hadn’t appeared even as I was packing, but we ended up being late as I had too much to do. As luck would have it, just as we were about to walk out the door, a second post appeared along with my accommodation for quite a few nights over the next two months. Thank you, Viv, for sorting and sending it! No thanks at all to La Poste for not getting it to me sooner.

Traffic was a nightmare getting to Monte Carlo, so we were even later getting there than I’d hoped. Eventually, we parked in a lot under the famous casino, I grabbed my stuff and we walked into the sunshine. This was where it would all begin.

Why Monte Carlo? Well, there are a couple of reasons, some of which only - in honesty - came to me as I was walking. Firstly it meant I could add another "country" to the list of ones I’d be going through. With some more thought, thought, other things come to mind. The kids I’m doing the walk for have very little. Some are lucky enough to have great families, but in most cases they’re involved with Blue Dragon because of poverty.

Well, look at Monte Carlo. It’s the exact opposite. Flash cars everywhere. Posh buildings. Jewellery. Bikinis costing more then most people’s wardrobes being flaunted on the beaches. Sums of money some of us will never own being frittered away in the casino each night.

The thing is, a lot of the people here managed it through hard work and luck. Sure, some inherited, but not all. It proves that if you work your backside off and luck falls your way, no matter what your start in life, you can get somewhere good. Blue Dragon give these kids that kind of start that they’d otherwise not have. And all the children I saw were prepared to work hard with what they’d been gifted to make the most of it.

Well, charity rant aside, I walked along the beach for a while with Delphine until it came time for me to start plodding by myself (after the first half mile). I strode along the coast to Menton - hard work in the sweltering heat - and popped into a tourist information place for details on where to find the start of the GR52A. It’s located round the back of the train station in case you’re interested. From there, a hard walk upwards got me to a junction where I opted to walk along an "old" GR route to Castellar as I’d stupidly run out of water and I knew I could get some there.

It took a while to find my way, but finally I arrived and downed about two litres of water before refilling my bottle and setting back off into the hills. I bypassed a farm offering camping space and made my way about another hour into the hills where I pitched tent as darkness fell. My pedometer read 7.87 miles, but in honesty I’m not sure how well I had it configured at the time. I certainly hadn’t managed to reach Sospel, my original destination for day one, but the view was great and the night drawing in.

I managed to bend one tent peg (great start), read Harry Potter, boiled some canned ravioli and went to sleep.

The tent arrived…

Yes, I’m running late… But I had to get one post up to thank Delphine and her family for the last week or so. They’ve been hugely accommodating, allowing in some weird guy who barely speaks their language, feeding me (very well!) and allowing me full use of the internet. I had a great 3-day trek to get me used to the camping and walking and I’ve had an otherwise lovely chilled time.

So now I’m about to wolf down some breakfast, finish packing (without the tent - going to gamble it shows up today and Delphine can run it out to me) and get on the road. OK, so I’ll start later than I intended but I’ll just walk fast to make up!

Not sure when the next post will be but I’ll try to keep you all up to date as I go.