I should be leaving Turin shortly. In the meantime, here is a link to all the 1000-Mile videos so far (with the exception of two which YouTube won’t encode for some reason).
Enjoy and I’ll try to get more on when I can.
There’s not a lot to say about the walk today, mainly as the road I followed seemed to divert around all the towns instead of through them. Also, my feet hurt more than I can describe. I hit my mileage target and - I will be honest - caught a bus into the centre of Turin. I had to walk another three miles from there to get to Giuliana’s place where I was made at home before she left to visit some friends. Now, I know what a bidet is actually for but I used it to douse my feet in cold water. Even with my boots off, they are agony. Feet up, feet down, legs crossed, uncrossed… doesn’t matter. Huge amounts of pain. On the upside I have accommodation for at least two nights in Turin should I require it - this has been sorted. On the downside, I don’t know if that will be long enough for my feet to heel up. And when they do, how long they’ll last before breaking down again. I have three blisters on my left foot and two on my right, and the arches seem to have vanished. I swear my left is swollen as well. I’ll confess that morale is very low right now. The walking is taking a physical toll and being by myself for so many miles is really messing with my head, mainly from the boredom. Any offers to join me to give me some company would be more welcome than I can put into words. So I’m a day ahead of target, but by the time I leave Turin I will be at least one day behind due to my feet.
I left Giuliana’s parents’ at 7:30am and began walking north towards Turin (or Torino as it’s known here). I was aiming to do two days’ walking in one day - a total in excess of thirty miles. Halfway, I switched from sandals back to boots as I developed a nasty blister on my left foot, but the change in footwear seemed to sort it. As I proceeded from town to town along the SR20 road, I discovered that most of the towns in this part of Italy don’t have free water fountains! Or toilets, come to that. I also discovered that once you have a blister on the sole of your foot, it’ll just keep growing if you keep walking. I reached a pleasant town called Racconigi around 6:30pm and talked to a lady in a supermarket who’d been taught English in 1985 at school. She didn’t do too badly talking to me. I’d put her English at least on a par with my French. Outside the shop, I found a quiet spot and burst the huge blister on my foot - much better. I know, I know, but I simply couldn’t walk any further with it full. I made it to Carmagnola around 8:30pm this was originally the target for day seven so I was understandably pleased. Until it seemed everywhere was closed. Eventually I found Speedy Pizza from where I had a rather delicious margherita. After a 45-minute rest there, I had to find somewhere to camp as darkness was falling. Of course, now I discovered that the entire town centre was open… Eventually, I found a spot just off the main road behind a billboard. The grass was lovely, soft and green. It was just out of sight of everything. Ideal. I didn’t even bother with the tent, just unrolled my sleeping back and crawled in, using my long-sleeved top as a pillow. I was asleep surprisingly quickly. Then I found out why the grass was so green and lush. When the two water sprinklers came on and deluged me. Bugger. I raced around and gathered my stuff before it got too wet and staggered off looking for somewhere else to sleep. Finally, shortly after 1:30, I found a shelter near some houses which looked like a market stall with nothing in it. I threw down my sleeping mats and collapsed on them. The roof came in handy when it rained at 5am.
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.