30.05.2010 back of a church near La Spezia - 25km

After three days of rest, recuperation and replacement of various bits of equipment we are back on the road, with Heiko and Susan who want to walk the first few kilometres with us and show us a route they have recommended. As promised, the route is infinitely preferable to the long and winding road down from Ponzano Superiore, but Flea has other ideas. After 3 days of rest and mooching in the quiet alleyways, he has decided that he would rather stay there. We realise that he has disappeared just after seeing a wild boar and her offspring (piglets/boarlets??) cross the track. We immediately assume that Flea has been hunting them and possibly come off worse after a confrontation with the mother. We call and search but the woods are silent, then it occurs to me that we have not seen him for sometime. I suggest that Heiko and Susan return home while we keep searching. Not longer after we receive the call we are been hoping for. Flea is outside Heiko's door, concerned that no one else is there. H and S return with (sodding) dog and we continue the journey.

Next we discover that Italian maps are inventions of an approximate geographical reality of possibly pre-Mussolini era. Clearly printed roads turn out to be either nonexistant or tracks that end in a house. With no other alternative we wind and curse our way along unpleasant principal roads for about half the day, but finally manage, more by luck than topographical accuracy, to move off onto a series of pleasant tracks and roads, ultimately creating a reasonable route for walkers, but without reasonable accommodation. After a futile search we spot a church above us, accessible by a long flight of the mule stairs that have been appearing along with the increasingly frequent steep hillsides. I point Nellie at the first and leave her to deal with the rest. She does, without hesitation – all 150 of them. Then we find a space behind the church, check with the utterly disinterested priest if he has any objections – he doesn't – throw up the tent, tether Nellie next to us and then drink enough wine to send us to sleep, at least for the first two or three hours.