Pomieri Hotel Day 3 - Walk 3 Petralia Sottana to Pomieri Hotel

The morning dawned clear and with the promise of great warmth. We were fed, packed, and ready to hit the trail a little before 09:00. Today the book said the walk would be 11.5km with , as I recall without checking, 700m ascent and 350m descent.  The first 2.5km or so were along paved roads for the most part  with some lanes thrown in. That got us out of town and to the start of the Trail of Peace (Sentieri a Pacem).   We began following gently ascending paths that would first take us to, and across, a Roman bridge that spans a fast-flowing stream. It is a remarkable bridge that seems to be cut from the rock itself. If you ignore the excessive quantities of thorny bushes encrouching on the narrow path the next stretch is really quite lovely. We found ourselves wishing we had loppers to provide the trail some TLC.

We continued on and generally upward along mountain roads that would at times span some lengthy steep stretches. The footing was good so it is just a physical workout. In the distance we heard cowbells and birds in some pretty glades.  Pretty all around. 

I wish I could say we ate a fine repast in a lovely setting for lunch but that would be untrue. The setting was nice enough but the quality of lunches we are getting is rather poor. Leave aside the meager fillings in the sandwiches the bread itself is hardly what you would think Italy should be creating. It is fuel at best.  Fuel that we used on the next big climb up a rock-strewn faint trail where we, and Maggie and George who had long since caught up to us, made an error. Mom was right the place was too pretty to be right. That cost us a good 400m and plenty of time but we found our way back to where we needed to be and slogged up the remaining rocky faint trail along the telegraph poles. Too bad the  trail descending the last km or so was not really any better. Not even that pretty just tough going. THe 600 year-old oak  was impressive but we were ready to be done by then. The last km or so is just annoying as you go through psture and other stuff. 

But we made it be mid-afternoon and it was a good day. The hotel rooms are spartan and, as noted, Internet access is iffy but at least dinner was very good.

Stats: We walked 12.7km today and I think our error added about 400 meters to that. Total ascent 609m; descent 276m. We took 59 minutes in breaks and walked for 5 hours 11 minutes. Our thermometers, baking in the sun, pushed 80F which seems high. Not much wind today.

Photos

1. Dad on the Roman bridge.
2. You can get a bit better sense of how the bridge is built into the living rock here.
3. In the area of lunch. We are climbing again and it is about to get steep and rocky. 
4. It took two hours to get to this cow.  We probably hiked about 2.1km and ascended 160 meters before descending 70 meters (sure felt like a lot more).    Perhaps 1.1km to go with a bit more desent and a bit more ascent too.
5. The 600-year-old oak tree. The trunk is reportedly 7m around and that seems like it might be low as I am sure it is wider than a measly 1.1m.
6. The view from our spartan hotel Pomierie windows