Thur. 10-26-23 Altofonte to Sant’Agata

 So much of a relief to get started.  I’m really proud of my 67 year old body. Just a few little sore spots.

Davide gave me a ride up to Altofonte from Monreale. We had to go down into a gorge and back up to Altofonte on narrow congested roads.  So narrow, cars had to almost stop to get by.  I opened my GPX files to see where we were, and these crazy roads were the Camino. Best transfer choice of the whole trip I think. From Altofonte it was a direct uphill to a chapel.






You can see the chapel in the first picture if you zoom in. 

From there I got on a main roadway that had nice views back to Monreale and Palermo, which I eventually got too far beyond to see.  New views were ahead.







The Camino trail split off onto a more quiet country road with no traffic. There were some dogs but thankfully all bark and no bite.  One guy feeding prickly pear leaves to cattle tried to get me to eat a pear, but I passed.






Again the Camino split off this quiet paved road onto a rough dirt track that took me up my second healthy uphill through a charred forest from a recent fire.  Wild crocus were blooming.  

This track led to the top of the hill where I rejoined a paved road.  I soon had views of Santa Cristina Gela and Piana degli Albanesi Lake and the splendid mountains beyond.




Made my own sandwich and then had a rocket fuel espresso and left the small town behind, officially starting the second leg of the Camino 

The trail went up and then got pretty steep and I was getting pissed off.  Soon though, I reached the summit and it was a short downhill to my lodging for the night.








I’m at a super posh Agroturismo, or basically a country estate. No one else is here.  Phillipo checked me in, got me a beer and asked when I wanted dinner. Oh my!






So today I did about 16KM IN 4.5 hours roughly.  Tomorrow is 20 KM , which I think is doable. But I have to figure out how to shorten the day after tomorrow’s leg because it’s 26KM which is out of my range.  Then there is the uncertainty of food, since there is nothing but scenery between towns of the start and end of each leg. Cross my fingers. (Wish me luck). 
No guarantee of WiFi for the next few days. I got lucky tonight. 

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