Day 10 - Vizzavona to Campanelle

It felt strange initially to have had a day off walking, but as we set off I was quite keen to get out of the woods and onto the mountains again, now the weather had calmed down.

The storm did have one benefit - it caused the salamanders to emerge from their hiding places onto the woodland paths and our first sighting got me very excited. They are curious slow-moving creatures and I couldn't help but pick one up and have it walk over my hand; kind of slimy. Turns out they also taste foul as when a fly flew into my mouth a few seconds later I stupidly put my hand in to get it out. Not pleasant, and Jack rightly teased me for this.

Even after we'd crossed the first bocca, most of the walk was through the pine woods which I found intuitively frustrating as the trees were obscuring our views and I love being out in the open. However I decided to make the most of the change of scenery and consequently I stopped many times to take photos of odd looking, mostly dead laricio pine trees.

 This turned out to be the sunniest day of the trip and became a very hot afternoon spent on the terrace of the Gite U Fugone where we were camping, trying to make the most of The Times crossword and games page that we'd saved from the day before. Andy, The Three Firemen and The Four English were also there, this was the first time we'd seen so many English speakers since leaving home. The gite had a tepid shower (presumably heated by some solar type system) but with no door, just a curtain that covered about 2/3 of the gap.