11Oct12 Cuneo
Day trip to Limone. lay-mon-NEH. This is a little ski village on the edge of the Maritime alps. We had heard that these types of villages essentially shut down for a couple of months in autumn and reopen once the snow arrived. This village had a market and that was about all that was open. There was plenty of building activity.
We weren't worried as we were walking in the hills. We again gave up on the lonely planet hopeless guide and just followed our instincts and picked up a walking track after about 1km. It seemed to be a valley walk which was perfect for the day as the fog and clouds kept coming and going. The walk started rising rapidly and we had soon risen to 300m above our starting height only to start hearing the familiar sound of cow bells mixing in with the sound of running water from the stream that the path was following. We spotted them (white cows) and a small stone cottage on the other side of the valley. The area we were walking was quite spectacular with the leaves on the trees all the expected shades of autumn. We came across an old run down farm which had a bread/pizza oven next door before heading further upward. The clouds closed in and the fog raced up the mountain from the valley below and soon we were engulfed with less than 100m visibility. I suppose we should have been a litle worried but were careful and GPS marked points along the way just to be safe. We had lunch at a junction about 500m above our starting position and then decided that we would stop climbing and follow another track back to Limone. It was vastly different and the sound of the valley disappeared almost instantly when we passed over the ridge and into the forest. We called this section the mushroom walk as we came across many different varieties including some very large orange topped types. if only we knew how to find truffles....
The forest walk was quite eerie with the thick fog and we had to be careful not to lose the trail along the way and had to scout a little to find each yellow and green mark on the trees. A delightful walk but very steep and slippery in sections which we presumed is why we see so many people with walking poles when hiking in Europe. I think we also will take walking poles next time.
We had a little time to wait for the next train and wandered around the sleep ski village.
I was a little sore after the walk. Vanessa was fine as she would never admit to feeling the effects of a steep ascent and decent.
