The day’s hike starts straight away with a 600 meter climb up the mountain behind the refuge. It’s relentlessly steep and requires scrambling up granite slabs in places. The trail criss-crosses over the spine of the ridge to give us a bit of scrambling but it soon fizzles out and drops down to the plateau….

It had been a very windy and cold night and this continued throughout the day to the extent I felt miserable the whole day. I had so been looking forward to this day as it was a stunning ridge walk. At one point when we were on a very steep and rocky summit gusts of…

The route traverses forested slopes for most of the day. Although there are some steep and rugged ascents and descents, these are quite short, and most of the time the gradients are gentle in comparison to other days and the paths and tracks followed are fairly easy – again in comparison to other days! For…

We reluctantly left our beautiful, clean and peaceful hotel after breakfast which I couldn’t stomach due to my last nights dinner.  This was so disappointing as the breakfast was so beautifully done.  But before we knew it we were back on the trail like we had never left. From Vizzavona we made our way up…

Vizzavona is known to hikers as the mid-point on the GR20. We had made the halfway point which meant the northern half was now complete, we were on to the southern route from here on in. There was nothing really here in Vizzavona apart from a couple of hotels and a train station. Our plan…

The sun hit camp earlyish this morning which felt nice as we packed our things away. Once organised we re-traced our steps back up to the ridge and followed it all the way up to the Muratello breche, a lovely viewpoint. Here, we toppled over to the Vizzavona side of the mountain. This stage is…

We happily left this refuge behind and were on our way once more. Before I tell you about this hike, let me tell you about the food on the GR20. So you can pay for breakfast (10 euros), dinner (21 euros) and order a packed lunch (12 euros) if you desire. The first 3 days…

We were up early (again!!) as this stage was meant to be a tough day. Last night had been a very cold night. We had slept in all our gear including our waterproofs – they’ve came in handy after all but my bones still felt cold this morning. On exiting the tent it was still cold…

The day starts with an easy and unbelievably levelish walk through the woods. It’s a pleasure just to be able to walk effortlessly. This is a day to savour. There are views between the trees, back towards Paglia Orba and Monte Cinto, as well as down the forested valley and ahead to the mountain called…

It was cold again all through the night and getting out of the tent this morning was a real effort as it was still cold. We quickly made a coffee, packed up and started our decent downwards.  We came across a cleaner refuge where we had some coffee and cake for breakfast.  From here we…