• Castel Di Vergio – Manganu
• July 2023

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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 u Tritore.

The ascent for the day is over several kilometers starting with a short distance on a stony path to the Bocca San Pefru and then continuing up over the exposed hill.

Some of the isolated beech trees here are amazing having been shaped by the westerly wind into the moat amazing shapes.

We then follow the trail along a mountain ridge close to the crest of Serra San Tomahhiu, to the high point of the day. This was steep in sections but frequent switchbacks leveled the grade. 

The path leads through a rocky gap, zigzags downhill a short slope, then climbs across the stony slopes of Capu a u Tozzu. It rises gently to the broad and grassy gap of Bocca a Reta, where fine views of the mountains ahead can be enjoyed. The path descends easily towards Lavu di Ninu, which is a remarkably pleasant spot on a fine day. The blue lake is surrounded by short green turf grazed by cattle and horses, while the mountains in the distance lend grandeur to the scene. The lake is at an altitude of 1743m, is 11m deep, and is frozen for almost half the year.

Today I walked on GRASS!!

The path then becomes rougher and stonier underfoot and descends roughly parallel to the infant river Tavignanu, on a rugged, boulder-strewn slope. Eventually this leads us across an open slope scattered with boulders.

We turn a rocky corner and the Bergerie de Vaccaghja suddenly comes into view. What a pleasant surprise. We decided this would be a good place to stop and take a break even though the Refuge de Manganu could be seen ahead. It had been a roasting day, with no clean water sources along the way so a cold drink was required.

Possibly before the other sections of the GR20 I would have said this was a steep hike, but today it was a beautiful hike, with no difficult terrain to cross.

From here we could see our camp for tonight further up the valley. Despite its length, approximately 8 hours thi had been a relatively simple enough day.

We start our final climb up towards Refuge de Manganu which eventually turns out to be quite steep. We check in and try to find a decent camping spot which proved difficult. We eventually had to pitch our tent in about the only spot available surrounded by cow poo.

Once again the stunning scenery had kept our minds occupied throughout the day as we put one foot in front of the other time and time again for hours on end.

Then something interesting happened in camp. A French football team arrived in (AC Ajaccio) and had booked all the camp tents out right across from where we had pitched. They were on a team training session. A couple of the coaches had to pitch their own tent but didn’t know how to, so one of the players asked us “your house is so beautiful can you please help us”. We then went on to show the coaches, watched by the whole French football team , how to pitch a tent.

Also the French Army train on the GR20. When you are actually here and on it you can understand why.

Again we had another cold night in the tent. Tomorrow we were leaving early as surprise surprise it was another very long, very steep hard day’s hike ahead.

Hope you enjoyed watching the video above. We ran out of battery on phones therefore limited video – sorry ☝ 🙂