Roccaromana - Alife 17 November 2022

After a light breakfast I left Maria and her lodgings in Roccaromana at 08:30. It had been raining all night and as the clouds were still hanging heavily in the valley, I had my rain gear at the ready. After having bought some panini in the alimentari for lunch I set off and climbed this mountain to some 350m. From then on it would go easy downward all the way to Alife or so I thought. I came to a part of the country where there was no mobile signal at all and thus no internett and no map or GPS trail to follow. As the VF trail is badly marked in the south I must have made a wrong turn somewhere and I ended up going slowly upward and with the forrest all around I didn't have  view or anything to go by other then my watch that could tell me where South is. After a while I luckily met a hunter with a dog on a muddy cart track and he gave me directions. Also internet came back on line and I saw I was very far off the VF trail. I just had to stick to this path which ascended to 500m altitude but then  at one point the path disappeared for me all together and a dense forrest and undergrowth remained. All I knew was to get down this mountain side to Dragoni. I more or less slid down through the dense bush full of thorns and finally came to a new cart track and this place I mentioned earlier and was back on track at ca. 13:30, which is late for having done only 10 km. After some lunch a straight forward road to Alife and the BnB for the night close to the railway station.

Yesterday I had made up my mind to quit walking now and take the train from here to Napoli for some sightseeing and be the ordinary tourist in Italy for a couple of days. The weather had turned and from now on it would be unsteady with thunderstorms and rain in the mountains. Gry Lise would also like me to come home by the end of the month, and I am glad to come home.

I want to thank her for letting me do this and be away for so long. I also want to thank everybody who has commented on this blog and thus supported me on this quest from Switzerland to Rome and even further south. I  should also thank all these friendly Italian people I have met on the way and gave me directions or help when needed as well as all the people that let me use their houses for overnight stays and gave me breakfast many a time. I enjoyed this trip immensely and also want to thank all the fellow pilgrims I met on the way to Rome and made it a most pleasant adventure. Thank you all! 

Lastly I must admit that Italy has become a favourite country of mine and I would like to come back some time and continue the VF to Bari and Brindisi and even go further on to Greece and finally the pilgrim destination of Jerusalem. Who knows what the future will bring? Good bye for now!

NB! After having finished the camino this time around I played the tourist for a week or so and took the train to Naples where I visited among others the National Archeological Museum and the Cathedral. Then I "did" Cinque Terre which had long been on my wish list and as the weather was great, it was just as beautiful as they say with almost no other tourists on the paths. Then finally onwards to picturesque Portofino in the sunset for the grand finale. From thereon the train to Genova and a plane back to Amsterdam. It was all fabulous! Thank you so much for being my companion on this journey!