“And the harder walk is easier. The harder walk is like this, but it’s not really different from the easier walk, pause. But the easier walk is not as easy as the easier walk you all do , and the first part of the harder and the easier walk we all do together and there is a steep Ill like this, but the ground is a gravel path, not big stones. In the woods for the harder walk is wood and trees, under the feet there is stones and you should be careful. On the easier walk it is nothing, but it is like the other walk we do the other day, let me see. The elevation is hi. 1200 meters but there are bits like this and this. When we return you will see a beautiful medieval village, there is a bar and somewhere where we can have your lunch, but I don’t know if the bar is open. I will check. Out side the bar is a road and we walk along the metal road for some metres. Then we go by the coach to ere. Where we started the walk.

Tonight there is no briefing and that’s all folks, see you tomorrow. It will be raining not all of the time but you should wear the iking boots and not the trainers, pause, so you do not get the feet wet. The trainers can be worn on the sunny days, but you may prefer the walking boots. You will need a litre and an half of water, there is no fountain in the beautiful village and the bar might be closed.

We will find a place on the walk where you can find the mushrooms and the wild flowers and somewhere where you can ide if you need the toilet.”

This is roughly what our Italian Walking guides briefed us on each evening only slightly exaggerated. Two guides, both excellent, took our two parties on different walks each day. You could choose which walk you wanted , the harder walk or the easy one. I put myself down for the easy one each day whilst superwoman wife chose the harder each day. We are on speaking terms but she walks faster and is fitter than me, I like to dawdle a bit and take in the scenery taking photographs. I doubt that I could have managed what that harder group were up to, all that silent serious energy.

It also gave me the chance to meet the other people on our holiday. There’s something about a group walking holiday that seems to bring vpps together. Very pleasant people. This trip was no exception. There’s a bit of uneasiness to begin with, after all we’d hardly met and no one had mentioned Brexit or 14 years of Tory rule. That rule where there’s one rule for them and another for the rest of us.

A lady from Edinburgh who seemed to be a born organiser, a couple from East Sussex, she small and grimly determined to keep on walking despite health issues and he an expert on flora and fauna, always helpful on these walks. The guides knew well their plants and trees, he knew them in even more detail. Some fellow allotmenteers gave me the chance to compare plots, they had one each! Not something you get in Gloucestershire. There were two ex solicitors on board, one went with the harder walking group, she was a highly experienced walker and managed the harder walks well despite being even older than me . The other, originally from Blackpool, with Polish roots was also excellent company if you got on the right side of her ( slightly hard of hearing on the left ) and blessed with a dry humour. A younger bloke from Lancashire went on all the hard walks and made himself popular, easy manner. The single lady from Brecon who’d worked in the health service had a fund of stories about herself and late husband who’d been a policeman in mid Wales. Then there was the single chap from Putney, a retired engineer nearing 80 but not looking it, kept up easily with ‘Easy Company’ and had a fund of stories about other walking holidays. Good company. And then there were the Germans! Now you might think I’ve left them to the last to ‘complain about the Germans’ , not a bit of it. This couple, younger then most of the party were both highly talented retired musicians( if musicians ever retire ) we were treated to them bursting into song in a medieval church which was really rather special, I tried to record it on my phone but the light in there was so dark, if light can be dark, that I pushed the wrong button and took a photo of my foot. They seemed to really enjoy expanding their already excellent English with a collection of the sort of phrases we English use without thinking that they sound odd. Like ‘Play it by ear’ when referring to how we might approach some impending wet weather, which we did have on the odd day. I’m hoping to donate to them some more of these odd phrases in my next missive. They were such anglophiles that they complained to us about a German leading another group, I’m shaking my head in wonder.Last but not least there was our tour manager. Small and enthusiastic, he’d been doing this sort of thing for 35 years, now 82 and seemingly made of strong stuff. He generally brought up the rear of ‘Easy Company’, the local Italian guide leading from the front. I did worry on occasion that he might fall back with his large rucksack, and not be able to right himself, a bit like a sheep with too much wool ( kesseling it’s called in some parts of the North ) no doubt he had a few spare flat Yorkshire caps in there just in case.

Now for a raft of photos. I think the most outstanding visual memory is the landscape, somehow helped by the swirling rain clouds gathering around us at times. It’s a landscape largely unchanged for centuries, now designated a Unesco World Heritage site protecting it from anyone building a motorway through it or housing of dubious quality. Walled villages on the tops of random hills scattered everywhere. Friendly people in the main, the only grouchy one at a Museum of Etruscan relics, but perhaps he’d not had his pasta.