I usually try to plan
my walks in the Apennines with a certain precision, but last Sunday at the last moment I decided to
do a stretch of the “Sentiero Ducale” long distance footpath just because it
was a bit I had not done.
I decided to take the
part of the footpath that runs from Cereggio to Taviano in the Enza valley. The
walk starts with a long step decent into the valley which can only mean a long
climb upwards to return to the car.
After a long walk
through thick woodland the footpath
emerged out of the forest at a point on top of a rocky spur called “I
Pizzoni” that gave some extensive views
of the valley.
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| I Pizzoni, Cereggio, RE |
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| I Pizzoni, Cereggio, RE |
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| I Pizzoni, Cereggio, RE |
It was then back into
the rather boring forest for a stretch until turning a corner I was confronted
with a curious geological phenomenon. The landscape was dotted with what looked
like a field of stone footballs. Erosion of soft rocks around pockets of harder
rock over time have created this strange landscape. I have seen this type of
erosion before in the Apennines, but never on this scale.
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| Taviano,RE |
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| Taviano,RE |
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| Taviano,RE |
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| Taviano,RE |
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| Taviano,RE |
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| Taviano,RE |
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| Taviano,RE |
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| Taviano,RE |
After exploring the
area for a while it was time to continue. The footpath at this point gave an
impression of disappearing over a cliff. In fact it was a very rapid decent in
amongst the footballs. The path became quite an adventure with stretches along
narrow ledges in the middle of cliffs descending vertically to the river below as well as a deep gully that I had to
climb out of.
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| The path down Taviano,RE |
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| Taviano,RE |
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| Taviano,RE |
From Cereggio I had
descended almost two hundred meters.
Now after leaving the rugged landscape the long steep climb back up began firstly to
Taviano and then on to Cereggio along the 670 footpath to close the circle.
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| Along the cliffs, Taviano,RE |
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| Along the cliffs, Taviano,RE |
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| Along the cliffs, Taviano,RE |
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| Along the cliffs, Taviano,RE |
This is a walk that I
do not know if I would like to repeat. The long woodland stretches of the
footpath were rather boring with little to see, but on the other hand the
central stretch starting at “I Pizzoni” along the crest of the cliffs and
through the rugged eroded landscape was quite exhilarating.
This time I took a new
camera that I am starting to feel is perfect for these walks. The Panasonic
Lx100 is small and light with bigish 4/3 sensor and a nice good quality 1.7
Leica zoom.
