Day one - Mornico Losana to Locanda del Molino

After an excellent nights sleep, today we had a 19 km with a 850 m of ascent.

Allan at breakfast.

After a good breakfast we hit the trail in shorts and base layer, easy road walking to commence the day. On our left is the hill top village of Mornico Losana, these are very typical in Italy. 

Our next village was Montalto Pavese, we got there by walking through the Oltrepo Pavese valley  one of the largest wine producing areas of Lombardy, the famous local wine being a Bonarda a fruity red.

The centre of Montalto Pavese is dominated by the castle, this was going to figure in the landscape for most of our today's walk.

The centre of  Montalto Pavese

We walked through the village past a very smelly cheese stall.

Then it was down hill past a church with we think a christening about to take place on a Sunday lunch. After crossing the "main road" it was the start of a steep climb to the top of the ridge.

The castle is still dominating the valley

The view along the ridge was superb, we sat and had lunch taking it all in.

We now had a long ridge walk through stunning country side past a village of Inveriaghi and on to the village of  Fortunago.

This village is in the group "Borghi piu Belli D'Italia", most beautiful villages in Italy.

For a beautiful village it was surprisingly quiet for a Sunday afternoon.

We purchased two large bottles of water from a bar, as we hadn't expected to be walking in brilliant sunshine and blue sky all day!

The road out, Via della Crosia, was again up hill, but we soon were going down hill and to our final village Locanda del Molino, a very small hamlet nestling in the valley floor.

Our destination was at the bottom on the road into the village, Alessandra was waiting with the gate open expecting us.

An excellent days walking, the following beer, prior to a shower, was just perfect in the early evening sun.