Gran Sasso – Possibly our highest overnight stay…yet!

Took our boys back to Ciampino airport this morning – wasn’t too bad saying goodbye this time as we’ve had a fantastic couple of days and we’ll see them again in three weeks. We carried on around the ring road and then east towards L’Aquila. The landscape changed to something akin to Wales. Green rolling hills and getting steadily cooler. Stopped for lunch in a lay-by just past Assegi, then carried on up to the Campo Imperatore. Spectacular scenery and even some snow still around. There’s a big dis-used hotel here that Mussolini was imprisoned in until Hitler had him airlifted out. We spoke to a couple of Italian men who travelled around to see anything to do with Mussolini. They were very sad about the hotel being in disrepair and the fact that Italy has so much rubbish on the streets. There was a mountain path in front of us that everyone seemed to be heading up (and down), so we walked a little way up with Rufus who seemed to be enjoying the cooler air. After sitting down for a bit and admiring the view we decided we would go up to the top. Guy took Rufus back to the motorhome as he’d had enough whilst I started walking. I started to think it was a bad idea as I saw a few people slip on the scree path coming down with walking poles. It got steeper (7000 ft ish) as Guy caught me up and then it started to look like climbing to me – with a very long drop on one side. I bottled it about 10 minutes from the top. I knew I’d got to come back down it and would have started acting like a clown 🤡,so I sat on a rock while Guy scampered up and took some pictures. Wobbled my way back down just as it started to get really cold using my husband as a walking stick! Got all the winter woolies on again now but we should wake up to a stunning view in the morning.