Joanne's long walks: Via Romea Germanica Day 71: Trento

Non cercare un senso, solo toccare terra con un piede, sollevare da terra l'altro piede, avvicendarsi senza affaccendarsi.

(Do not attempt to find a meaning in it; just put one foot on the ground, and lift the other foot. One after the other, without hurrying.)

- Chandra Livia Candiani, Il silenzio è cosa viva: l'arte della meditazione (2018)

In Trento, I took the opportunity of being in a large city with a well-stocked sporting goods store to renew my hiking outfit. My blue trekking trousers had faded in the sun to a vile shade of green; plus they were constantly falling down due to weight loss from walking all day for 25 days. This morning I packed them up for Mariella to take home, where I can reclaim them at a later date for use at home working in the garden. Then I put on my spiffy new beige hiking trousers, with legs that you can zip off in hot weather and put away without even taking off your boots, ready for a new chapter in the Via Romea Germanica: the Valsugana!

But to get there, I had to cross over the Cimirlo Pass. I negotiated the city streets of the hillside above Trento to rejoin the Via Romea Germanica route at Mesiano, between the faculties of science and engineering of Trento university. Then I began a long, steep climb to the pass.

The descent into the Sugana valley began on a cobblestone street: pretty to look at, but hard on the feet!

I took a footpath marked "Via Romea Germanica - Sentiero Panoramico" which did not correspond to my gps track, but appeared to be a possible shortcut. I'm not sure if it was really any shorter than the main route, but it was a pleasant path through the woods, followed by a steep gravelly descent to the village of Roncogno.

I hoped to get something to eat here, but the local grocery store was closed, so I stopped on a bench beside the shrine shown above and ate the remains of last night's eggplant Parmesan and salad. Then I continued across the valley floor through apple orchards, vegetable gardens and strawberry farms to the larger town of Pergine Valsugana. Here there were several supermarkets, so I bought kefir, a banana and a pastry to supplement my meagre lunch, and sat on a bench in the shade in the town square to eat them. Then I walked the rest of the way through the town, amusing myself taking photographs of colourful architectural details.

Leaving the town behind, I climbed a steep footpath to the foot of the castle hill, but didn't go all the way up to the castle. Though shady, the climb was tough in the midday sun. The path came out onto the road at Masetti, a tiny village. I walked along a paved road through the woods from there to Pozza and into Ischia, where I had my first glimpse of Lake Caldonazzo.

Looking back at Pergine castle

Looking back over Pergine, with the Dolomites in the distance

Lake Caldonazzo

Ischia

Arriving in Ischia, I took a break in the shade beside the church before continuing. Here the Via Romea offers two options: I decided to take the route through Tenna, in order to see an ancient Roman milestone still standing in its original location. But the original location is now a niche in an ugly modern building, and the milestone seemed to be ignored and neglected; numerous cyclists passed by without even stopping to look at it.

I would probably have been better off taking the other route, along the shore of the lake, which would have been prettier and taken me more directly to my hotel. The Tenna route offered a lot of hot walking on asphalt, and though the last part was on a woodland trail past the Hapsburg fortress, I missed a turn-off and ended up walking further than necessary, and on worse roads, on my way into the town of Levico Terme. I came into the town at the lower, more modern end, by the campground, and had to walk uphill to my hotel in the older part of the town under the afternoon sun, at the end of a long, hot day!

I picked Hotel Eden because it is a historic hotel, opened in 1892, with frescoed ceilings and chandeliers; it has that air of declining elegance typical of historic spa towns. The paint may be peeling slightly in the corners of the grand lobby, the air conditioning may be out of order, and there may be a crack or two in the bathroom floor, but I still prefer its air of dignified charm over an efficient but characterless modern hotel. Besides, if there were no cracks in the bathroom floor, I probably wouldn't be able to afford to stay here! As it is, I have a respectable single room and use of the indoor pool in the cool, dark basement, which I had all to myself: the perfect way to recover after a long, hot walk! I revived sufficiently to go out for dinner with my friends Marco and Rosalba, whom I met walking in Crete in 2017 with the Compagnia dei Cammini, my favourite organisation for guided group walks. Rosalba and Marco are natives of the nearby Cembra Valley, and last year they formed a group with other walkers living in the area and created the Cammino delle Terre Sospese, a six-day walking route in discovery of the valley. Mariella and I saw some of the trail markers yesterday around Lavis, where our route overlapped with theirs for several kilometres. I took a photograph of the waymarker to remind myself to find out more about the route - and then today ended up having dinner with its creators!

Nothing happens by chance, along the Way!