Day 4 Camaldoli: still forest and a monastery

Finally, there are useful signs along the way: the yellow cross and red and white markings. This makes hiking much easier and saves resources.

Stress test for the calves

I start the 4th passage with two other pilgrims. It is entertaining and distracts from the fact that the climb is steep and really tough on the calves. The route is still populated, but that changes quickly. A narrow path leads into a valley with an extensive and mystical oak forest. The atmosphere can only be described as follows: people must have thought up fairy tales in places like this. The vegetation is in charge here. A wooden bridge, the narrow path and the red and white markings are reminiscent of human hands. Everything else is untouched nature.

Is humanity in retreat?

What follows is a forest-free ridge and the small, pretty town of Casalino. An old woman tells us how lonely everything is here because people are gradually moving away. What a pity.

Soon we are going through a forest area again. It would be better to speak of forests, because the landscape changes every 1-2 hours. This morning it was still the sprawling oak forest, but now it is ancient and majestically towering silver firs and individual, equally impressive, cedars that dominate the mountain. Monks of the Camaldolese order settled here around 1000 AD and looked after the forest for centuries.

At the end of the schnapps

After a 5-hour hike, we (now there are only two of us) think we are close to our destination, the Forestina del Monastero di Camaldoli monastery. Unfortunately, there is an extremely steep path to overcome first, which tortures us for almost an hour. At the end, the equally steep descent between the thick silver fir trunks and the hail that finally sets in and forces us to throw on our rain capes (a difficult undertaking, by the way). We are grateful to be two people and decide to celebrate our arrival at the monastery with a schnapps. We have covered 19 kilometers and reached 134 plateaus after some steep climbs. That's what Manon, a Canadian blogger who hiked with me today and upgraded her digital device, tells me.

There is no internet in Camaldoli or in the monastery, but we meet the other pilgrims with whom we have already shared a table and hostel.