A Driving Traverse of the Tosco-Romagnolo Oberland

A long day driving through glorious wild country with little habitation along valleys that run in parallel with the Apennine main ridge. Very broken and tortured rock formations of alternating harder and softer rock creating plenty of possibilities for landslips.

As I approached the house above down a little used yet public road I came to an abrupt halt where the road had simply disappeared (see extra). A little informal wooden barrier warned me of the slip but it was still nerve-racking to  do a sixteen point turn and then gun the car up the loose shale down which I had descended. Luckily, your correspondent lived to tell the tale.

I eventually found the house I was looking for after looping back down into the Santerno valley bottom - where there is a very moving Commonwealth  War Graves Cemetery - (see second extra I read that there 42,000 Commonwealth soldiers, aircrew and sailors died in the Italy campaign).

The house stood up a tiny track rather overpowered by the craggy hill behind it. Squat and built for strength and winter snows it had a certain appeal. The cicadas were going like an infernal machine needing oiling.  I snuck a quick peak around the grounds as the gates were open. Looking into a window of the garage I was surprised to see movement - a dog was inside and not happy about my presence.

This is a remote house with a couple of farms down the lane before the main and rather barren valley of the Santerno river - very rocky with spectacular amphitheatres carved out of the easily-erodable rock of these geologically young mountains that over time will be ground down into a formless peneplain. On the plus side the river has many swimming holes and is clearly popular with folk from the baking Adriatic plains who come up to escape the stifling and humid summer heat of the flatlands of the Pianura Padana.

Then it was on through endless steep valley and twisting roads before another house and a diversion down a long white gravel road through thick pine forest. Even at 3000ft the temp gauge would not drop below 30C. Only in the thick of the forest did it eventually and temporarily drop to 27C.

On the long grind back to base camp I was loving the empty main road and its climbing and descending curves when suddenly a couple of blokes waved me to slow down. As I turned the corner the mangled wreck of a motorbike was spread across the road and further along a huge Porsche Cayenne was stopped in the middle of the road with a bashed in wing and burst tire. There was no sign of the motorcyclist but I fear the worst.

I drove on with my warning lights on flashing all oncoming traffic to slow the f... down.

I was late home and we rushed out to the local Festa del'Unita' - an old hangover from the days when the Italian Communist Party ruled supreme (supremely democratically it must be said) in Tuscany. A big open air communal feast that it very sociable and brings people together.