Stage 7: Sutera - Racalmuto, 23 kms, hot and sunny, +30

Ok. Where's The Damn Trail Markers?

Last night our hosts took us into town and showed us around. Amoung the interesting things we saw, perhaps the best for me was a tour by a well known scholar who was in town as an advertised guest giving guided tours through the town. He was known to our host who arranged a private tour for the three of us through the local museum. They were so proud to show us their local history. Amoung the artifacts was a very good collection from the landings by the British and Americans on Sicilia during WW II. Where we have been walking the past two days and will for the next two was the route the American army took from the south. That's Agrigento at the bottom of the map where we will finish in a couple of days and If you enlarge the image you will see our stage stops on the map. 

Also interesting to hear how the Allies drafted all the donkeys they could find because the route was so challenging. Tell me about it!!!

The only way to get through some of the territory. Dad, thought you might find this interesting. Of course Patton and Montgomery never saw eye to eye and raced each other to the straights. If I recall my history correctly, even though the abritish had the easier route up the east coast, Patton and his army beat them over much more challenging terrain. From there they invaded southern Italy via Anzio. 

There were some other interesting items including a spaghetti maker,

and old packaging.

Afterwards we dropped at an out of the way restaurant where the locals frequent (we would never have found this place) and the beer (so Sicilian mob looking!) which was a huge bottle of excellent quality,

complemented my wonderful lamb feed! Cooked in the traditional Sicilian manner. Not sure what that entailed, but they were excellent for a very hungry perigrino.

Ok, now on to today's walk! We agreed that due to the increased heat that the tree of us would be up early and on the trail early. After a good German breakfast (our hostess is from Germany) we headed out as the sun was rising and I can provided you with my first sunrise photo. 

From there it was the usual, "how the hell do we get out of town ritual"! I'm ok with this, but our Italian pal seems to take this pretty personally. She is actually pretty funny when she winds herself up over the injustices of missing trail markers. I think we too find this frustrating, but have infinitely more experience to draw on and pretty much take it in stride. Well at least until the temperatures get over 30 and you can't find your way. Patience gets a bit thinner then! Eventually we found our way out of town, some how, and descended steeply from Sutera.

That limestone mount (not lava plug as originally thought) followed us all day.

Some really nice trail walking along the way in the relative cool of the morning. At one point we deviated to find that there was no bridge, likely destroyed during the last war and never replaced. 

Well the fun began as we had to find a way across the river. Too deep by the bridge and literally no route way points through this section. No options, so I was forced to push through heavy tall grass, near as tall as me along the river bank until I literally stumbled across a trail going down to a river ford. By then I was soaked in morning dew coming off the tall grass. The water was shallower at this point, but we had to remove our boots and stumble across. Annemarie said I went across pretty comfortably, but it didn't feel like that with the mud and concealed rocks. Then it was my turn to watch and have a chuckle as the ladies crossed:)

Not the toughest thing, but we all had to redo our feet and boot up again which burned up time in a steadily warming day. We had a couple of stiff climbs.

Still beautiful, though it's definitely beginning to dry as we travel south, now just 40 kms from the south coast. This was what some of the trail was like today. Beautiful, but you really had to work to pass through.

At this point I seem to be having a technical issue. So will head out for dinner and see if I can't fix this afterwards. Stay tuned.