Starting this walk from Gargano’s highest village meant that there was only one way, and that was down - phew! The 14.2km walk, expected to take around 4 1/2 hours had a total descent of 940m, which is about as down as you can get. The day’s walk would be partly on an old mule track across panoramic slopes towards the small town of Mattinata, amidst stretches of olive groves, and then up to our hotel which was ‘perched on a hill overlooking the bay’ - already I wasn’t looking forward to that last bit!
But the weather was vastly improved from when we arrived - just look at those blue skies as we passed the castle.
The Castello di Monte Sant’Angelo to give it its full name has been rebuilt several times over the centuries by the Normans, Swabians, Angevines and the Aragonese and commands the highest point overlooking the town. We didn’t go in, as we had a full day’s walking ahead of us but our walking notes said it “offers an evocative ramble through the site with striking views from the ramparts.”
We enjoyed a walk through the town having rushed through it to avoid the expected downpour the previous evening. It was a pretty town but busy, and so after picking up something for lunch we continued on our way. We spent a fair bit of time finding the start of the path, and eventually we spotted the blue arrow on the end of the wall, but even then we weren’t convinced.
It’s like anything though isn’t it, if you start off alright you’ll generally be ok - but get a bad start and it’s hard to recover. We still weren’t sure, as this was the path that it led onto - but it seemed to tie in with the walking notes, but I’ve learnt that anything can mostly if you want it to!
It wasn’t long before we convinced ourselves we were on the right path, and were grateful that we didn’t have to walk down the road. The path seemed to cut off quite a few of the bends, which was welcome - and all the time we got to enjoy some great views down to the coast.
There was some walking along the road, and when I took the photo below I had no idea how much that peace was about to be shattered…
… by these guard dogs, who meant serious business. So much so that we had to cross the road and recover our wits while quickly getting out of their sight. Yes they’re behind a fence, but quite frankly they were so incensed that if they got over it, then they would definitely have been after us. I don’t mind dogs, but I’m not keen on large dogs that bark and growl so much, and I was glad to get past them.
Thankfully there was another cut through to cut of this bend, a rocky path but a lot less steps than by road!
By now we were walking much below the road surface, and it seemed odd to look up and see the cars whizz past us up high!
But the views…
And then we spotted an abandoned TukTuk - which was quite random, and not quite what we’d expected to see.
Eventually we turned off from following the road and joined the old mule track, which winded steeply downhill. Thankfully it was dry as in the wet I imagine it would be quite slippy.
And it was on this rocky path that we decided we shop stop for lunch, spending the next few minutes searching for the best rocks to sit on, but each time being drawn onto some further down the path. We did find one, or rather two close to each other, in the end - with some shade, not too mucky, and not too bumpy!
It was a tough walk down stepping from rock to rock, but it was oh so quiet and oh so beautiful.
We emerged onto a wide track and finally after twisting and turning a tarmac road, and a hint of the gnarly olive trees that would dominate the next part of our walk.
I ended up taking way too many pictures of the olive trees, and so I’ll share their distorted shapes and more in a future post.
As we headed towards the small own of Mattinata which is surrounded by vast olive groves and colourful almond trees we enjoyed spotting these gorgeous blooms on what was quite a dull section of the walk, given everything we’ve experienced earlier in the day. But needs must, and sometimes there needs to be some dull road walking.
We found our right turn which took us along an alleyway and meant we were no longer walking along the road, which was welcome. It also gave us a chance to look into the gardens that backed onto the narrow path - another reward! And then the path opened up to the most amazing view.
We’d made it down to the coast - and were rewarded with another spectacular view, but one that was much, much closer this time.
The pebbles though were less welcome, we had a hundred metres or so to cover to get to the beach bar restaurants. Unfortunately the first one we went in to wasn’t serving, not that they told us, they studiously ignored us until finally after drinking our own water we got up and left! We never went back to this one either.
We were resigned to heading straight up to the hotel, which was still approximately half a kilometre away, but thankfully as we turned the corner we spotted another bar, and one that was very happy to serve us a cool refreshing beer and some snacks.
And then we started to the climb up to the hotel’s reception and check in. From here we could see the apartment style rooms of the hotel were set high up into the cliff overlooking the bay, thankfully though they took us up to our room in a little golf buggy. That was so very welcome, even though I felt like I was holding on for dear life sitting on the back seat facing the beach we’d just left!
