VF del sud day 16: Buonalbergo to Faeto, 31km

We awoke in the wee hours to the sound of drums and a flickering street lamp. Wrong on two counts, as it was an astounding thunder storm (it had to be to light up the room with the shutters closed!) After a ristretto provided by our host, we spent part of the morning field testing our day-glow orange ponchos. They work great, but as we were walking on the road, the big trucks tended to send some spray up under the kilt.

The defined route, upon very close examination on Google maps, showed sections of the route using public right of ways across agricultural land. Based on previous experience, we chose the road. It added a couple of extra kms, but significantly reduced the effort required. As it was we still had some sections of muddy by-ways late in the day, and we still have mud caked in the treads.

It was almost gradual but continuous uphill today, topping out at 900m. Every ridge is topped with wind generators – the ridge we were heading towards alone had more than 100, and it was one of many ridges. And of course it was windy. Fortunately the rain vanished so we could walk without ponchos, otherwise we might have floated off out over the Adriatic.

We are staying tonight in Faeto, which while it’s not on the official itinerary, it does have rentals on booking.com. It’s something of a ghost town, with very few people about, and few houses appear to be occupied – unless it is used a a cooler weekend retreat from folks in the bigger towns nearer the Adriatic coast. We crossed from the region of Campagnia into Apulia today, but not sure that will make any difference to our sauntering!