Hunger sated, but surprisingly not stuffed (must be the protein), we make our way back out to the road to begin our quest for Col da Favilla. Information is a little sketchy on exactly where the village is located. Some things say it’s a 3K walk down the path, others say it’s a 5 minute walk – who knows? We make a pit stop at the overlook for Isola Santa to take some pictures of the river and mountains….
….then stop a little ways up the road at a pull of by a road closed by a bar. This is where some of the articles we read said to go to find the ghost town. Supposedly the town is down this path. There is a sign that says keep out, so we are a little leery, but we decide we will say we thought it meant no cars. Un po Italiano after all. We pick our way down the path, which looks well used, and is rutted and muddy. About 1000 yards down, there is a new looking trailer type abode with gas or propane tanks. It looks pretty well taken care of, and not abandoned at all. The combination of the newish trailer and the keep out sign makes us rethink our objective. We don’t want to get into any trouble (or worse) by walking align through private property on a search for a ghost town. Wussy? Maybe. Pragmatic? Definitely.
Back we go, up the path, through the mud and safely into the car. Oh well –We will keep looking for the ghost town on our way out, maybe it’s a little farther down the road.
As it turns out, we never find the darn town. We find a couple of paths with signage that may indicate the way to the town, but we’ve read that there are a number of paths that lead there – and they are similar to the feeder paths on the Appalachian Trail – more for true hikers than us day hike pikers. Needless to say, we don’t stop to explore! We do find more abandoned houses though, and gorgeous scenery as Ed expertly winds his way down the steep, narrow little Italian Alps roads.
Slowly the scenery changes as we reach continue down past the treeline. The fall colors begin to appear and except for the building construction – all stone, with rocks on the roof tiles we guess to keep the roof from flying off in strong winds - it once again looks more like the Blue Ridge Parkway than an Alpine mountain road.
As we wend our way back to sea level, we begin to pass marble factories – many, many marble factories. All with yards filled by huge slabs of marble. Apparently we are in the middle of Italian granite and marble country here. It is really mind-boggling to see all these factories and understand just how much marble is cultivated out of this area. The GPS has chosen to take us on the path less traveled, because we end up making our way through little towns and back roads, and finally through this industrial park where we get a good look at a marble factory up close. Their yard is strewn with unrefined blocks that are just massive, some upwards of 8’ x 10’. They are numbered,and some have country names on them, so we assume that is where they are going to be shipped, but who knows! It is fascinating, and we would have explored more, except for this particular factory is guarded by dogs that didn’t like us even slowing down in the car outside the fence. Ok, we'll, we won’t be stopping for a closer look-see, that’s for sure.
Once out of the industrial park, we follow our faithful GPS through little country lanes, neighborhoods and then over this one lane little bridge that I swore was a pedestrian path over the highway! We are praying it is a one way street – but in Italy? Who knows!
Finally we are on the highway, making our way to Livorno without incident. We get totally lucky and are able to park the car in the same spot as before, then text Eva to tell her where we left the car and to thank her for all her great advice and recommendations. Back aboard, we hang out and await our sailing to the next surprise port – Nice!
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