Isola di Giglio - Saturday Hiking

I had better finish writing about Isola di Giglio before things get too out of order: we were there over Labor Day weekend!

Leonardo had explained that there are trails on Isola di Giglio, so Alexandra and I were prepared with water bottles and a small backpack.

Our idea for Saturday morning was to walk from the beach town of Giglio Campese, where we were staying, up to Giglio Castello, the fortified town 400 meters higher near the center of the island.

We wanted to get an early start to avoid the worst of the heat.  Campese is on the west side of the island, so we were shielded from the early-morning sun for most of our climb.

Leaving town - dawn at the far side of the bay

Starting to feel like we were getting somewhere

This was typical of the trail...well cleared, steep, often following an old wall

See how high we are relative to the hill on the other side of the bay?

Now we can see over it!

This is where the trail, called "Il Gronco", meets the road into Castello

Entrance to Castello

Castello is a small town with narrow, twisty alleys, steep stairs to tiny doors, and arches holding up houses built out over the streets.  In other words, exactly what you would expect of a medieval fortified town built on a big rock.  Much of the current defenses were built under the Medici after the pirate Barbarossa sacked the island and shipped out most of the inhabitants as slaves (1544).

Much to our amusement, this low tunnel is a street, and there is plenty of city behind it

Notice the steep stairway to the door on the left

Having found our well-earned morning cappuccino, we decided we were up for some more and headed out of town on a trail headed south.  This trail followed the ridge line and was less challenging.  It offered a nice overlook of Gigio Porto on the east side of the island:

The foliage was quite different from what we had seen before.

Eventually we got to an intriguing side trail to "Poggio della Pagana".  Without thinking much about the fact that "poggio" is a hill, and without consulting the map to discover which hill this was, we were inadvertently off to the highest point on the island!

This is about when we figured out the nature of our destination.

Of COURSE there was a picnic table at the top

Castello is the town in the distance on the right.  Campese is way down in the bay.

We decided to take a different route back, a longer one that promised to be less steep to save some wear and tear on our knees.  We are not sure it worked out that way.  At times it seemed to be just as steep, except with level bits in-between.

Alexandra way off ahead of me

Almost back to Campese.  Doesn't that water look inviting?