Our day “tra cielo e mare” {between sky and sea} started off beautifully, with a tour of more of Luciana’s art throughout Altoblu, including elaborately mosaicked powder rooms in other guest rooms {see below},

a true Italian cappuccino

and a walk through her lush gardens overlooking the sea.

The horses had spent the night feasting in a ravine and were ready to hit the trail again

Provencia di Imperia is a rich agricultural region known for their dry stone walls which inhabitants have been building into the slopes of the Alps for hundreds of years, filling them with soil, and growing their crops where they could soak up a maximum dose of sunshine.

Grapes, from which they make Roccese or “wine grown on the rocks“are a major crop in this region. The dry, rocky soil, intense sun and stainless steel vats give the wine my favorite dry, minerally characteristic.

The olives were ripe and ready to harvested as we passed through these lush hills bathed in fall sunlight.

We roamed through acres of beautiful gray~green olive groves where nets were being stretched over the soil beneath the trees, waiting for the ripe fruit to drop to the ground after workers strike the branches with wooden “Trappe’s”.

We even stopped for lunch in an olive grove above Airole.

We passed through many small villages along the way, greeted by barking dogs, whinnying horses and children standing on terraces waving and marveling at the herd of horses traveling along their  roads.

Wandering through these towns on horseback offered a unique, interactive experience.

The “Frantoio’s” {olive oil mills} in the villages were busy processing the freshly picked olives morning through night.

 This church in Torri Liguria, along the Via Lungo Bevera was decorated with flags and chairs, tables and speakers were set out as they prepared for their “Sagra della Castagna” or Chestnut festival, a popular tradition throughout Italy in the fall. The people sitting on the other side of the stone wall {you can see the back of their heads in the shot below} were busy with the arduous task of cutting the hard shells off barrels of chestnuts to be served for the celebration, roasted, in pasta, on pizza, in honey, gelato and other sweets. They even make a liqueur from the nuts.

The people of Airole rushed to the village square as we clicked and clacked up their cobbled walkways and let the horses stop to drink from their fountain. They fondly petted our horses and gave us bottles of water as well.

We continued climbing through the towns narrow roads to make our way back up to the hills.

In hindsight, we all agreed we probably should have stayed in Airole rather than pushing on to Roccetta Nervina that evening, because it was a long~long ways away. We ended up covering almost 22 miles that day, and the last part was where the terror and mystery part of this film came into play.

Navigating through this and any rural area can be challenging. The guide used a paper map and also an Italian map ap on his phone. But sometimes, the trails weren’t cleared, sometimes bridges on the trail were washed out, sometimes they weren’t clearly marked and we missed the trail and had to backtrack to find it. A combination of these factors is why we ended up running our horses down forested rocky roads to try to make it through the woods before the sun set {cue terror music here}.

There was still a little light when we found the trail above the steep woods. We decided to allow the horse to go “laizzez~faire” tying up their reins so they can find their own footing and not be concerned with their riders. We took different positions throughout the pack and herded them down, using phones and headlights to light the way. Much of the ground was soft and spongy but there were also rocks they had to navigate. One horse fell, cutting her inner flank, another landed on the guides ankle when jumping up a boulder.

I don’t cuss very often, and especially not in front of my kids, but as I was running along “allezing” the ponies all I could think was what I texted to my family, in case they end up needing to try to find me… “this is f*!#ing insane”, typing a quick description of what was happening and where I was before getting back to my herding duties.

Continuing on along the dark trail, I heard a familiar “whinny” in the distance, that’s when we realized we had lost a horse, and it was my sweet horse, Usalaine. She and the more dominant horse of the pack, Windy, did not get along and I believe she took off because she was in line with Windy who can be very aggressive to her. She came back to the group and we continued on.

All too slowly, the lights of the Rocchetta Nervina came into view and grew brighter. When we finally got to the village road and remounted our horses my “banana”, the bag holding all of my clean clothes and my ipod, was no longer on the back of the saddle, the ropes were still tied on but the bag had been cleanly ripped of my horses back.

We stayed that night at a grand old lodge of a hotel, Lago Bin. Approaching the hotel shell shocked, and covered with dirt, burrs and leaves was absolutely surreal as we watched floods of costumed Italians coming towards us to go to the big Halloween party they were throwing at the hotel that night. We needed to wait at the entrance for someone to show us where to take the horses so revelers came out to pet the horses as they sipped their cocktails. They probably thought we were a part of the entertainment!

After settling the horses into an enclosed pasture across the street from the hotel and feeding them, we were all ready for a glass of wine and dinner. We settled into the cozy rock cavern restaurant  and feasted on a massive spread of delicious local cuisine.

Truth be told, I was thinking of quitting that night. It was a long, exhausting and scary day. I didn’t have any clean clothes to put on and wouldn’t for the next 3 days and nights. But promises of a shorter ride, ending at the charming village of Pigna the next day got me back in the saddle again… oh and also because I didn’t want to leave Uslaine.

On this, our longest day we travelled 21.87 miles.