Hiking the 52 tunnels

So when we woke up on Labor Day and thanked the gods for an extra day off work, we pretty much had no plans to do much of anything. We just got back the day before from Croatia, and lounging around the house always seems like a good idea to me after a road trip.

But lo, it was not not be.

Susan's friend told her about a hiking path not far from our place that was really cool. The Italians call it the Strada della Gallerie, or the "path of the tunnels". It is a winding path that goes up into the Alps. Along the way there are 52 tunnels that were built by the Italian military back in World War 1. They were used to supply the Italian mountain troops, the Alpini.

So off we went. As was to be expected, the drive there is always an adventure. The road to get to the trailhead was pretty much the narrowest possible road you could ever imagine... even for one car. So when we rounded a corner and almost got crushed by a huge truck carrying a huge trailer of lumber, we thought we had made a bad choice!

But we pressed on...

And then it happened again...

And still we pressed on.

We miraculously made it to the trailhead without our car getting crushed and started up the path. Being a monday, we were about the only hikers on the trail. It was about a 20 minute trek up a gravel path until we saw the first tunnel.



The tunnels were all different lengths. Some were only a few meters long and others took a good 5 minutes to walk through. All of them were pitch black. Luckily we were warned about this so we both had flashlights. Without flashlights, there would be a serious risk of broken ankles!!!


Every tunnel was numbered and named. Most of them were named after Italian cities or important Italian people, I'm guessing they were WW1 generals.

It was not an easy hike. The path had a good incline. Before we knew it we were in the clouds, and soon after we emerged above the clouds. The peaks of the Alps poked through.



Unfortunately, we had gotten off to a late start, so it was approaching 1600, (4pm for you non-military types) and we'd only made it through 27 tunnels. It had taken us 2 hours to get to that point, so we decided it would be a good idea to turn around and head back to the car before it got dark and cold.

Our leg muscles nicely worked and tired, we drove down the road of terror again, this time with no oncoming giant trucks, and made it back down to town. We were hungry so we stopped at a little pizzeria in a little town called Schio. What a little gem this place was! As a pizza tasting expert, I would have to say that this place had one of the top 5 pizzas I've had in all of Italy. No better way to end a trip!

Maybe someday we'll head back up there and try to make it through all 52 tunnels. If anyone out there wants to join us, I'll buy the pizza on the way back home!