I suppose I could just try to flunk it. if it was just me, then I would. Useful to know that buying maps in italy is hard.
Im gonna see what my boss says today. He's not going to be happy. So far, the trip has been planned down to the nearest 5 minutes and two contingency plans. Not exactly as free and as easy as I was hoping it was going to be. Thats why I mentioned route SS67. My boss has 'kindly' said that he will plan a 2-4 hour hike into the travel schedule as long as I find a suitable trail for us all. Team building *face palm*, and professional development for me.
it appears the visitors center on SS67 will not be open.
MLS "Oh God, it's corporate crap...Just tell him the challenge will include improvisations, adapting to new situations and "thinking outside the box".."
2-4 hours PirateDani? Just get to the visitors centre and follow a sign and say you know where you are going, the boss'll never know. Have you tried goole earth? I plan most of my trips with GE and in italy anyway it's often much more reliable than a map.
yeah, thanks MS. they are the ones who want to charge 13euros for postage. I might have to take the plunge and swallow the cost. you would think that mapping would be a lot more important, and established. maybe italians have never heard of route cards.
They do have plenty of route cards available, in fact judging by the park site, they have lots of leaflets for walks around themes (human interest, rocks, plants, etc). Itineraries are generally color coded and marked, something a lot more common on the continent.
"you would think that mapping would be a lot more important, and established. maybe italians have never heard of route cards."
As I said it's a different type of terrain. But in any case there 'are' maps covering the whole country (my wife is among other things a cartographer), quite good maps too, but they're just not available to the likes of you and me. The italian government is not remotely interested in our walking activites (thank god) sothey're not really bothered to make them available to us. As MLS says all the NPs have route cards and most villages and towns have route cards available too and there are plenty of books of routes. Just that unless you are in the twin British meccas of the dolomites and tuscanny they are probably not going to be in english which is as it should be (I've never found anything in the UK in italian either). But most important of all it's usually quite difficult to go hiking off trail like you can in treeless britain because the terrain doesn't permit it. You follow paths and the paths are usually marked (and marked paths are usually published somewhere, usually by the CAI).
"unless you are in the twin British meccas of the dolomites and tuscanny they are probably not going to be in english which is as it should be"
IGM 1:50000 has legend with English translations
“IGM maps are old, seriously out of date, in B&W and anything but instinctive to use, difficult to get and expensive”
In Sardinia where we live and have helped authors to walking guides (Paddy Dillon, the Rother guide coming out in English in May 2011) IGM 1:50 000 maps use info from the 1:25000 sheets prepared from 1989/1990 data and are in good contrasting colours. We use them all the time and for the mountain biking guide to Sardinia I and two Sards are writing they are what we recommend. The 1:25000 maps only include a few more details (though I have found on one occasion that a key path was only on 1:25000) and IMHO it’s not worth getting them, we just use the 1:50 000.
One thing you can look out for is Garmin's TrekMap product. Though not cheap, for 4 Italian regions it does include paths overlaid on the topographic maps for the newer Garmin GPS's. For the guide we're writing, we hope that Versante Sud, the publishers, will agree with Garmin to include the 70-odd routes in Garmin's Trekmap software.
