Aulla Was Closed—Except for the Castle and the Wine

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We woke up slow in Filetto. No alarms, no footsteps above or below us, no backpack straps waiting to dig into our shoulders. Just the soft morning light of Tuscany filtering through lace curtains and the smell of coffee coming from the kitchen.

Alva, our host at the Gingerbread House B&B, was already moving around downstairs—clinking cups, arranging a tidy lineup of breakfast pastries, and asking whether we preferred cappuccino or espresso. It was one of those Italian mornings that made you briefly consider giving up your real life to move into someone’s guest room full time.

A few minutes later, Roberto joined us at the kitchen table. Calm, friendly, perfectly capable of small talk. Which made what happened next even more impressive.

I asked a simple question—something casual about the stone plaques we’d seen in town the day before. The kind mounted on buildings, carved in marble, usually mentioning names and dates you don’t recognize. I was curious. “Are those war memorials?”

Roberto put down his coffee. “This was a very particular place,” he said. “Many atrocities.”

And just like that, we were off.

Within minutes, we’d gone from flaky croissants to Nazi war crimes, Mussolini, and the fractured soul of 20th-century Italy. Roberto wasn’t ranting—he was teaching. Calmly, clearly, like someone who’d lived next door to history his whole life. We talked about fascism, the Resistance, and his own father, who had been kidnapped by German soldiers and somehow walked all the way back to Filetto on foot. Just… came home.

Audrey sat quietly, sipping her coffee, while I kept the interrogation going. By the time we’d covered Garibaldi, Berlusconi, and the upside-down public execution of Mussolini, it wasn’t even 9 a.m.

Italian breakfast: pastries, espresso, and political trauma. Buongiorno.

The Castle Detour

After the espresso, history lesson, and pastry overload, we figured we’d be walking by now. Packs on, boots laced, back to the trail. But Roberto had other plans.

“There’s a castle I want to show you,” he said, casually, like he was offering a second cup of coffee. “It’s on the way.”

It was not on the way.

Still, when someone offers you a ride to a ruined fortress with no agenda and no timetable, you don’t ask follow-up questions. You get in the car.

We wound up through the folds of the valley, on roads that got narrower and more questionable with every turn. At one point I genuinely thought we were driving into someone’s backyard. Then the trees opened—and there it was.

Verrucola. A forgotten hilltop village wrapped around a crumbling medieval fortress. Moss-covered walls. An arched bridge. Rooftops stacked like slate shingles. It wasn’t flashy, and that’s exactly why it hit so hard. It looked like it had been there forever—and probably had.

Roberto pulled off to the side, pointed toward the stone gate, and said, “Trail’s just down the hill. Easy to find. Enjoy.” Then he drove off, as casually as he’d arrived.

We wandered slowly, alone in the stillness. No crowds. No ticket office. No gift shop selling castle-shaped snow globes. Just wind, birdsong, and a kind of silence that felt older than anything we’d walked through so far.

We stared out through the castle’s arched windows into the green valley below. It was the kind of place you don’t plan for, and wouldn’t have found if someone hadn’t handed it to you. A quiet, unexpected gift from the road.

And then, like everything else on this trip, it was time to keep moving.

The Long Walk to Aulla

Verrucola faded behind us as we dropped back down to the trail—boots dusty, packs strapped on, and heads a little quieter than usual. The next stretch to Aulla was about eleven miles, most of it through forest. No cafés. No vending machines. No roadside surprises. Just trees, dirt, and the occasional sun-dappled clearing.

We moved in silence for long stretches—not out of fatigue or boredom, just because there was nothing that really needed saying. The landscape was repetitive but peaceful. Pine needles underfoot. Birds rustling somewhere overhead. Occasionally we’d spot a faded trail marker and exchange a small nod, like, “Cool, still on the right planet.”

It was one of those “keep going” days. Nothing spectacular. No dramatic vistas or crumbling hilltop villages. Just the slow rhythm of forward motion. The kind of walk where you start mentally ranking your favorite childhood snacks or trying to remember all the actors in the cast of Oceans Eleven.

We passed a farmhouse. A rusted tractor. A bridge over a creek that may or may not have existed on the map.

By mid-afternoon, our feet hurt. Not the “oh, we’ve walked a bit” kind of hurt—the deep, bruised-in-your-bones ache that comes from logging hundreds of miles one small town at a time. But we kept going. Because that’s what this day was about.

These were the miles that don’t show up on Instagram. They don’t make for good stories, or epic views, or clever captions. But they move you forward. Quietly, steadily. Step by dusty step.

And sometimes, that’s the whole point.

Ghost Town Arrival

By the time we rolled into Aulla, it was late afternoon and we were on the edge of human. Tired, sweaty, and salt-crusted from the eleven-mile forest shuffle, we were ready for civilization—or at least something with cold drinks and chairs.

What we got was… silence.

Aulla, as it turns out, is not a town that shows up big on Sundays. The shutters were down. The shops were closed. The streets were empty except for a stray cat and one person we weren’t entirely convinced wasn’t a ghost. Even the churches seemed like they had clocked out for the day. If a tumbleweed had drifted through the piazza, we wouldn’t have blinked.

We wandered aimlessly for a while, trying not to lose hope (or our temper). No open bars. No open bakeries. A single pharmacy glowed in the distance like it might sell hope in pill form. Eventually, we turned our attention to the next challenge: locating the keys to our self-check-in apartment, which had been stashed somewhere “just outside the door” according to the booking instructions.

This triggered a brief game of adult hide-and-seek with a metal lockbox, a vague Google Pin, and the kind of instructions that assume you already know what you’re doing in life. We circled the block. Checked the wrong door. Argued politely. Finally, behind a planter near a quiet stairwell, we found it—one tiny key to a not-terribly-charming but blissfully available apartment in the middle of town.

It wasn’t the warmest welcome. But it was shelter. And at this point, that counted for a lot.

Supermarket Victory

After dropping our packs and settling into our fantastically mediocre apartment, we went in search of real food—something we could cook, preferably packaged, and definitely not priced like a tourist trap at €14 a plate.

The first GPS result led us in a loop. The second dead-ended at a garage. Audrey tried to stay calm. I tried to pretend I wasn’t hangry. We both quietly questioned why this town existed at all.

And then, behind a row of anonymous buildings in a back parking lot, we found it: a supermarket. Open. Glowing. Refrigerated.

We went full scavenger mode—dried spaghetti, a jar of tomato sauce, mystery cheese in wax paper, a baguette that looked legally stale, and a €5 bottle of red with a label that practically dared us to drink it. Perfection.

Back at the apartment, we cooked like we’d been starved for weeks. The kitchen was half-functional, but it didn’t matter. Boiling water felt like a spiritual act. We set the table with forks and plastic cups. No herbs. No garlic. No problem.

And when we finally sat down in clean clothes, glass of wine in hand, and that first bite of hot pasta hit—soft, salty, slightly overcooked—it felt like a five-star meal. Not because of the food. Because we’d earned it.

Sometimes victory doesn’t come with fireworks. Sometimes it comes with a working stovetop and the person you’ve been walking with for days.

Why Aulla Mattered Anyway

Aulla didn’t sparkle. It didn’t give us sweeping vistas or ancient ruins or that “Tuscany wow” moment you hope for when you picture a hilltown bathed in golden light. What it gave us instead was exactly what we needed: a place to pause.

Not every town has to be a story. Some just have to be open.

Aulla was where we caught our breath. Where we boiled pasta in a borrowed kitchen and sat still for more than five minutes. It was where we stopped trying to be impressed and just let ourselves be tired.

That matters on a walk like this.

We’d crossed forests, climbed passes, followed gravel tracks through silence and sun. And somewhere along the way, expectations started to shift. Big moments gave way to small ones. The question stopped being “Is this beautiful?” and started being “Can I rest here?”

Aulla didn’t try to be anything other than what it was: a sleepy town on a Sunday that happened to have an open gelateria and a grocery store in the back of a parking lot.

And in its own quiet way, that was enough.

Letting Go of the Mountains

That night, we lay in bed—tired, full, and finally still. The air was warm from the pasta water, the window cracked to let in a bit of breeze. Audrey had half-dozed off, phone on her chest, her audiobook still playing softly—some Outlander chapter whispering her to sleep. My feet throbbed in the background like a low drumbeat.

Tomorrow, we’d leave the Apennines behind.

The mountains had shaped the first part of this journey. They’d tested us, bruised our calves, thrown weather and switchbacks at us—but they’d also given us castles, convents, and those oddly satisfying meals at the end of long, gritty days. They were wild and stubborn and beautiful. And now we were done with them.

Sarzana and the sea waited just beyond.

It wasn’t the end of the walk. But it was the end of something. The terrain would change. The tone would shift. Whatever came next would feel different.