At the top of a very, very steep pass in the Feltre area is the village of Croce D’Aune. Once you’ve got your breath back and look around you’ll see locals sitting under the canopy of the only hotel left open on the pass. Also around you is a tourist office, car park and some roads going in all four directions. However, what should catch your eye is a large marble monument to Tullio Campagnolo, the designer and inventor of quick release bicycle wheels, derailleur gears and lightweight cycle parts.

This is a typical waymark post in the Italian Alps, also seen in Slovenia, Austria and possibly all European mountain areas. You’ll find them at crossroad paths, trail start/end points; in fact, everywhere. If you get lost in these countries, you are either blind or the weather is really bad (happened to me, but another story).

In Scotland we have none of this. We have cairns which some people hate so much that that they kick them over. Those that like the cairns have a tradition of adding another stone or two, onto the cairn so that it grows in time. The thing with the cairn is that when you come across one it just sits there and looks at you. It does NOT tell you which way to go. The only intelligent cairns are summit cairns and they tell you to go home.

This image is currently being used by a German Travel company to promote it’s holidays in Majorca. I hope they tell their holiday makers to get up early to see this view.