Hannibal and the Second Punic War 217 BC

The Carthegenians under Hannibal ( Annibale in Italian) defeated the Romans under Consul Gaius Flaminius at Lake Trasimene in 217 BC. This was the Second Battle of the Punic Wars fought between Rome and Carthage.
25,000 men fought for the Romans and Hannibal had considerably less. This battle is remembered because it is the biggest ambush in military history. Hannibal's men were in the low hills around the lake, the Romans marched into the trap and under cover of fog at least 15,000 Romans were killed, including Flaminius. Hannibal lost about 2,000 men in this battle that lasted less than three hours. Incidentally, Hannibals's elephants had all died prior to this battle.

Why the history lesson? Because today we went to walk the Cammino di Annibale ( or Hannibal's Pathway) on the hills around Tuoro sul Trasimeno. The path is 15.8 kms in length but due to the Italian obsession for not giving enough instructions, we wasted the first half hour trying to find our way out of Tuoro. Yes, we had a map from Info but previous comment still applies. When we located the path we found we were going in the reverse direction but we could cope with that!

The path led us around the hills past a number of explanatory boards, some with a historic feature but all giving a good insight into the battle. Again we walked through olive groves, past palazzi, past little farming communities, on sealed roads and tracks. We didn't do the full walk because the last section involved walking on a fairly busy road and that was going to spoil the experience for us.

We took our picnic panini and mortadella to enjoy along the way (down hill from Sanguineto), and when we returned to Tuoro we rewarded ourselves with gelati.

Then it was back in the car and a short drive to Vernazzano where there is a natural history path. There has been a village at Vernazzano since the 1000s but several centuries ago an earthquake caused damage and the land was unstable so the village was moved. The new church built in the eighteenth century is dedicated to San Michele Arcangelo but also honours Santa Lucia, as the old one did. The ancient castle has a very serious lean and is heavily scaffolded, I guess its age encourages them to try to retain it. 

Now a third more modern town has ben build down nearer the lake.

If you are thinking about walking, riding or driving the Hannibal Path, I suggest that you download the app on your smartphone and all will be well. Alas we have not graduated to such clever phones and could only look at it on the tablet before setting off.