Wild camping struggle in Italy?! Is it even possible? |Day 7 of Tour du Mont Blanc in Courmayer

Good morning from the beautiful location Valdepen, Italy. So today we are planning to continue to the bigger village Courmayer. And we think that this village is the Italian version of Chamonix Mont Blanc. And there we'll join the official Tour de Mont Blanc trail once again that will go up the mountain from that part. And depending on the weather if the weather will be fine we'll continue on, if not we'll stay somewhere in the Courmayer surroundings. This is the plan for today. Let's get on the trail! Today's breakfast we have some couscous, tomatoes, fresh tomatoes finally and some cheese that we bought in the local supermarket. All of that. Let's eat! The morning is quite cloudy and the weather forecast says that it can be rainy all day. Camping we stayed this night is great, an exceptional location. It has all the necessary facilities, very clean and the owners are very nice. If you remember yesterday they made us a special offer to stay in a secluded spot apart from other people that we are very grateful for. It was very quiet and there was nobody around us so we could imagine that we are somewhere in the forest like wild camping that we like a lot. And the price was reasonable so we are very happy about it. The weather is very changeable here in the mountains and today in particular when the clouds are out it can be cold and chilly and as you can see we are wearing the warm clothes now. But when the sun is out it can be very very hot and it's burning very much. You need to put a lot of sunscreen with high SPF and even on your ears, don't forget the ears because we burned them like the last several days and especially when the snow is reflecting the sunlight. So it's all about contrasts. Also at night around 4 and 5pm it's the coldest time. We are always sleeping all covered in the sleeping bags, even the face because it's kind of cold to breathe even. So we noticed that this time is the coldest one, the coldest during the day and night independently of the elevation, it's surprisingly that. But we slept at 1700m and 1000m it is the same, it's very cold. Today we are a bit late to start the day, it's around 11am now because we had an accident in the morning with the maps that we are using for our trails and our marks. It was accidentally deleted when I tried to update the Facebook messenger, it needed too much space and there was a tick next to the Maps.me that we are using that was ridiculous, I didn't notice it. And the problem is that you have to download every region and every country separately and it was all deleted. So we had to upload the regions that we are going through because the internet had the limit of 500MB. So that's why we are a bit late, it was a bad experience. We can see that here there is quite a lot of ski trails in the area and now we even spotted the cable car working, so there is a cable car going probably to some hotel or restaurant, we don't really know but it looks like that, quite a big building. Out of nowhere we met the sign of the Tour de Mont Blanc, we joined it earlier than we expected so now following the official trail again. All these first 6 kms were very easy following on the pavement car roads. We didn't notice it at all, we've been walking for an hour or so, very easy. Now we are getting down to the village Courmayer and continue on the official trail. So this is what we bought in the local supermarket in the village Courmayer, some focaccia bread, we guess it's some traditional Italian food, we heard this name before but we've never tried it. It's very interesting to try with the tomatoes, so we guess they call it like a bread with some tomatoes, olive oil, garlic etc. Some cherries, we haven't been eating them for a long time so we've been eating those right now, some yoghurts and also some kind of local cheese, hard cheese. We didn't have a chance to shoot in the supermarket because it was closing already, we hoped in the last minute. But there were tons and tons of pasta shelves, like if it was all you need to eat, only pasta and also all sorts of kinds of breads and lots of different cheese. We didn't know that Italy is also famous for its cheese and there were some varieties that we didn't know. Now we are not brave enough to try those but we'll do that in the future because then we plan to hike in Italy more. So we are very excited to try those. And also pizza of course, we haven't tried pizza yet. So lots of good food to choose from. So the weather right now is kind of fine, it's not raining. There are quite a lot of clouds but they are all passing by so we guess that it's not going to be as bad today. So we are getting out from the village Courmayeur and start to go uphill. The uphill goes up to 2000m and it's around 800m of elevation. Maybe we'll do that today if the weather will be fine and we'll be in the mood. But also we want to find a wild camping spot as always to stop at. So maybe we'll find it on the way, maybe higher. So we'll take you along, let's go! In Italy we see different kind of signs for Tour de Mont Blanc. There is added information about difficulty. There is difficulty T, difficulty E, we don't know what it means. But we guess that E means hard and T means easy. Maybe we'll figure it out later. Such a beautiful meadows right here with so many different flowers. And the smell is so tasty. There are lots of bees as well, look at this. So we got out on the forest pass from the Courmayeur village and we quite like this village. We think we would stay there for some time to live because we like such mountain villages. As you may know we've been living in Pyrenees for the last 2 years so we like it a lot. And it's not too big nor too small. So just a perfect little village. The trail for now goes in a zigzagging kind of mode so it's not the hardest one. Thanks God because we got a little bit tired already of the steep uphills and downhills especially the snowy ones. So we really pray that there won't be snow anymore or at least not so much. Or at least not today, please. Now it takes a lot of effort for us to go on this path even though it's not that steep and difficult. The muscles are very sore from the last days and you are pushing on the same muscle groups and it gets hard on you accumulating day after day. So it's already 5pm but we don't really see any possible campspots. It's all very steep forest slope and nothing else just this path. So we guess we would have to climb all the way up this mountain to the refugee house and we'll see what is the area there. If it's going to be very rocky maybe we'll ask this house to camp nearby it. We have never asked it so we kind of want to do that. So continue to push to our limits. It's amazing how close to the peaks we seem to be now just in a matter of an hour, an hour and a half. So high already. You can see the town where we come from Courmayer. We are almost there in the top, so tired. The top of today's hill. You can see the amazing view. It's really incredible. Now we see the Mont Blanc from different sides. But now it's in the clouds as always. We don't know if these clouds will come our way and it's going to be a storm today. The path was quite easy even though we were a bit tired already with the sore muscles. But we made it anyway. Now we are going to ask the refugee house if they allow us to set up a tent close to the house. We can see several small houses around, we don't know what it means. But we are going to ask it because the radio is not good. We can't find the place anywhere, it's just impossible. So let's hope that it's possible and we'll tell you about that next. Going to try the focaccia for the first time, what it tastes like, it's really curious to know. Is it oily, like fat? Not fat, like bread. Tastes like bread? Like white bread? With tomatoes. A lot of wheat flour and it's like bread. With a little bit of tomatoes and olive oil. We left you at the refugee house, we entered it and asked the receptionist about the tent, whether it was possible to camp close to the refugee house and he definitely said no. And he said that in Italy at least in this region via the Osta the wild camping is not allowed. And if his owner will know that or will see our tent he will be unhappy about it and that all the refugee houses are private business here and so they don't want that. He said that we can wild camp but we'll be doing it at our own risk because there are forest rangers who are scouting, who may be scouting around and some people got fined sometimes, some people didn't. Not sure if he's just threatening us or it's so strict here, such a strict rule. But it feels very unfair to the people like us who just prefer to stay in the tent and not in the refugee house, in the dormitory room. Starting from yesterday we started to see the signs with the tent crossed saying that wild camping is only allowed higher than 2500m. That is already very high and you can't find any place there anyway. There is snow and lots of rocks and slopes so it makes no sense. Also on this sign there was the littering sign crossed and the fire crossed. The things that we don't ever do, we don't ever throw litter in the nature. Either we put up a fire, never, just using our camping gas and that's it. So let us know what do you think, is it normal or it's unfair. And we want to know if there are people just like us who just like to stay in the tent, like to be in nature or at least have the camp spot in the campsite, it's fine. But there just aren't in the mountains so there just aren't spots. And we feel like it doesn't take much to do these camp spots, just put the toilet and shower doesn't matter that much and just have some flat spots, that's it. It even takes less effort than to build a house. These are just our thoughts about it, let us know what you think. Also we have something to compare with. For example France they could make it in a different way, why here it should be like that. It's like the same nature, the same mountains, all the same but the rules are so completely different. Luckily we found the spot to camp further down the trail and it's quite flat and nice. But it was very hard to get to because we had to get down then to go uphill and very steep with no path at all, with no powers already. So now we are going to sleep right away I think. We'll just eat quickly some dinner and that's it, call it a day, what a day. It started so peacefully and ended up like this, you never know how the day will end. It's always a surprise, it can be calm and quiet and it can be very extreme and crazy. That's every day of ours right now, no plans for the day, just don't know where we end up being. See you tomorrow, hoping for a good night. Thank you very much for watching! If you enjoyed this video give it a thumbs up and subscribe to our Youtube channel for more hiking and adventure videos. Leave us a comment below to share your experience or ask any questions. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook to stay up to date and visit our website walkingnatureworld.com for the detailed hike reports with pictures and maps. Hope you are having a great day and we'll see you very soon on our next video! Bye!