Mergozzo and Sentiere Azzuro

Last week was filled with beautiful fall days and Sasha and I headed out for a hike.  As is typical fashion in Italy even if you have a GPS you get lost no matter what.  It has become a running joke that you have to leave 2 hours early before your normal leave time and hope you make it! LOL Anyhow I attempted to go Gran Paradiso park for some hiking and long story short I got terribly lost and ended up on these tiny mountain roads so I turned around, because I drank way too much water that morning and needed to find a bathroom.  Well, I ended up at a town called Mergozzo and what a surprise treat! Sasha and I ended up hiking the Sentiere Azzuro and along the way they had tourist signs that showed pictures of this area, which used to be a granite quarry.  Each sign showed pictures of the early quarry workers and said that the most famous items that were built from the quarry included the 320 columns for the Basilica of St. Paul's outside of Rome!