The Red and White sign

If you are new to hike by yourself in Italy you will surely ask yourself if you will find signs along the trails. How can you walk on unknown mountains, in a foreigner country if you don't have any sign which indicates you the direction? Trails are, generally speaking, in really good shape. And you will always find a Red&White sign which will indicate that you are on the right way, just look for that.

These signs have been put there by CAI, Club Alpino Italiano.

Here you find some examples of how they look like.

Usually they look like the two pictures below, but you could find some variations.

On the sign you can find three important information:

1) the destination

2) the number assigned to the trail

3) the time needed (according to CAI) to reach the destination.

Sometimes time and number of the trail are not shown. Destination is always(90% of the times) on.

If the path is difficult, you can find more information, like the sign below,for example,where you see "impegnativo" under the destination, that means "difficult". You can also find the word "difficile", which means "difficult".

You can also find signs on walls, rocks and trees. These usually don't tell you the destination, but simply show that you are on the right way. On the examples below they also show you destination and number of the trail.