Branching off with Innesto and Diramazione

At the very beginning of a recent video about an abandoned villa, we see a road sign. It's actually a trail marker. It says innesto. If you look up innesto in the dictionary, it gives "graft." "Graft" doesn't seem to have much to do with hiking. But that's the beauty of it. You can't really make a connection in the dictionary, but if we think about plants, where we traditionally use the word "graft," we have a main stem or trunk to which we attach a new plant. To find the "graft" point of trail number "01," percorri (you travel) 0.7 kilometers.

Note that Italians use a virgola (comma) instead of a decimal point and they sayvirgola rather than "point." Zero virgola sette (zero point seven).

Innesto is used when a bypass or secondary road has been connected to a main road. It signals the beginning of that road, the point at which it has been grafted. We might also use the word "junction."

[Innesto zero uno, Km zero virgola sette; Villa Bosniaski Km uno virgola quattro]

[Junction [of trail] zero one: zero point seven kilometers; Villa Bosniaski: one point four kilometers]

Caption 1, In giro per l'Italia - Asciano - S. Giuliano Terme: Villa Bosniascki - Part 1
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If you plan a road trip in Italy, another indication you will see on your percorso (route) is diramazione. In fact, between Pisa and Lucca, there is a very old road called Strada statale12 (state road 12) or SS 12, but there is also a new road. It's called SS12 dir. or SS12 racc.Let's look at these abbreviations.

Dir. is an abbreviation for diramazione. If we look at plants again, we have ramo, the word for "branch." So a diramazione is a branching off from the main road. It's similar to innesto, but innesto refers to the point of attachment. Diramazione refers to the new road in general.

If you don't read the signs carefully, you can easily end up on la strada sbagliata (the wrong road).

Finally, if you travel to Rome by car, you'll see signs for the G.R.A., which stands for Grande Raccordo Anulare (big ring linking road). As you can see on the map below, it's a big ring road or beltway around the city of Rome, that connects all the roads running towards and away from Rome.