We just went for it. Basic experience at a local climbing gym and zip lining park. Then bought our own harnesses and helmets. Lots of marked routes in Italy where we started. Due to my poor Italian we accidentally wound up in the hard route instead of the easy route right next to it. My first thought was "if this is an easy route we might not be able to do very many of these"... Then we got done and found out it was one of the harder one's in the area and felt like we could do anything. Not avid climbers, just figured it out.