Total ascent, 1089m.
Total descent, 1949m.
Thursday, 3rd August.
Well last night's meal wasn't in the same league as the night before, but did contain many interesting courses. The tasty, mozzarella-style cheese smelled distinctly of cow pat, but then as this is a cheese farm it's as authentic as it comes (no dairylea here!).
There were 6 of us for dinner; myself, a family of 3 and a couple. After the pasta course the others gave up, possibly because of the dishes on offer next. The girl who served me gave me two choices; the first was "more cheeses" and the second was "a different part of the cow's stomach". She spoke good English but mimed the second dish anyway. I went for it. She looked delighted, so delighted that she gave me more information, noting that, "for the first two hours of cooking it smells terrible". When it arrived it was cooked with pieces of vegetable, which may I suppose have been what the cow was eating at the point it's stomach was removed. Regardless, it was very pleasant (!) and earned me a free glass of red wine ("he did it, the first person ever", maybe!).
I took a chance and left the window open overnight as it was extremely warm, even at 5300ft. When I woke I was sharing a room with most of the insect world, so I left them on the ceiling and dashed downstairs for my pre-arranged 7:30am cheese-making demonstration. Unsurprisingly this isn't something I've experienced at a hotel before, and may not again, but it was fascinating watching the process done by hand - no machines, just the English speaking girl and possibly her Mum, churning and squashing. It all culminated in a visit to the 'cheese cave', which turned out to be two large storage rooms full to the brim with cheeses at varying stages of maturity / mouldiness.
A small part of the cheese caves!
Despite hugely enjoying the demonstration, I was quite relieved that breakfast didn't involve cheese (in fact it was just a mass of cakes, with added flies)! Then it was time to leave what is essentially a working farm with 3 rooms and a very impressive bar-restaurant. Oh and for the record my bathroom also contained the highest toilet I've ever seen, which meant that for the first time since I was very young I was able to sit on the loo and swing my legs around.
18 miles is a bit much for a single day's walking in the Alps, especially 'day two', which I always find the hardest. During the long ascent the scenery was once again superb but I was on, or never far from a road which, despite being single lane and pretty quiet, was still imposing on my solitude. When I reached the highest point of the walk so far at a 2500m col, I'd just met the road again, so my achievement was tempered by the fact that a Skoda achieved the same feat shortly afterwards. I took a detour to a nearby shrine on a summit (natch) to admire the views, and what views they were! I've been following part of the GTA (Grande Traversata delle Alpi - a 620 miler in total) so far; maybe I should wander off it more often.
The ascent, plus road. I ended up looking down on the big rock.
The valley heads are all huge round here. On my route I'd climbed out of one enormous bowl, contoured round another as I began to lose height, then veered off to a third, which I was to descend a mere 6000ft plus to the bottom! Happily I had now left the road behind. Sadly this third enormous, grassy bowl was significantly less beautiful than the other two, added to which not only was it criss-crossed with too many tracks, but someone seemed to have dropped a mini-version of Tryfan into the middle of it, making the whole valley look ridiculous. Thankfully things were about to change.
Ridiculous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Descending by such a distance means that valleys such as this will change dramatically in appearance in a short time. In this case it began to narrow quite quickly and the steely grey mountains on either side rose to ridiculous heights. The river between fell in a series of waterfalls and the whole scene was majestic, remaining so as I dropped below the tree line and towards the valley floor.
The top of a very beautiful valley.
It was probably still majestic with 1000ft of descent to go but I stopped noticing. This was the point at which I became completely knackered and started making mistakes, slipping and stumbling regularly and falling once, thankfully backwards. Water was needed (there were clouds about which helped, but it was still thirsty work), then concentration. Luckily I was given a snake to concentrate on. I'm always on the lookout for them, especially wearing shorts. That's me not the snake. It slithered off the path as I approached, hid, then came for another look!
Nice shot I have to say (not taken with phone, I bought a tiny superzoom for exactly this sort of thing). Jon if you're reading this, what is it?
Arriving into the village of Sambuco to find an open bar and gelateria was a fine moment, and all that remained was a flattish hour (and an unprovoked wasp sting) to the tiny, huddled village of Pontebernardo to finish.
So my non-English speaking landlady has shown me to yet another lovely room and hopefully booked me a table at the only restaurant in the village. Will it be a 3 out of 3 meal success rate?
Stats Zone:
The spike is at Sambuco during the beer and ice cream break.
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