Italy/Switzerland 2014 Highlights and Memories

We are now safely ensconced at home in San Francisco.  There is an interesting cadence missing from our lives- wake up, have a cappuccino, hit the road for 6 hours, clean up, eat dinner, sleep, wake up, repeat cycle....

There were so many terrific things that happened  during our 50 days and 658 miles of hiking in Europe that it makes it hard to summarize down to a few items.  But, here goes:

1.  1220 hours straight with Linda- no question, this is the longest time Linda and I have been continuously together in our more than 32 years of marriage!  During most of those 32 years, I worked full time and traveled extensively.  We have joked that our marriage was built on being apart!  Last year's 42 day walk in Spain was a good warm up for the Via though and gave us confidence that we could do this.

Have you ever seen those contests where 10 people will start out with their hands on a car?  The person who can keep touching the car for the longest time wins it.  Generally, the contest ends after 4 or 5 days as each of the contestants drop out.   Well, I guess I have now kept my hands on Linda for 50 straight days, so I get to keep her!

In addition to all of her other skills, Linda is simply an outstanding travel partner.  Linda's language skills, another set of eyes on the trail markings and the hundred daily details that she managed allowed the whole process to work flawlessly.  More importantly was her emotional support and "ballast", particularly when we were dealing with difficult situations.

We have heard stories about marriages that went bad from the stress of these types of trips.  Ours only got better.  Makes me confident about the next 32 years....

2. Italian people- for us, the real stars of this trip were the Italian people.   Everywhere we went, we met kind, interesting and helpful Italians.  The restaurant and hotel proprietors, the people on the streets, the Italian guys we walked with, the people who constantly stopped us and wished us a good journey, Adrea the yogurt guy who asked us to send him a card from Rome, the guy who ran the Pavia tourist center, the farmers who helped us when we were lost,  the people at the Parma visitors center, Massimo in Cinque Terre, the Italian family at the Agriturismo, Guiseppe who came to rescue us on a hot day!  Even the obnoxious lady on the bus bench who chugged a liter of water in Linda's face! I could go on and on, but suffice it to say, we love the Italians!  

3. Other (non-Italians) people we met along the way- Massa the Japanese guy,  Christian the German guy, Heinz the Swiss guy, the  Irish ladies, Adria from Barcelona, the French guys we met at St Bernard, Germans everywhere.  We truly enjoyed spending time and getting to know these people. We have made many lifetime friends on this trip.  

4.  Italy- wow, what a country!  This country has it all- history, culture, outstanding sites, unbelievable geography, amazing food.  And most of all, fantastic people.  While it was great for us to revisit old favorites like Tuscany, Cinque Terre and Rome, we also discovered many new favorites such as the Appinine mountains, Parma, Valle d'aoste, southern Tuscany, Pietrasanta/Camaiore  and the multitude of villages along the way.  Although we covered a lot of ground in the 45 days we spent in Italy, we only saw a small portion of the country.  Which is why we will be back!  More about that later.

5. Alps- the walk over the Alps met my very high expectations.  This was a beautiful and challenging four days.  Hiking at its very best.  We will definitely revisit the Alps in the future.  

6.  World Cup- we have been in Europe on several occasions during the World Cup, and it never ceases to amaze us how popular soccer is.  Based on what I read on the Internet, it sounds like the World Cup is also more popular in the USA this year, but nothing beats the intensity of the Europeans when it comes to soccer. 

7.  The "walk"-  I saved this one for last.  It's a big subject.  At one level, there is the physical walk, covering the ground that we traveled from Lausaunne to Rome.  So many fantastic places- mountains, rivers, lakes, seas, farmland, cities, you name it.  And of course, when you are walking, you get to experience nature all around you.  Italy and Switzerland are two of the most beautiful physical places in the world.  And make no mistake, this was a challenging walk, particularly due to the mountains that we climbed, the sometimes poor trail markings causing us to get lost, and having to dodge cars because the walk was occasionally along highways.   

One of the things that we have come to truly enjoy is the sort of "life in slow motion" aspect of long hikes.  We get to watch things happen up close, not from a car driving by.  And that enables one of the best parts about walks, which is human interaction.  This was an excellent walk from the human standpoint, particularly with the local Italians.  Did I say we love the Italians?  I guess so!

Much of the walk is very individual. Having  to get up everyday and walk 15 miles, often in crappy weather, can be physically challenging and mentally taxing. At the same time, the opportunity to have time away from the interruptions and pressures of day to day living (no phone, Internet only at night, etc), gives one a lot of time to think about things that otherwise get lost in the clutter of everyday life.  A sort of mind "cleansing" seems to happen.  Even though Linda and I walked together everyday, much of the time was us walking separately, lost in our own thoughts.  I'm not trying go all Henry David Theroux on you here, but these walks do make one very reflective.  In both of our long hikes, I have come back refreshed and recharged to take on new challenges.  And we are both in much better physical shape as a result of these long walks. (Although I'm not sure if we lost a lot of weight on this one- we ate a lot of good food, which offset the extensive exercise!). 

I hope I haven't sounded too gushy about all this.  Our daughter Allison told me that I sounded like a 13 year old girl writing a diary when I talked about seeing Bruce Springsteen in New Orleans in one of my earlier posts!      

What's next?

Someone wrote us to say this was the trip of a lifetime.  No question, this was an outstanding trip, one of the best we have taken.  But we still have a long life to live, and I would hate to cede the "x of a lifetime" title to anything at this point!

We enjoyed Italy so much, we would like to come back for another long visit.  Between prior visits and this long walk, we have covered a lot of Italy.  However, there are still several places we would like to see such as Sicily, the Dolomites and Alps near Austria, some other parts of Southern Italy, etc.  And, we would like to revisit several of the places we saw this time such as the Appinine mountains, Parma, and the Valle d'Aosta.  Additionally there are a couple of multi day walks that look interesting, such as the St Francis walk (only about 100 miles!) and a walk in Sicily.  

You may recall that I quoted Bill Veeck, who famously said there are two seasons in America- baseball and winter.  My friend Rick Rommel from Minneapolis wrote to say that Linda and I seems to have two seasons in our lives- planning for big trips and taking big trips!  So, we now enter the planning season for our next big trip....

We are thinking that we will go to Italy for two months next year.  This time, we will likely rent farmhouses or apartments for extended periods of time- say 3 or 4 weeks in each place.  From there, we will take day hikes and other outings.  We have rented  farmhouses in Italy on several occasions, and enjoyed it.  We may do one multi day hike, such as the St Francis walk for 7-9 days, but probably not a multi week hike for next year.  

Some of you may want to come over and visit us for portions of this holiday!  We are thinking that it might be in the May/June timeframe again, which tends to work out well for my work schedule.  

Well, that's it for this trip.  See you next year!

Roppolo to Milan July 1

                                                                              Current Day.                      Trip to Date

Distance walked - miles                                             16.5                                 654.9            

Gross climb- feet.                                                       650.                               54,394

Song of the Day:  Truckin by Grateful Dead

Sometimes the light's all shinin' on me; Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurres to me What a long, strange trip it's been.
Truckin', I'm a goin' home. Whoa whoa baby, back where I belong,
Back home, sit down and patch my bones, and get back truckin' on.
Hey now get back truckin' home.

I think it's only fitting that we end with one of the all time great travel songs.  A long, strange wonderful trip indeed!  

We had a great breakfast with Lorretta from Roppollo before setting off on our last hike.  Lorretta sent us a couple of photos from the day before, and told us that what happens in Roppollo stays in Roppollo!  Sorry about that Loretta- I've already broadcast it to the world- we had a great time in Roppollo!

It was a very nice hike,  initially through hilly woods, then through flat farmland.  The area around Milan is the bread basket of Italy, with wheat, rice and corn being primary crops.  It's only fitting- We started this journey in Pavia, walking through cornfield and now we end the same way!  

Here is Linda walking through the wooded portion.  Note that Linda wore a skort yesterday, as well as earrings!  Our friend Dewey in San Diego had been complaining that Linda wears the same damn thing everyday, so Linda wanted to mix it up on our last day of hiking.  As you can see, she is also wearing a sexy knee brace!

When I was growing up in Iowa, we had a saying "knee high by the 4th" which basically meant that corn should be about knee high by the 4th of July.  I know there have been a lot of advances in crop science over the past decades, but the Italian corn is truly impressive:

After walking for about 11 miles, we came to Santhia, where we caught a train to Milan.  Our hotel last night was very near the central train station.  This morning, we will take a train back to the airport to fly home.  We have said it before, but the Italian train system is terrific.   The US is really a disaster when it comes to mass transportation, other than a few systems around major cities lik NYC, Chicago, etc.  

After arriving in Milan, we toured around and saw the major sites including the Duomo.  The Milan Duomo is massive- other than St Peter's Basilica in Rome, probably the biggest we have seen.  While in the Duomo, I was taking a few photos and a guard came up to me and said I couldn't take photos unless I bought a special wrist band!  Yet another business model innovation!  Of course, I managed to get a few photos, so I will show a couple of "smuggled" photos from the Duomo!

Last night, we went out for a good, but very slow, final dinner in Italy.  We then set out in search of a bar showing the soccer games.  When we were in Italy two weeks ago, World Cup fever was high.  However, since Italy got beat and is no longer in the tournament, it seems nobody cares.  We finally found a little place near our hotel and found two Americans there also watching the game.  The game lasted well past midnight, as the USA ultimately lost the game in an overtime.  So, we were definitely out too late last night.

This morning as we prepared for our trip home, and we both decided to leave our shoes behind.  Including the break in we did in California, they have over 700 miles wear and tear, under harsh conditions. They  served us well, but have seen better days, and it's time to say good bye.  Linda also left behind her hiking pants that she has used the past two years.

Fittingly, it was raining this morning as we approached the train station for the airport:

Well, this is the end of our journey.  I am working on a trip overview of trip highlights, as well as our future plans, which I will post when we get back in San Francisco (here's a hint- this was a great trip, we loved Italy and we are working on plans for a two month trip to Italy next year!).  Thanks to all of you for sticking with us.  This is my 51st posting, and as Edward Murrow used to say on the nightly news- "good night and good luck"!

Ivrea to Roppolo June 30

                                                                              Current Day.                      Trip to Date

Distance walked - miles.                                          14.4.                                  638.4

Gross climb- feet.                                                    780.                                  53,734

Song of the day: Loretta by Townes Van Zandt:

Oh Loretta she's a barroom girl

Wears them sevens on her sleeve 

Dances like a diamond shines 

Tell me lies I love to believe 

This ended up being a very good hiking day.  After a terrific breakfast at the Spazio Bianco hotel, we set off for Roppollo.  After a few blocks, we passed the local PIlgrim's association office.  A man came running out to meet us.  A very nice guy.  He asked us all kinds of questions about our walk, wanted our feedback on the trail, etc. He  told us how the Italians have aspirations to make the Via Francigena to the level of the Camino in Spain.  We continued on our walk out of town, along the way passing several groups of elderly women who wished us "Bon giornando" or good journey.  We have met many people along the way who provide us this kind of feedback.  

An hour later, as we were walking along the trail, we came upon a few people working on the trail.  One of the guys greeted us and said he had been expecting us!  Apparently the man at the Pilgrim's office had called ahead.  He told how they were working hard to improve the quality of the trail and the experience. We spent about 20 minutes talking to him and told him how much we appreciated what he was doing.   It really is inspiring to see how committed these people are.  I will also say that the trail markings today were probably the best we have seen on the trip and undoubtedly it's because of volunteers like these people.  Here I am talking to the man:

The walk today was quite pleasant, much of it through wooded paths.  There was a lot of water along the paths from the rains of yesterday, and in several areas, we encountered Mosquitos.

I've wanted to comment on the bulletin boards that we encounter in all the small towns in Italy.  They are usually placed at the entrance to a town as well as the town square and play the role of a small town newspaper.  We passed this board today and it is a great example.  The lower two rows are obituaries of people who have recently died.  In the upper right hand corner is an advertisement for a band that will be playing.  There are also a few municipal announcements as well.  

Another interesting item from today was the "Palatium Aqua" in the village of Pallazzo Canavese. Basically, this is a water dispensing machine.  For 5 cents per liter, you can buy water (frizzante- with bubbles, or naturale- regular)!  Linda and I filled up ( frizzante for me, naturale for Linda) and said it was the best 10 cents we have spent on this trip!

We also walked past Lake Viverone today, which made for a pleasant distraction in the warm afternoon sun.

In one of the small towns, we stopped for lunch at a bar and had an ok, but not great cheeseburger. 

We arrived at our hotel Villa Emilia in the village of Roppollo.  This is a very small B&B with 3 rooms, run by an eccentric and entertaining woman named Loretta.  When we came in, Loretta greeted us with a big hug and talked about how excited she was to have Americans staying at her place!  She mentioned that since it was Monday, the one other restaurant in town was closed, and would we join her for dinner?  Well of course we said yes!  She said that today was the 5th anniversary of her owning the hotel, and she wanted to celebrate!

The B&B was very nice, with many interesting collectibles.  Linda was able to use Loretta's washing machine, so we have clean clothes for the remainder of the trip. 

Last night, we had a terrific Italian dinner prepared by Loretta, and the two other guests- Francesco and Guiseppe joined us as well.  Apparently Francesco and Guiseppe work in the area running a car parts factory, and stay at Lorretta's place from Monday to Friday in two of the rooms.  The meal was great, and of course, much alcohol was consumed in the process!  Loretta was quite something, entertaining us with stories about her life when she lived in Pakistan and Egypt.   Guiseppe skyped his wife on his phone in Germany, and so we were able have her join us remotely!

This morning when we checked out, there was no charge on the bill for dinner or drinks.  Loretta insisted that it was her treat to celebrate her 5th anniversary, but we gave her 50 euros to help defray some of costs.

All in all, a great way to wind down our walk on the Via.  Today, we walk about 10 miles to Santhia and catch a one hour tain ride back to Milan (where this incredible journey began 7 weeks ago!).  We will stay in Milan tonight and then fly back to the USA on Wed afternoon.  We hope to do a little touring in Milan.  Milan is not our favorite Italian city, but it does have a few things worth visiting.  

Here are some photos of Loretta, Franceso and Guiseppe from last night:

Bard to Ivrea   June 29

                                                                              Current Day.                      Trip to Date

Distance walked - miles                                            8.5.                                   624.0

Gross climb- feet.                                                     640.                                 52,954

Song of the Day: Birthday by the Beatles

They say it's your birthday

We're gonna have a good time

I'm glad it's your birthday

Happy birthday to you

First, a big Happy Birthday to Linda! I'm sure she didn't anticipate celebrating her birthday on day 47 of a 650 mile across Switzerland and Italy!  More later about how we celebrated.

When we woke up this morning, it was raining.   We went to breakfast (possibly the best breakfast on the trip- ham, eggs, etc).  An hour later it was still raining.  We had decided that of it was raining today, we were not going to walk (who wants to walk in the rain on their birthday?!).  We waited around for another 45 minutes, and it stopped raining. So, we took off toward Ivrea, our destination.  After about 75 minutes of walking, it began to rain again, with a stiff wind.  Fortunately, we were fairly close to a train station and were able to catch a train to Ivrea.  The Italian train system is quite good.

A couple of shots from the walk today.  First is a train going through a tunnel.  No big deal with that except the tunnel is underneath the Fort that we toured yesterday.  

The walk south of Bard included an ancient Roman road.  Here is Linda in front of an arch on the road.

We then arrived at our destination in Ivrea.  Ivrea is a town of about 25,000 people that looks like it has seen better days.  Ivrea was the Corp headquarters for Olivetti, the typewriter company.  However, in the early 90's, Olivetti fell on hard times, due to competitors such as HP and others and significantly downsized.  Today, there is only a skeleton crew at Olivetti.  It sounds very similar to the issues that Rochester, NY faced due to Kodak.  

Our hotel for today  is another designer boutique hotel called Spazio Bianco.  Literally translated, this is "white space" or blank slate.  The hotel features art showings from local artists, that are made available for sale to the guests.  They had some very nice art.  Our room was spectacular, with windows on 3 sides of the room.   This past week, we have stayed in some of the best hotels of this trip, and definitely on a class with the best we have stayed anywhere.   

I had arranged with Brunella, the proprietor of the hotel to have a cake and bottle of wine available in the room for Linda's birthday.  She did a terrific job, and included a special Nebbiola reserve wine from the local region:

We later went out for a lunch of Pizza and Lasagne (what's not to like about that?!).  It was still raining hard at that point.   Later, the sun came out, and we were able to visit the Duomo and other points of interest.  In the evening, we went out for a lite dinner and enjoyed watching all the locals go by.  All in all, a fun day.  Happy Birthday Linda!

Montjovet to Bard June 28

                                                                              Current Day.                      Trip to Date

Distance walked - miles.                                           12.6.                                615.5

Gross climb- feet                                                       790.                               52,314

Song of the Day: Thousands are Sailing by the Pogues

goodnight to broadway 

Giving it our best regards 

Tipped our hats to mister Cohen 

Dear old times square's favorite bard 

A very nice walk today.  Once again, the weather gods were looking down on us.  When we left the hotel at 7:45, it was threatening to rain.  But, it held off until about an hour after we arrived at Bard!  Man, this is getting to be a repeating story!  Weather forecast for tomorrow is rain, I'm hopeful we can beat it again.  

Did I say that we:  got lost (check), had to dodge cars on busy highways (check) and were barked at by many dogs (check)!   Did I also say the scenery in this part of the world is gorgeous (check)!   Once again, we are walking through an extremely narrow valley, where there is a river, a couple of busy highways, a railroad, and many other things going on. Somehow they manage to shove all this in, and make it look good too.  Here is a shot down on the town of Bard and the valley from the Fort in Bard (more about that later). 

Much of the walk today was along the river.

A fishing shot for our friend Curt Nelson in Austin!

No day is complete without one animal photo.  Here are some chickens and rabbits sharing a space:

We are staying at another very nice boutique hotel in Bard.  The owner told us how they recently filmed part of the movie Avengers 2 in Bard.  He said their hotel was booked for two months for the filming.  Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olson and James Spader all stayed at this hotel.  This hotel has a spa area, with a jacuzzi, steam bath and sauna.  We took advantage of this yesterday afternoon. Wow, did that feel good!  We also had a terrific meal in their restaurant last night.  One of the best meals we have had on this trip.  Here is a photo of the jacuzzi, which is built into a sort of underground cave:

Yesterday afternoon, we visited Fort Bard.  Fort Bard is an ancient castle that was originally built in the 5th century, then updated and expanded in the 10 century.  In 1800, Napolean conquered the area and demanded that the castle be destroyed.  The castle was then completely rebuilt in 1830.  It is a huge complex, high on a mountain, requiring a series of trams and elevators to get to.  Today, it is a sort of entertainment complex, with several art museums, a museum of the Alps, a children's museum and other attractions.  We spent several hours there yesterday afternoon, visiting the special Picasso exhibit, the Alps museum and a couple of other art exhibits.  All in all, a very fun way to spend a late afternoon.  Here is a shot looking up at the castle from the trail:

Here is a shot of Linda from the castle:

Did I say the forecast for Sunday is for rain? (check)!

Aosta to Montjovet June 27

                                                                                  Current Day.                       Trip to Date

Distance walked- miles.                                                 9.6.                                  602.9

Gross climb- feet.                                                       1080.                                 51,524

Song of the Day: Goodnight by the Beatles

Now it's time to say good night
Good night, sleep tight
Now the sun turns out his light
Good night, sleep tight

Dream sweet dreams for me
Dream sweet dreams for you

We slept in until past 8 this morning!  What a luxury!  Most days, we wake at 5:30 or 6.  After a great breakfast at the hotel, we explored the interesting city of Aosta, visiting several ancient sites, churches, etc.  All in all, a very pleasant morning.  At 11:30, we boarded a train for a 20 minute train ride to Chatillon.  From Chatillon, we then walked about 9 miles or so to Montjovet.  Our hotel is actually in the boondocks about 2 miles past Montjovet. 

We could really feel it in our legs today after yesterday's 21 mile walk.  While relatively short at 9 miles, the walk today was more challenging than we had anticipated.  Some this was because of a couple of   severe climbs, part of it was because it was so warm (mid 80's), but mostly it was just "hangover" from the 4 days climbing over the Alps.  

Here is a nice shot from Aosta.  These arches apparently date back to 25BC.  This is a part of Italy that we have never been, and we would be interested in coming back and exploring again in the future.

We also walked through the town of St Vincent on the way.  A very nice village, they were having some sort of festival this weekend.  We stopped at one of the booths and had my favorite food- a hot dog and a beer!

We passed many ancient castles on the way.  Here is a photo of one of them alomg with a church.

Here is an amazing shot of a hydro power plant from one of the mountain paths.  What I find interesting about this shot is all the things going on in this very narrow valley.  You have a couple very busy highways going through here.  You have a river going through here, and there is a train going through.  It's hard to see from the shot, the train track crosses the river, and goes through the hydro plant!

Finally, no day is complete without some sort of cow pictures.  Unfortunately, we didn't see any live cows today, but we did come across these statues in a round about in Montjovet!  We probably weren't supposed to be out here, but we couldn't resist the shot!

Tomorrow, we should have a relatively manageable walk of about 14 miles.  As with most days, the forecast is for a 50 per cent chance of rain starting in the afternoon, so hopefully we can beat this again.

Col du Gran San Bernardo to Aosta June 26

                                                                                 Current Day.                     Trip to Date

Distance walked- miles.                                                20.8.                               593.3

Gross climb-feet.                                                          1740.                             50,444

Note:  we had a net decrease in altitude of 6,100 feet today.  Said differently, we ascended 1740 feet and descended 7840 feet today.

Song of the Day: Cripple Creek by the Band

When I get off of this mountain, you know where I want to go?

Straight down the Mississippi river, to the Gulf of Mexico

To Lake Charles, Louisiana, little Bessie, girl that I once knew

She told me just to come on by, if there's anything she could do

Another very interesting and challenging day, as we descended from the San Bernardo pass.  We knew we were going to have a long day, so we skipped breakfast at the hospice, which didn't start until 8, and left the hotel at 7:15.  Unlike the previous day, we had perfectly clear skies, with a temp in the upper 30's.   Just to give an idea of the changes we went through, by the time we reached Aosta around 4, it was 84 degrees.  

Our initial descent included a portion over frozen snow.  Linda went first, and propmptly fell on her behind. Thankfully she didn't slide down to mountain!  We had to work hard to get down the initial portion in one piece.  I refer to much of the early portion of our hike as "root  canal" like walking- you just sort of pick your way from step to step.  It's slow and you have to keep your wits about you.

Here is a view back at the hospice as we left this morning. The Hospice is in Switzerland, but we had already crossed into Italy when we took this photo.  

As with previous days, there was water everywhere.

After a while, we descended to below the tree line, and there were forests everywhere.  The walk was quite peaceful for much of this portion.

And of course, more cows...

Unfortunately, as we got closer to Aosta, much of the walk was on highways, and so we had to play dodgeball with the cars.  Our previous training in Italy is coming in handy!  Also, the trail markings on the Italian portion of the Via are often quite poor and confusing, and we got lost again several times, adding to the distance we walked today.  But, we did ultimately arrive at our hotel ( a very beautiful boutique hotel called le Reve Charmant) in one piece.  Our toes and knees particularly got beat up today with all the downhill, but of course they will mend and we will be ready to go tomorrow.

We then decided to explore Aosta.  The old section is very beautiful and very old, as it was established in 25 BC.  It is a very lovely town of about 20,000 people or so.  Apparently there are lots of ski slopes in the area, so it particularly booms in the winter.  At 6:00, we decided to stop at an outdoor bar that was showing the World Cup on a couple of tv's.  The US was playing Germany, and the bar was packed....with Germans!  All very nice people and we enjoyed talking to them.  Unfortunately, the US lost, so of course the Germans were very happy.  In one of the oddities of the World Cup, the US  still continues to the next round, so it was a happy outcome for everybody.  

We later went to a nearby restaurant, and had half of a great meal.  It was a beautiful night and we sat outside on the terrace. The first two courses of our meal were fantastic, with impeccable service. Then...a group of about 20 people showed up and sat inside.  After that, our service went to hell and crawled to a stop.  We finally had to go ask them for our check so we could leave.  

This past four days climbing over the Alps was a terrific and challenging experience for us.   After completing the walk to Rome, and now over the Alps, we will need to keep our motivation over the remaining 5 days before we fly back to San Francisco next Wed.  We have decided to take it a little easy tomorrow and sleep in.  We are taking a train to Chatillon (about 15 miles) in the morning, and then will walk about 8 or 9 miles to our destination.  

PS a big shout out to Tim Lincecom of the San Francisco Giants, who pitched another no hitter againt the Padres.