Today we climbed, in total, about 900 ms but Stepz claims i only climbed the equivalent of 43 flights of stairs!! Ripped off.
The climb is slow and easy to start with. We are soon off the road and onto a track with multiple creek crossings. Thankfully we were carrying more water with us than was actually in the creek. Although the washed out bridge at the last crossing provided clear evidence of what this creek is capable of becoming.
It is then uphill but initially on quiet roads and through a couple of villages.
We hit a jeep track and the gradient increases. When we reach the top, and cross over the ridge we can see behind us the plain (covered in a haze) and hills we are leaving behind. No sign of those Alps today.
And ahead are the mountains and valleys of the next few days.
But what goes up must go down, then up again very steeply and down again, very, very steeply. Finishing off with a lesser climb to arrive at the village of Cassio and our stay at the Ostello.
Much of the latter parts of the trail today are through pine forest – lovely walk in spite of the pain, with fantastic views.
But very, very steep, rocky descents are never my friend and we even out the fall numbers.
DC 1 (back in Val d’Aosta); Richo 1.
Amazing sunset followed by dinner: pasta and bean soup, salad and grilled meat.
Pellegrina olandese is here too. We have separate rooms at the Ostello. Unfortunately for the pellegrina olandese, when we head for dinner at the nearby restaurant, it appears we locked her in. We were wondering why she didn’t turn up for dinner. Thankfully the ostello has a great store of food, including a packed fridge. Sorry pellegrina olandese.
This is an amazing place, home to collections of all sorts of things. DC and I appear to have the kiddies room, and it is very red. So we lay our heads onto our red pillowcases (with cartoon cars) and sleep well.
Buonanotte.
Richo and DC 