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.  

Bourg-St Pierre to Col du Gran San Bernardo June 25

                                                                        Current Day                       Trip to Date

Distance walked- miles.                                      9.4.                                     572.5

Gross Climb-feet.                                              3960                                   48,704

Song of the Day:  the Weight by the Band

I pulled into Nazareth, was feelin' about half past dead

"Hey, mister, can you tell me where a man might find a bed?"

He just grinned and shook my hand, "no" was all he said

Once again, the weather gods are looking down upon us!  It rained last night.  A lot.  When we left our hotel this morning, it was overcast and relatively cool at 50 degrees, but not raining.  And once again, within 30 minutes of arriving at our destination, it was raining. Cold, hard rain, temperature in the high 30's.  But, we are safely ensconced in the Hospice du San Bernardo.  More about that later. 

Today was a very, very challenging walk.  Aside from the climb of almost 4000 feet over 9 miles at an altitude of 8000 feet, the footing was a real problem.  Much of the time we were walking over very rocky, uneven and wet surfaces.  Toward the end, some of the walk was up the side of a mountain on snow.  We are probably lucky neither one of us suffered a heart attack today!

Another interesting experience today was the number of "alpages" that we encountered.  Alpages are temporary pastures used in the summertime.  In the winter, the cows graze at the lower altitudes, but in the summer, they are taken to higher altitudes.  The farmers then establish a temporary fence, often electric.  These alpages often encompass the trail, and so we sometimes found ourselves in this situation:

One challenge is when you need to exit the alpage.  Usually we just crawled over or under the fence.  However, one time I decided to lift it up for Linda to give her more room....a mistake for both of us!  It was electric and as soon as I picked it up, I dropped it...on Linda's neck!  Fortunately, it was a mild shock for us.  As they say in sports, no harm, no foul.

The landscape for the first two hours was similar to the past few days- very green, lots of trees, etc.  and then, we rose above the tree line and the lansdscape was almost lunar like.  

There was water everywhere, as the snow continues to melt and streams poured off the mountain.  We are very glad that we have waterproof hiking shoes.  Our shoes have a gortex lining which gives them protection from water.  It also makes them a little heavier, and also much hotter on warm days.  But today, they were a godsend.

A few notes about where we are staying tonight. The Grand-Saint-Bernard Hospice was formed in 1050 by Bernard, the Archdeacon of Aosta.  Its purpose was to protect travelers crossing the Alps.  It is believed to be the longest continuous serving hospice in the world and is run today by a group of Monks and Priests.  The hospice includes the lodging facilities, a church, a museum and a few shops.  There are something like 140 beds in the hospice, with most rooms having beds.  Linda and I are fortunate- we are in a room with 4 beds and have no roommates.  There are a couple of common shower and bathroom areas.  I just took a shower, and amazingly enough, it was one of the best showers we have had on the trip!  However, you have to bring your own towels.  Linda had bought us a couple of traveler towels that are about the size of a dish towel, but made out of a chamois like material (I can hear that Billy whatever his name is on the informercials - "call today, get the Chamwaw towel!")  We have not had to use them so far, but they came in very handy today!  At 6:15, we went to a mass in the church- it was packed!   We suffered on two counts- we don't understand the Catholic mass process and the ceremony was in French. But it was interesting for us to experience this.

This area is also famous for a couple of other things.  Napolean brought an army of 40,000 soldiers through here in 1810.  And, it is famous for the St Bernard rescue dogs.  We went to the museum here and they had a few St Bernard's  on display (this is actually a live dog, just sitting very still):

Here is a photo of the area toward Italy from the hospice.  The other end of this lake is the Italian border:

A couple of catch up items that I forgot over the past few days.  Two days ago, we tried our first Swiss fondue.  It was actually quite good.  I hope to have it again before we leave. Another item on the food front.  You might recall that I described a certain, peculiar hot dog machine when we attended the music festival in Monthey last Saturday.  Yesterday, we walked by a restaurant near where we were staying, and they were so proud of their machine that they put a photo of it in their window.  Now you all can see why I was so excited about this machine last week!

Tomorrow we have a 19 mile walk, with a drop almost 6000 feet in elevation, which will be a record for us.   These kinds of walking days can be difficult on the feet and knees, so we will have to be careful. I'm hoping the trail is not as rough as it was today.  It will probably be 35 degrees when we leave, but likely will be in the high 70's by the time we reach Aosta, our destination.  The walk over the Alps has really been a treat for us, and we are very glad we took this extra time to do this portion of the trip.  

Orsieres to Bourg-St Pierre June 24

                                                                        Current Day.                        Trip to Date

Distance walked- miles.                                      9.9.                                      563.1

Gross Climb- feet.                                             3527.                                   44,744

Song of the Day: and it Stoned Me by Van Morrison

Oh, the water
Oh, the water
Hope it don't rain all day

Then the rain let up and the sun came up
And we were gettin' dry

Oh, the water
Oh, the water
Oh, the water

Get it myself from the mountain stream

The weather Gods are definitely looking down on us!  When we got up at 7 am, there was a steady rain coming down.  By the time we left our hotel at 8, the rain had stopped, and within an hour, the sun came out!  Once again, an hour after we arrived at our destination today, the rain started up again.  The forecast for tomorrow is rain all day- we will see if we can best the odds again!

Even though we did not get rained on, the story of the day was definitely about water.  Most of the hike was along a series of mountain rivers and streams.  The combination of the visual and sound effects of the water was very soothing and made for a terrific walk today.   I can only imagine that hydraulic engineering must be very popular in Switzerland.  We laughed a bit- on the hills above Orsieres where we stayed last night, the water sprinklers were on all night long, even though it was raining.  Good the California water police didn't see that!

The trail was often on narrow paths, along steep mountains.  While not as dangerous as yesterday, we did none the less have to pay attention to what we were doing.  At one point, I tripped over the wet roots of a tree and fell down.  Fortunately, the only damage I got was a face full of damp wet grass!  Since we are walking in the Alps, I call that a drink of Mountain Dew....  

We are now at an altitude of more than 5000 feet.  We started to feel the effects on our walking today as we acclimate to this altitude.  Tomorrow, we will top out at around 8000 feet.  You can also tell from the photos that the trees have changed to be much more pine trees, etc.

Once again, we got lost today.  We passed a woman who was walking and decided to ask her for help.  Linda tried her best French on women (Linda speaks great Spanish, pretty good Italian, and knows some phrases and words in French).  The woman responded in perfect British English!  Turns out she was an English woman who moved to Switzerland 25 years ago.  Very nice woman and helped us get un lost..

The trail signage in Switzerland is definitely better than it was in Italy.  However, it can be confusing.  First, they have lots and lots of trails in Switzerland (this is a nation of hikers).  So, you have to pay close attention to the specific trail you are on.  Second, they post their distances in terms of time- ie how long the hike is to a certain point.  Here is an example:

We strongly believe they use some 25 year old Olympic athlete with no backpack as their basis for the times estimates, because we almost always are slower than the posted times!  By the way, the pink sign to the right of the yellow sign is for snowshoe hiking in the winter!

Tomorrow, we have another big climb of almost 4000 feet to the peak of the Great Saint Bernard pass.  We are told that we will likely walk on snow for part of our hike tomorrow.   Tomorrow night, we are staying in a sort of hospice maintained by the monks.  Should be interesting.  Then on Thursday, we emerge back into Italy.

Martigny to Orsieres June 23

                                                                               Current Day.                     Trip to Date

Distance walked- miles.                                            14.3.                                  553.2

Gross climb- feet.                                                    2920.                                41,217

Song of the Day:  Rocky Ground by Bruce Springsteen

(I'm a soldier!) 

We've been traveling over rocky ground, rocky ground 

Today was the first of four days climbing over the Alps.  When planning this trip, the walk over the Alps was something I really was looking forward to.  Unfortunately, the St Bernard pass doesn't open until June 15 due to snow, and so we ended up delaying the Alps portion until after we had walked to Rome.

We were lucky today- when we awoke, it was a clear, sunny morning.  Extensive rain showers over the Alps were in the weather forecast for the day.  Fortunately for us, it didn't start to rain until later this afternoon, after we had already arrived at our hotel in Orsieres.  Orsieres is a small mountain town of about 2500 people in the lower Alps.

The hike today was largely through a very narrow pass, with steep mountains on both sides.  At the bottom of the pass was a river, as well as a fairly busy highway and a train track.  From time to time, we would descend into a small village down below.

Our walk was often on a very narrow trail hugging the side of the mountain:

We then went through a very rocky area.  It was very hard to discern the trail, and we had to constantly look for the painted chevrons to know where to go.  This type of walking is slow and very hard on the ankles.

I call this the "no shit" photo:

This would have been a very difficult and dangerous walk in the rain, but fortunately was a challenging and enjoyable walk in the conditions we had. Probably the closest similar hike we have experienced is through Zion National Park.  But,  not with a big pack on our backs and not for 14 miles.

At 2900 feet, this hike had the most ascent since we climbed over the Appenine's to Cassio on May 22.  We will be climbing over 3500 feet each of the next two days.  The weather forecast is for rain over the next few days, although hopefully will be similar to the last few days- nice in the morning, with rain in the afternoon.

Our hotel is another restaurant/hotel combo.  Not a great hotel, but they do have a good hot shower, and what appears to be a reasonably comfortable bed. Tonight, we will check out the quality of the restaurant.   There are three other restaurants in town, but two were closed on Monday's and the other was closed for vacation for two weeks!

On the sporting front:  tough tie by the USA in world cup soccer last night.  Portugal tied the game 2-2 with 30 seconds left in the game.  Now it's on to Germany on Thursday. By the way, what kind of sport ends in a tie? My SF Giants are hopefully getting back on track after winning the last two games against Arizona. 

Monthey to Martigny-Croix June 22

                                                                                Current Day.                           Trip to Date

Distance walked-   Miles.                                            14.7.                                       538.9                                 

Gross climb- feet.                                                       1087.                                     38,397

Tunnel of love by Bruce Springsteen

Fat man sitting on a little stool
Takes the money from my hand while his eyes take a walk all over you
Hands me the ticket smiles and whispers good luck
Cuddle up angel cuddle up my little dove
We'll ride down baby into this tunnel of love

Last night was a difficult sleeping night.  It was very warm here, and the room had no air conditioning.  That would not be a problem per se, but our hotel was located righ next to the train station, and several times each hour, there was a combination of alarms, engine noise, etc for 10 minutes each time.  So, you have the old trade off dilemma, noise vs temperature.  We ended up closing the windows because the noise was so bad.  Here is a photo of our hotel:

We had a very pleasant walk today, about 14 miles up through a rather narrow valley with step mountains on both sides.  Much of the walk was along a wooded trail:

We also passed through several small villages. In this one, church had just let out and the parishioners were enjoying some time together:

And passed some nice waterfalls:

Finally, we arrived at our destination, Martigny.  Early this morning, the big bike race the tour de Switzerland passed through Martigny.  Martigny is known for many things, including its adult education.  For example, we passed a store advertising English education:

And a car advertising dancing lessons:

Martigny is also the entry point to the great St Bernard tunnel, which goes from Martigny to the northern border of Italy.  When the tunnel was completed in 1964, it was the longest tunnel in the world at approximately 4 miles.  Interesting to think that you could take about a 10-15 minute tunnel ride and be in Italy.  Over the next four days, we will hike 43 miles and climb over 12,000 feet while emerging at approximately the same place!  

The forecast for tomorrow is rain.  This is a bit worrisome, as portions of the trail are very narrow and can be very challenging and slippery when wet.