Italy! Molto bene!

Finally we had to say farewell to the dramatic valleys and mountains of Switzerland and make our way to northern Italy. We caught the train to Interlaken, which was startlingly different from Wengen in spite of being only a dozen miles away as the crow flies. Interlaken had traffic, and dozens of shops selling expensive watches (but, as I discovered, not watch bands, although I did eventually find what I needed), and swarms of families strolling along eating ice cream...a fun enough place, I guess, but a very different atmosphere from the quiet, hiker-oriented, pedestrian-only towns we had quickly grown used to. But we weren't there for long: we picked up our rental car and hit the road, first time in a car since we used a taxi to get to the train station in Paris weeks before (and it felt like months). 

A few hours driving took us over, or rather through, the alps, and into northern Italy: the Valle d'Aosta, famous for its wines and its ski destinations.  We found a hotel in the city of Aosta itself, a somewhat down-at-the-heels place that seemed a bit unkempt compared to the places we'd been in Switzerland, although it still has a fine pedestrian area and we had no problem finding a good restaurant with homemade pasta.



Display at a restaurant in Aosta. Regional wines, cookbook, and a carving of an ibex.

 

We came to this area for hiking, and this display told us we were in the right place.

 The Bernese Oberland area (see our previous post) was gorgeous, but it didn't really feel wild: from every vantage point you could look down and see pastures with sheep, or little towns nestled in the valleys or hanging on the edge of a cliff. This area of Italy is different, or at least parts of it are: although the main Valle d'Aosta is quite developed and has large towns and major roads running through it, some of the valleys that run into it from the sides are much less developed, and some lead through national parks. That's why we came!

Juliet's dream comes true.

Our trailhead was near Champorcher, at a little place called Chardonney that doesn't show up on most regional maps. Unlike the wide, glacial valleys of the Bernese Oberland, with their spacious meadows, these riverine valleys are narrow; if you want a horizontal patch to grow crops or graze cattle, you make it yourself with hundreds of hours of backbreaking labor building terraces. A hard life, and not a rich one, and the towns of small stone houses reflect that. (Sorry, thought I had uploaded a photo to illustrate this, but I didn't, and I'm not going to go fish one out now. Take my word for it). 

In Chardonney we met up with our friends Hal and Brigitte, and set off on a three-day hut-to-hut hike in Mont Avic National Park and Gran Paradiso National Park. 

Climbing an old royal hunting trail. We marveled at the amount of manual labor that went into building this steep trail. Some of the individual stones must have weighed several hundred pounds; moving a single one into position must have been a massive undertaking. Moving hundreds? Mind-boggling.

Lunch break. The field behind us was aswarm with marmots. Unlike marmots we've seen in Yellowstone, the ones here are very shy. We think they are hunted, either for sport or by farmers who don't want their cattle breaking legs in marmot holes. But admittedly we aren't sure.

The scenery was, of course, stunning. Every now and then there was a little collection of stone huts, mostly abandoned although there are still some people living up here with their cows.

Lots of hiking routes pass through this area. We're following the triangle 2, one of the high routes that we could follow all the way to Mont Blanc (a.k.a. Monte Bianco) if we had time.

This little fellow wanted an apple or something, but we didn't want to spoil his supper. The building in back is part of the alpine hut system (you can see it's not really a 'hut'; the biggest ones can sleep 150 people!). We didn't stay at this one, which was only three hours out from our starting point.

Above the snow line! Brigitte made a tiny snowman.

Here's our 'hut' (on the left). We were the only guests this night, the very start of the season.



'Our Lady of the Snows', an attractive little lakeside chapel that looks like it's been there for hundreds of years. Actually it was built in the 1960s.





And here's why we were among the first people on this route this season. Shortly after I took this photo we ran into some very hard going, post-holing unpredictably as we tried to navigate a scree field that was covered by several feet of snow. It took us an hour to go the last 3/4 mile to the pass.



We did eventually reach the pass, and were glad to see that the other side was clear of snow.

We took time to smell the flowers.



It's all downhill from here. We hiked all the way down into the valley. 



 In the end we only spent the one night in a 'hut', because this day brought us to the little town of Valnontey, where we stayed at a very pleasant hotel. The next day we went out on a terrific day hike.



Brigitte and Hal were ready and willing to do anything and also happy to participate in the decision-making. Even the best of friends don't necessarily make the best traveling companions, but in this case we couldn't have asked for better. After several weeks in which Juliet and I only had each other to talk to, it was great to have friends around.

Although the photos show only us, in fact this was a popular trail and we saw dozens of other groups (whereas we were almost completely on our own the previous two days). Easy to see why, though: again there were dramatic views, and we saw chamois and possibly ibex. It's a great area and we could easily have spent more time here.

As you can see, this was a second consecutive 'we did this / we did that' post. We are soooo far behind (I'm writing this from Scotland, and we were in France for several days in between) that I feel like we need to catch up on the chronology before getting cute with the themes.

So, here endeth the tale of our three-day hiking trip in the Italian Alps. (Actually we did some more hiking a couple of days later, but that's another tale). Thanks for reading!