Day 31: Stage 26: Issogne, 18kms, sun & cloud, 21°

No Toe Drama, But No Stamp!

While yesterday was a bit of a grind, today was a beautiful walking day. Yesterday I walked about 4 km into today’s stage, and this meant a slightly shorter effort today. The place I stayed last night fortunately offered more than the typical sweet Italian breakfast. After missing dinner last night, it was good to get some scrambled eggs, bacon and higher calorie foods into me. While I’ve loved walking and climbing through the Alps, the process has some what depleted my energy levels. This is not a surprise, and is to be expected. Now the focus is on getting more calories! You’d think this would be easy in Italy, but I’ve been staying a little more remotely, accommodation wise.  This means trying to find enough food to make some of my own meals. Take tonight. I’m staying in a fairly small village off route and of the two small multipurpose stores only one is open Saturday late afternoon. I had a fun experience in that little store finding food for tonight and I came away with a jar of Bolognese spaghetti sauce, a package of prosciutto tortellini, a big bunch of grapes, a big German beer and a roll of Oreo cookies. That’s dinner, and I’ll probably consume all of it! 

It’s taken me a little while to figure out how to turn on the induction stove in my little apartment, but I’ve finally had some success!

Tomorrow is Sunday which means it will be a little bit more difficult finding places to eat, and I’ll be on Google maps later looking. I might go out for dinner. 

I wonder if my Italian is ready for that? I haven’t really had the time to focus on my Italian skills as I’d hoped to be able to do. However, when desperate enough I can usually get by.

On with today! As I knew the stage was going to be a little shorter I took the time to enjoy breakfast, with a fine cup of tea I might add. I was staying some distance out of St. Vincent so I enjoyed the early morning walk through town. Clearly it’s set up for tourism as there’s a casino and it looks like lots of accommodations. They clearly made a lot of effort to make the main street look really nice, and it does.

I checked in this church where I thought there might be a stamp for my credential, but no luck. Kind of a nondescript church inside.

I knew I was going to have some decent climbing today and I wasn’t disappointed. This is looking back in the far distance to Aosta, now about 35 kms in the rear view mirror. The mountains way up to the right were the lower end of the route descending into Aosta from the high pass. There was a good probability of rain this morning as I departed, but as you can see there was a fair bit of sun around poking through the clouds.

Caitlin, I think you should get a mail box like this for your house! I have no idea where you would find one, and it looks beyond my skills to build.



After yesterday’s long pavement grind for much of the day it was a pleasure to get back on to the forest trails. Much of the day was spent walking and climbing on these types of trails. Some of them were pretty steep, but the adjustments I made let my toe manage ok. A relief. 



This is looking ahead down the Aosta valley. After today there are two stages left in the Italian alps before entering the foothills and then the Po River catchment. 

I passed through some lovely old villages seemingly hanging on the sides of the valley by their teeth and found some beautifully tended gardens. Real pride of ownership. 

I walked past another fortress. I’ve read that they had a series of fortresses all in line of sight to each other. The idea being to watch the one small road through the valley and to be able to communicate between the fortresses in the event of need.

I tried this church for a stamp. No luck.

Whenever I walk past these sorts of stone walls, be it in Spain, Portugal or France I’m always in awe of the skills it takes to build them.

I restrained myself from reaching in and testing one of these tasty looking tomatoes. I basically restrict myself to the occasional grape hanging from a vine.🙂

One of the more interesting roadside shrines.

I absolutely refused to climb up to this church in search of a stamp. No doubt it was locked up as so many are. I have been pleased though with the number of churches I have found open on the VF. Yup, another fortress. 



I came over the crest of a climb and found this amazing view looking southward down the valley.

Isn’t this a bold, brilliant shade of red to put on a house! I love it, but I wouldn’t have the guts to paint it on our house. It sure fit in here though, and really makes this photo come to life. There are grapevines off to the left side not in the photograph.

If you look closely, you’ll see the orange barrier just up ahead on the trail. There was a sign posted at the beginning of this very ancient road that I was trying to decipher when a young woman with her new baby walked towards me. I pointed at the sign which I had figured out stated the road was closed due to construction. She put my mind at ease by telling me that the road was indeed open because it was Saturday and no one was working. I have no idea how I would’ve passed around this. The sign gave no hint.





I read that this old road is indeed ancient. There are places where the wheel ruts are grooved into solid stone.







Don’t ask.😑





There were three good climbs today.

This house had been lovingly restored and maintained. Caitlin, the door!

Saoirse, I think you need your parents to get you one of these!

Ken!

I took a quick double take when I saw these out of the corner of my eye. Huts with hair!

Home tonight is the small village on the right.

It’s amazing just how many sheer drops there are along the sides of many of these trails. I’ll admit that some of them make me quite uncomfortable. I just repeat to myself, “you won’t die unless you jump”. Fortunately, the worst of them have some sort of fence, but even then.

The rain that had threatened with the increased wind finally hit me about an hour before the end. I had put my pack cover on at the start of the day so I knew my gear would be dry. I was soaked with perspiration so didn’t bother with my rain jacket. It was warm enough. The rain stopped as I hit Vercelli, the main town on the left of the river. There I met and redirected a pilgrim from Argentina who was off route. We had each been visitors to the others country and commented on our enjoyment while visiting. He was walking further today, but there’s every possibility that our paths will cross again before Rome which would be nice. A few days from now I’m planning two long stages and it’s very possible we will meet again. He seemed like a nice fellow. We shook hands and went in opposite directions. 

These two made me laugh! It looks like they were discussing just how they were going to push through the thin electric line that holds them in and make a break for it down the dark tunnel! I wanted to tell them that with their bulk they would barely feel the electric current. Dumb cows.

Across the ever larger river…

…and into town. Both the church and the Château didn’t have a stamp for my credential. Stampless in Issogne. 

My work all done, dishes washed and the blog complete I’m going to put my feet up and watch reruns of The Ranch on Netflix. Still just as funny the second time around.