tears by Lake Viverone

i slept badly that night. sheer exhaustion for one thing (i calculated that i must have walked nearly 40km), plus a lot of frustration about the signage. on the Santiago route the signs were everywhere. that didn't mean that you didn't occasionally get lost (because you often did) but they added up to a coherant whole when following a pathway. on the VF the signs just seem to peter out in the middle of a field leaving you nowhere to go so you end up on the major roads again. of course wandering the Italian countryside is lovely but in the terrible heat of the day between 1 and 4 pm its almost unbearable - but you still have to continue as you're in the middle of nowhere with no-one to ask and no villages nearby. this is the down side. the up side is that you're walking through the most beautiful autumn countryside: the wheat and rice fields are golden, the air fresh and clean and there's peace. in some ways its the peacefulness thats the best thing about it all: quiet, meditative and tanquil. thats the majority of the day. until you get lost when you end up in the opposite state of mind. well, maybe i exagerate as by that time you're too tired to be annoyed - merely resigned to having to walk, and walk, and walk some more. it does teach you to extend your limits - which also seem to extend more & more & more. back back to Lake Viverone. i'd eaten in their restaurant the night before and the sunset from the hotel balcony set behind the Alps and i sat watching the the sky deepen to orange, crimson and then a dying purple. it was quite maginificent. i kept jumping up from my chair to go and stare at the colours changing even as my food was getting cold (the food was incredible by the way - somehow at the end of my 40km trek i'd gotten lucky and walked straight into one of the nicest hotels i think i've ever stayed in. the staff were wonderful, the food exquisite and the view over the Lake was breathtaking). i wandered down to the Lake in the evening, watching the ducks and swans swim by, and felt the cares of the day and my aches and pains just die away. of course they all came back during the night, but you kinda expect that. in the morning i woofed down a huge breakfast, got my pac ready and headed off. it was a serene morning. the Lake was clear and still, the light gentle and the early hour still carried a touch of mist. i walked around the shores of the Lake and stood looking over towards the Alps on the far side. at that point that i cried. it wasn't because of frustration or pain or being unhappy. it was because it was just so incredibly beautiful. its not easy to say why it was but it was a moment i'll remember for the rest of my life: a moment of absolute clarity when everything seems to fall into place and makes complete sense. it was as if everything in my life had drawn me to this point, at this time, for this moment.

my route for Day 5 was going to be a shorter one due to the excesses of the previous day. i decided that about 15km would be enough and headed towards a town called Santhia. i was now crossing from the Aosta Valley into the Piemont area. apparently there is a huge amount of benzoylecgonine in the River Po here (this is the by-product of cocaine, secreted in people's urine). its been estimated that the cosumption would be about 27:1000 population. thats a lot of cocaine. seemes odd when the italians in this region seem so laid back. i should digress into talking about the Italians actually as i know i haven't spent a lot of time talking about them as 'a people' (if you can do such a thing!). the first thing to bear in mind is that you're passing through different places every day so you never get to make friends or get to know people other than a quick 'bonjourno' or 'ciao' but even so most of the time they've been helpful, funny, engaging and quite, quite lovely. more reserved than the Spanish in some ways, but then pilgrims travelling to Rome are a relatively new thing in this modern age. in the cities the 'dress up and go out for a gelato' time seems to be around 4pm. i've often sat in a little cafe and watched people strut their stuff. being Italians style is everything and they put it all on show. on Saturdays the hairdressers are full as the women get their hair coffured and the degree of elegance is sometimes breathtaking to behold. of course not everyone meets the standards expected. one woman had such a big camel toe i spent the next 10 minutes looking round to see if she had any Bedouin following her.

the journey to Santhia was lovely. just a trek through the golden wheatfields now turning into rice paddies as the Alps flattened into Valleys and then into plains. Santhia itself was a smallish town and i'd decided to give the religious hostel a try. for pilgrims you can (of course) stay in hotels but you can stay in places run by religious fraternities for a small donation. on the Santiago route this was quite common and even though there were a couple of places i'd passed through that had had them in italy i hadn't tried them yet. i arrived at the hostel and a sign on the door directed me to a local cafe where the barista gave me a lovely greeting but said that they key wouldn't be available for a hour. i sat drinking coffee and dressing my blisters (one of which burst over the rather nice yellow cushion i was sitting on) before going over and settling in. it was actually rather nice - 3 lots of bunkbeds but clean and with everything i needed, except linen sheets. all they had were paper sheets which i'd never seen before. it was that day in that hostel that i met Frederick: the kind, plump, smelly Priest from Belgium

the Camino tests

yep, this old granny saw me coming. 40 euros to stay the night in a run down decayed old hotel perched on top of a hill. it took me half an hour to climb up there my feet were aching so much. i paid up begrudgingly and she took the cash rather too quickly it seemed to me. still, i needed a bed and was quite relieved to just shower, shave and relax. the problem came when thinking about what to eat as it meant staggering back down the hill again. walking the Camino is fine apart from sightseeing in the evenings - by the time you've arrived at your destination your feet ache so much you can't be bothered to walk anywhere. in fact you can't walk anywhere - its too painful. a rather undignified limp is about all you can manage. so limp i did, down to the local tavern where i was served the best white wine i've had in a long time matched with the worst pasta i think i've ever had. imagine drain water boiled down to its essence, add some old veggies (mainly dried peas) and then thrown some penne in the mix. that was about it. i was so hungry that i just threw it in my mouth and swallowed. and then had more wine. the next day i was up early to get my 'free' brekkie from granny which consisted of stale bread and nutella. the coffee was good though. i left late - about 8am - and headed off out of Chantillon. the VF route followed the dreaded SS26 and actually became the SS26 for most of the day. i'm not easily frightened but i can't say i felt safe at any point of the day. i had to hike down a busy main road that curved and wound its way along the side of a mountain as it descended. there was no path. i had to walk within the space of the white line at the side of the road and the road barrier itself. that measured about a foot wide. i had cars, trucks and buses whizzing up behind and past me at quite considerable speeds. in the end i had to cross over and walk facing the oncoming traffic. i thought that if i was going to get killed then i may as well look whoever killed me in the eye. and i'm not joking. i walked that road hugging the mountain side, trying to peer round when there was a bend, stopping and waiting for big trucks to pass, speeding up when i could. luckily i'd lived and worked in India for 2 years so i was used to some pretty hairy traffic situations but this really tested me. i was lucky i wasn't hit - its as simple as that. hiking the SS26 was not pleasurable at all and yet for the past 2 days i've spent an inordinate amount of time on it. the VF doesn't seem to deviate into the countryside. i'm hopeful this will improve as i'm sick of exhaust fumes and just want to get back to walking country paths - which i did a bit of today. one problem is the fact that my guide book and the signs for the VF seem to differ and i have to guess which one is the best to follow. its like a game of bluff or double bluff when you have no idea what the result might be. one pretty special moment occured yesterday when i came out of a forest and saw Bard Castle - an incredible place cascading down a small mountain into a valley, a jumble of stone and granite so big that it defies description. i ended Day 3 in a place called Pont St Martin - best known for its old Roman Bridge - and started Day 4 on the SS26 again. God i hate that road. setting off at about 7am i got to a big town called Ivrea considerably ahead of schedule and was rather pleased with myself. what a fatal mistake that feeling was as i then (as it turned out) took the wrong road out of town and walked an hour and a half in completely the wrong direction. its funny sometimes on the Camino - you have a piece of incredibly good luck immediately followed by some bad. or visa versa. so my bad luck was to take the wrong path and my good was a bus immediately turning up and taking me back to where i started. i then had bad luck again as i walked into the country until about 2pm and i was tired, knackered and ready to rest but there was no accomodation for 15kms. another 3 hours. i cannot tell you how frustrated, depressed, angry and annoyed i was. but i couldn't do anything except walk, so walk i did (after fueling up - at a cafe i found - on beer, water, coffee and chocolate which is quite a potent combination if you consume all 4 within 20 minutes of each other). i then literally marched up the bloody motorway that'd replaced the SS26 and, good luck again, turned a corner to find Lake Viverone. this is such a beautiful place that it nearly brought tears to my eyes. i've walked nearly 40kms today, have 2 enormous blisters on my feet, and tired beyond belief and reached what i thought were the limits of my endurance. but i got through it and have ended up at a place i never knew existed. if someone was to ever ask me why i put myself through such hardship then this is the answer. its a feeling like nothing else on earth - and thats why i do it

Valleys, Vines and Vineyards

Aosta is an incredible valley. its late-summer and the air is a fresh as you could wish. the skies are a wide clear blue and the mountains are green with pine. there's such an abundance of nature that it grabs you and hugs you and even just to walk through brings a smile to your face. being a famous wine region the whole valley is full of vineyeards, ripe with grapes just waiting to be plucked. the VF route though is relatively simple: just follow the river Dora Baltea that flows along the valley floor which seemed a simple idea at first & became complicated later. the VF is a trek promoted by the Italian government as their version of the Camino de Santigao which now attracts thousands of pilgrims each year. the main differences that i'd read before i'd left were lack of signage, more expensive accomodation and more travel on roads than was pleasant. in 3 days i've experienced all of these, and more. first of all though the valley itself is just such a beautiful place. i've trekked over 70km in 3 days and the wonder of it still makes me smile as i walk though little villages dominated by the green alpine ranges, seeing run-down castles perched on hills and waterfalls and rivers sparking in the sunshine. Day 2 i set off from Aosta (wishing Mafia Granny a fond Ciao) at about 7am. the good thing about this kind of trek in this kind of country is that you know somewhere soon a cafe will be open selling some strong coffee and light buttery croissants. my Day 2 destination was a place called Chantillon, 32km away and i set off very content and very happy. the smile was taken off my face by a simple fact of life in this valley - the SS26. this is a major roadway going the whole way along the Aosta Valley and one that the VF intercepted, crossed, was part of, or was alongside. it was said that the road developed along the old Mediaeval VF route. all of this would have been ok except for walking actually ON the SS26. more later on this as its been a complete nightmare. the river Dora is a turquoise-blue, a radiant colour that transformed the landscape as it washed and tumbled over white rocks and served as a lodestone for me as i trekked on. it needed to as the signs for the VF were cross-pollinated with signs taking people on a walking tour around the vineyards in the region - which initially seemed a good idea to me. the only problem turned out to be i'd follow a sign going up, then down, then up again, the down again. i cannot tell you how many times i went up and down these bloody mountains. all i kept thinking was 'just follow the bloody river - its on the bottom!!!'. but no, up and down it was and up and down i went. from 7am to 4pm. and i got lost. in a field. on a mountain. there were probably quite a few happy bunnies in the region but i wasn't one of them. my feet were killing me, my backpack weighed a ton and i just wanted to rest. i did stumble across 2 donkeys nearby and they let me scratch their heads and somehow it pulled me back to myself and enabled me to continue on, absolutely knackered, into Chantillon. little did i know that yet another old granny was waiting to pounce in my next hotel ...

Blizzards and Belles

the days are going by in such a way that i can't seem to get a fix on where i am sometimes. returning to where i was right up in Grand St Bernard Pass i woke during the night quite a few times - i had such disturbing dreams where i was part of a macabre circus - and awoke feeling terrible with my stomach bloated and my head hurting. still, with the light shining through the window it re-energised me. i couldn't wait to get trekking. except i still had a really bad headache. i realised, belatedly, that i must have a touch of altitude sickness as i was over 2400 feet. i'd had the same thing before in Nepal years ago (and this was much milder) but it explained how rotten i felt. i took some pills and looked out the window and to my horror there was a blizzard raging. bearing in mind that i'd decided to do this trek in late summer to avoid the snow it came as a very unpleasant surprise. also because i had no winter gear. at this point i thought i still might be able to start hiking but when i went outside it was as if all the warmth was immediately sucked from my body and my hands went numb. i couldn't see 2 meters in front of me. there was no way i was going to be able to start hiking and i felt bloody depressed. when i did the Camino de Santiago 3 years ago the first few days i got lost, ended up on motorways in the rain and had no idea where i was. i turned all this bad luck around by seeing it as a test and so again i saw what was happening as a test. i was a bloody freezing cold test i may add. i had to make a decision as to whether to stay the night with no guarantee that the blizzard would pass, or try to move on. i ended up chatting to a belguim guy who was wandering around looking as lost as me but a lot warmer as he had a great winter jacket on. it turns out he'd left Belgium 5 weeks ago and was walking the Via Francigeno as well. his name was Jules and he looked just like a retired bank manager. after some discussion and talking to the hostel owners it seemed like the best option would be to get the next bus down a few km as the skies were clearer a few villages below. jules and i braved frostbite to stagger down past the Swiss-Italian border and sat in a hotel drinking coffee (apparently he used to manage a bank). the bus arrived, we hopped on and off we went down the slopes of the Swiss (now Italian) Alps. the snow quickly cleared and soon we were in beautiul sunshine & after a few stops i wished Jules farewell and hopped off at a place called Etroubles. i'd had enough etroubles at this point and wanted to get some hiking in on my first day of the VF. mind you, looking back up at the top of the Alps from where i'd come from on the bus i'd no idea how i would have faired. the sheer scale of them dwarfed everything around and it would have taken a long, long time to descend. i set off for my first trekking day somewhat relieved. after this things seemed to get back on track. i passed through some incredibly beautiful countryside - everything was blooming or blossoming and the air was sweet and clean. the little villages i passed through had little houses still very much like the Swiss wooden chalets and there were red, white and purple flowers everywhere. after 4 hours i arrived in Aosta: the regional capital of the Aosta valley and a lovely place to stay overnight. being on the Swiss-Italian border it was quite an influential town in the Roman and Mediaeval ages and seemed to take a great pride in itself. i got there about 4pm so i had to find a hotel and quick & my guide recommended one called the 'Belle Epoche' which i found pretty much straightaway. the old granny propped up on the wine counter (it doubled as a pizzeria) let me in and growled in my general direction. it seems i'd interrupted her afternoon TV viewing and she wasn't best pleased. i booked in, paid 26 euros and then climbed the 5 flights of stairs to my room - and that was after Mafia Granny has made me read a list of rules that i had to adhere to. when i got to my room the sheer irony of the words 'Belle' and 'Epoche' registered as the epoch celebrated seemed to be a time of dusty plastic flowers stuck in vases up and down the stairs, pink (also plastic) curtains and moudly showers. nice. Mafia Granny was doing well all things considered. i changed, showered and headed out to see Aosta. the town was set out in a pattern that has rapidly become familiar: an old city centre full of little shops, cafes and restaurants and a populace that strolls through for an afternoon gelato and then comes back in the evening to see and be seen. i did a bit of sightseeing (they had an Arch of Augustus dating from 25 BC with some original white and grey marble still in place) and ate some great fungi pizza (the mushrooms in this valley are renowned and they really were absolutely divine - woody, earthy and very, very succulent). by this time i was knackered so went back to the lovely era in which was staying, sneaked past Mafia Granny, fell over some dusty flowers in a vase and eventually got to bed, tired but happy

life and other things worth losing

i cannot quite believe the things that have happened to me since i last blogged. Geneva already seems aeons ago and yet its only been 3 days. i spent the last day there wandering around and avoiding Ms Edgy. she seemed to inhabit a corner of Geneva that i nicknamed Boob Valley. there were lots of boobs and lots of cleavage. of course it was just round the corner from my hotel so i was always running into boobies of one kind or another. i went out on the Saturday night but didn't get very far. i sat in a bar listening to a woman sing a song which i was sure was meant to be about a 'room' but the way she say it was all about her 'womb'. consequently 'come into my womb/i want to hold you in my womb/my womb is yours and yours alone' all sounded a bit dodgy to me. so i returned to my hotel via Boob Valley only to be propositioned by a young black guy who then proceeded to follow me down the street. between the boobs and the rent it was all getting too much and i retired to bed relieved that i was leaving the city the next day. i got up early as my train was at 9.30am and got my ticket ok and then sat enjoying the view of the mountains going by. 3 hours later the train stopped at a place called Brig (we'd passed through Gland and were nearly at Lax- which i was as it turned out). there were questions in my mind at this point as we should have been at a different station and when i asked i realised that unbeknownst to me i should have changed trains twice to be where i actaully needed to be. this was conveyed to me by a french-speaking swiss guy as i struggled to communicate in bad spanish. don't ask me why but whenever i try to speak in another language these days i seem to default to spanish no matter what country i'm in. it wouldn't be so bad but its appalling spanish. i think i even said 'ole!' at one point. anyway, stuck in bloody Brig, miles from nowhere on a Sunday afternoon i had to wait for an hour for a train back to the connection point. another half hour for the next train. one and a half hours for the second connection and when i got there i'd missed the final connection to my destination: the Grand St Bernard Pass. by this time it was about 3pm and i didn't know what to do as i was stuck in an extremely small Swiss village with no accomodation and no taxis. i then had the bright idea of trying to hitchhike so clambered up a steep embankment to get to the road, which turned out to be a freeway. standing there with my sign, trying to look like an innocent traveller and not some knife-wheedling psycho, i stuck it out for 45minutes with no luck at all. the swiss family having a sunday gathering down in the valley below and laughing at me didn't do a lot for my dignity. at this point i was bloody fed up so i cast what little dignity i had left to the wind and clambered back down the embankment. did i mention it had thistles? no? well it was that kind of day. i got back to the train station just in time to pick up a bus which wasn't going to St Bernard but to the town before - about 10km away. the italian bus driver seemd quite nice until he dropped me off just after the bus came out of a tunnel and just pointed up the mountain road before driving off. it was about 6pm now and it was high up. the road was nearly empty, there was no vegetation and just lots and lots of rocks. cold mist was also building on the mountain slopes as i looked up the long, windy road and for one of the few times in my life i had a feeling of absolute terror. it lasted just for a moment but it scared me shitless. there i was right up in the very highest point of the Alps. there were no cars, night was drawing in and i had no idea where i was or how to get to my destination. the feeling i had inside turned into raw determination and i bloody marched straight up that road thinking that wherever it was i had to bloody well get to then i'd bloody well get there. i trekked up that road for nearly an hour before a car went by and someone stopped to pick me up . i cannot convey in words the sheer relief i felt. if he wasn't old ugly and german i would have kissed him. as it was he then drove up and round the windy roads with hairpin bends so sharp i had to close my eyes. we got to the hostel, i thanked him to the nth degree and then i stumbled into the shower, to food and to bed ready to start trekking the next day. if only i'd know what was to face me when i awoke the next morning ...

Geneva daze

well i got to Geneva with only one small problem: i got here a day early. after my saga going back to the UK for a weekend in late April only to find it should have been a wknd in late May i am beginning to wonder about myself. maybe i've been travelling for too long and take it all in my stride. in any case i wasn't too bothered and managed to find a cheapish hotel that seemed to merge the 1950's with the 1970's and celebrate the worst of both decades. got to admire that. i was tired, hungry and filthy so staggered into the shower, staggered down the road to a cafe and then staggered back to bed. Geneva seemed quite sedate to me upon first stagger but i decided more investigation might be needed. after a brief sleep (the humidity is quite bad here surprisingly) i wandered round the little streets and cafes and shops. hate to say but it was/is a very generic european capital. i means its all very nice and all but feels very safe, no edge to it. i was just saying that to myself when i went round a corner and bumped straight into some street sex workers in some very tight corsets and boobs that nearly poked me in the eye. maybe some areas were a bit on the edgy side. slipping past Ms Edgy, who clasped her boobs in tight and winked at me, i avoided the cloud of falling mascara and ran down a few streets to have a look at Lake Geneva which was a BIG LAKE. should i have been surprised? not really i guess - the description was all over the packet. i then spent a few hours walking around looking at expensively dressed people practising their best sneers whilst out shopping. in Geneva the buildings are sturdy stone monuments commemorating a time of wealth and privilege, built for the cold and cold they were. there was an air of repression, arrogance, complacency and secrets. And really bad coffee.

Mongolia to Russia

on the trans-siberian there are certain attendants who have a certain 'reputation' as being fire-breathing babooshkas but after we'd eventually managed to wrestle our way onto the train Mr P and I were delighted to find that our attendant was a blonde-haired quiet lady called Carla. she was very helpful as we left the station, coming and delivering our linen without throwing it at my head and storming out as Nash had done on the previous leg. what a relief. she returned 5 minutes after brininging the linen with 2 forms that we had to fill out for customs. after working out what 'Patronomyic' meant we settled down into watching the view go by. Carla then appeared again with another form that we had to fill out. on this occasion she'd changed out of her uniform and was in a low-cut skimpy top with no bra. i thought Mr P would have a coronary the way his eyes popped out of his head. still, Carla was very professional and she even helped us with the translation of the new forms we had to complete as there was no English translation at all. she left and Mr P sighed - either from relief or angina, who knew? 10 minutes later Carla was back with ANOTHER bloody form. i was annoyed but the skimpy top & no bra won Mr P over. he'd have been happy with another 10 forms from what i could see. i my mind i went over CPR techniques that i'd recently witnessed being done on a Mongolian horse - you never know. Carla, having successfully gotten all our forms out of us, jumped up and her boobs carried on bouncing around for another few minutes after that. i'd never seen eyeballs popping out on stalks before. Mr P's did then.

and so we were off. this was the trans-siberian proper: 5 days on a train to Moscow. we'd left about 2pm and so Mr P and myself caught up with each other (his real name was Wad from an unusual anglo-saxon word Wadavern) and unpacked all our stuff. there didn't appear to be a restaurant car on the train at this point so the realisation hit that we'd be eating noodles for a little while longer. our carriage was quite full with 2 backpackers next door and a whole heap of older Aussies up the end of the carriage. they'd started drinking before we'd even left the station and then started running up and down the carriage having 'little chats' with each other whilst running to the toilet and then running back to get more beer. that's what you do in Australia when you get older: get pissed and talk to anyone who'll listen about anything at all.

the scenery leaving Mongolia was the same dry dusty sandy landscape we'd already been through before and it was the same again. we did pass through a few soviet-inspired towns with a 'concrete-block' style of architecture before hitting the steppes and some much greener grassland. there were a few gers scattered across the wide, wide plains but they were few and far between, just nestled in the valleys of ragged hills, or clustered together like little villages. as the train rumbled on we passed groups of wild horses running together, some having foals,and then even a group of camels slowly plodding their way across the landscape. that was pretty special. the light was superb: the sun lighting up mountains on the far horizon with the electric green steppes contrasting with huge hilly clouds that clustered thick and white under a bright blue sky. the landscape rumbled by and then the sun started to die and sunset slowly emerged from the brightness of the day. it got dark late in these regions: night seems half-hearted and almost welcomes the light.

i went and stood in the corridor window, looking out at the sunset as 4 or 5 older Aussies staggered by clinking and pissed. soon the train ground to a slow halt and skimpy Maria got changed back into her uniform as Mongolian border guards got on and started inspecting our documentation. this took an hour and it was near midnight by now. we were all knackered and tired aside from the Aussies who seemed to have a karaoke machine going down their end of the corridor. i half expected a disco ball to come down and start spinning around with all the Aussie women coming out with golden knickers on.

after the Mongolian side of the border had finished with us the train slowly started up again and then another hour later, full of dozy sleep, we were at the Russian border. more guards came on, much more serious this time and with hardly a smile between them. i tried to hand out some friendly koalas but one of them looked at me with a look that siad' sit down or i'll shoot.' you don't argue with a look like that. after another hour and half we were done and the train started up for the final time that night and then we crossed the border and were in Russia. i went to ask Carla if she could unlock the toilets (they were locked at every major stop) only to find that she wasn't in her carriage. in her place had appeared a tall Russian lady with a sour face, model looks, hair dyed bright-red, a tight mini-skirt and stilettoes.

this was The Evil One. she glowered at me, darkly ...