At the poetry lake

I haven’t been able to blip the last few days because when we got to Turin I realised I had mislaid my iPad card reader somewhere en route. Now home and catching up before the memory fades!

A full complement today, for our last day's walking. It involved a long drive, almost to the French border. I was delighted to find we were climbing the Petit Saint Bernard pass. I vividly remember driving back from Italy on this road in 1986. This was well before the open borders of Schengen. We arrived at the Italian border post at 1 pm, and the lone officer was visibly eating his lunch in the hut. We stopped expectantly. He theatrically put one hand over his eyes and gestured extravagantly with the other, urging us to drive on: "Vai, vai!" I was pleased to identify the hut, now derelict of course.

We parked, and Lorenzo said, "Hmm, more snow than I expected." The pass is closed in winter and only reopened a week ago. This made for quite an exciting walk as we circumnavigated neves and crossed snow patches, kicking steps into them. In between, a few marmots and lots of lovely flowers. We eventually reached the lake that was our goal, and sat down to eat snacks. It's now known as the poetry lake, as courtesy of the nearby ski resort there was an excellent 4G signal. We had readings of poems about skylarks and marmots, including one beautifully articulated by Lorenzo. What a lovely musical language Italian can be! I couldn’t help including some extras for today.

The walk should have been a circular one, but about 500 metres beyond the lake there was too much snow blocking the path, so we had to retrace our steps. Some steep dodgy bits on the way down required zigzagging and Lorenzo assistance, but no-one fell over. Result! Stats: 5 km, 260 m climbing, 2290 m maximum height, 4 hours of which under 2 were walking, the rest poetry and admiring the scenery.

Back at the van we had lunch at a convenient picnic table. Then we crossed the border into France to visit an Alpine botanical garden just over the pass. But it was closed for the very good reason that most of it was covered with snow. We observed some loony French cyclists and fell runners charging down steep slopes at speed, and then set off on the long drive back.

Evening saw us at the local agriturismo again, for a convivial meal. Apart from S’s lurgy, it’s been great.