DAY 16: Sunday June 17th - Briancon to Montgenevre:
Walk: 14.5k, 5hrs: Blue Skies, hot 18°C to 30°C
Accommodation: Hotel Alpi Cottia Montgenevre
From Briancon - we never get tired of this view
2k from our give into Briancon
Looking back over Briancon
Pont d'Asfeld - built 1734
Filling water bottles - Fontaine Boullaine on GR5 near Briancon
Checking the thermometer - 30°C
Montgenevre - 1860metres
Today we hiked the GR653D (Chemin de Compostelle) for the last day - It ends in Montgenevre and links to the GR5, our track for the next 10 days. Today was a very hot 30°C and we were lucky to find cold water at a bubbling fountain - Fontaine Boullane. A short day, just 14.5k, but I'm don’t know how Hannibal took his elephants up the path we walked today - he must have taken the main road!
We sleep in then a few phone calls via Skype to home and we pack. Breakfast is a really nice spread with hot fresh bread, fruit and coffee from a machine which grinds the beans for each cup. We take our time, no hurry today. I frig around trying to publish my blog but it’s slow - a problem with WiFi, or our server or Sandvox software I am using to blog. Some of it has published OK - can't believe we're half way. We try to book a place for the next two nights. We know tonight in Montgenevre will be OK as the town is full of hotels, and the next night, the owner at La Ferme suggested a gite near Nevache - La Découverte. No answer by phone, so Ian emails in his best French, and we hope we have WiFi tonight to check.
We stroll 3k into Briancon - it's Sunday and Carrefours is the only supermarket open this morning. We stock up on bread, cheese, ham and a bag of green mace (looks like clover) - thanks Donna for the tip. I indulge in a plastic bottle of mayonnaise - no says Ian, too heavy. But my hips are good now and my shoulders are stronger - I hope - so I volunteer to carry the mayonnaise. I also buy butter to go with a our fresh bread. We pack, wrap the cold stuff in my red scarf to insulate it - it's already 25°C - then leave.
We start to walk up hill - Briancon is at 1,350 and Montgenevre 1,850 so we have a 500 metre uphill trek. It's hot - we get to a view point looking back at Briancon then cross the Pont d'Asfeld built in 1730 across a deep gully down which the Durance flows from its source at Montgenevre towards the Rhone. It’s hot today and we’re looking for shade for coffee. It's 12.30pm, way past coffee time - just a bit more I tell Ian til we come to a nice spot and in 20mins we stumble across a bubbling fountain with icy cold water – the Fountaine Boullaine. We stop for coffee and refill our water bottles with icy water. Then up and up.
After 2 hrs of climbing, Ian is ahead and finds a u-beaut picnic spot for lunch and plonks his pack down before I get there - but he forgot the 2nd and 3rd cardinal rules of lunch (the 1st is don't stop before 1pm - that's OK it's 2.30pm, the second is don't stop before you have to climb a high mountain, and the third is don't stop on a steep slope). So we sit on angled tree stumps, on the side of a steep slope with our packs, plates, mayonnaise, tomatoes and me sliding down the hill - not happy Jan. My pick for lunch tomorrow! Apart from rescuing sliding plates, lunch is nice, especially with mayonnaise and green mace.
After lunch there’s still 1k uphill to Montgenevre. At 10% grade, it should be easy - unless you've just had a big lunch! We reach Montgenevre, a winter ski resort and most of the chalets are closed, but we find a hotel that's open, Hotel Alpi Cottia, a two star hotel off the busy main road. Five mins later we are in our room, washing sweaty shirts from a hot day and hanging them in the attic window in the breeze and sun. We’re showered then fiddle with the WiFi to try to publish my blog. I’ll have to restrict my blogs to a few photos and text - that's OK til we get home when I can reduce the file size of the photos.
At 6pm it’s time for a drink but we're not hungry - big breakfast - big lunch - and only a short walk. We sit in the bar having a wine and beer and I blog on my new12 inch retina MacbookAir - thanks Ian for my mother's day present AND for downloading all the IGN maps, AND for being such good company - the lunch today on the slippery slope before an uphill walk is almost forgivable. The barman is English, so a good time to ask for directions to a shop open in the morning before we leave. He tells us about the small Sherpa shop that sells the basics of bread meat and cheese but it doesn't open til 9am, so we'll have to see what time we're prepared to wait in the morning. Time for bed, our washing is almost dry