Sunday 9th September: Weather 20°C up to 26°C: sunny all day, warm to hot and humid
Le Capanne to Pont Saint Martin DAY 21: 11k: 9.00am to 3.00pm: 6hrs: Descent 1100 m
Accommodation: BnB La Casa Antique at Altitude 334 metres
Leaving Agrituristic Le Capanne
Old village of Scalaro on other side
Through beech and chestnut trees
Followed by herd of ibex
Ibex eating everything is sight
Including small branches from trees
Morning tea with goats POQ
Groves of chestnut trees
Give a man some peace
Artistic dry stone walls
Quincinetto down in Aosta Valley
Pont Saint Martin further up
Baroque church in Quincinetto
Lunch and blogging in the vineyards
Returning to Pont Saint Martin
Locanda Aquila Bianca
Locanda Aquila Bianca
A wonderful day descending 1100 metres into the Aosta Valley to Pont Saint Martin where we started 21 days and 293k ago, completing our circuit of the Gran Paradiso National Park. The track was well graded down through the beech and chestnut trees. For most of the way, we were followed by a herd of ibex being taken down the mountain by the goat herder, his two mules and two dogs.
A lazy start to the morning with breakfast at 8am - stale bread and jam but the yoghurt made at the local dairy is delicious. There’s a group of three Italians at breakfast and they’re about to start their GTA today.
It’s 9am and already a warm hazy 20°C when we leave. The track passes through meadows and criss crosses the upper valley road before descending through beech and chestnut trees on an old well graded mule track. On one of the road crossings, we encounter a herd of domesticated ibex being driven down the mountain by a goat herder, his two mules and two dogs. The ibex are a species of mountain goat, and we can only assume these have been kept for their milk as most of the herd are females with their young. Their smell is distinctly goatish.
As they wander down and behind us or sometimes in front, these ibex eat every thing they can reach - bark, leaves, small branches, roots and grass. We weave in and out of the goats and think we lose them until we sit down for morning tea half way down the mountain and hear the bells of the goats as they thunder down the track almost knocking Ian’s Jet boil over. He points them off down the mountain in no uncertain terms. It’s then a peaceful last cuppa on the mountain, near an old stone hut made of dry stone, the craftsmanship amazing with the stones stacked together without any mortar.
More descending through chestnut trees and soon we come across a passage way leading to an old disused quartz quarry where the temperature is 5°C cooler than outside. It’s eerie being underground with only hewn pillars holding up the huge rock overhanging roof. A bit further on there’s a clearing where we can see the village of Quincinetto down in the valley below us, and up to the left, Pont Saint Martin. It’s midday when we walk through the narrow streets of Quincinetto, past the old Baroque church, looking for the bridge crossing the Dora Baltea River. It’s 26°C and almost hot as we walk along the main road following the Francigena path to Pont Saint Martin.
We’re glad of a detour up through the vineyards of Camera as it’s a bit cooler than the asphalt. At 1pm, there’s a spot in the shade of the grape vines where we have lunch of melted butter, cheese and nutella. Ian has at last good phone reception and I use the hotspot to finally publish my blog which I hadn’t been able to for the past 6 days while on the GTA. We spend an hour making use of the good connection before heading off again, arriving in Pont Saint Martin at 3pm, completing our circuit of the Gran Paradiso National Park
In five minutes we are back to our starting point at the BnB La Casa Antique where our host welcomes us with open arms, shows us to a different but so much better room with a real ensuite and dining table, and gives us our travelling bag which we had left with her three weeks earlier. The room is on the sunny breezy side of the old house and immediately we shower and wash everything from our back packs and hang it in the sun. It’s almost dry before the last pair of socks are hung out.
Time to sort photos, blog and repack, ready to leave early in the morning to catch the train to Milan. At 5pm, time to trot up the road to Conads the local supermarket, and buy enough for dinner tonight and breakfast on the train in the morning.
Locanda Aquila Bianca