Tuesday 16th August: Weather: 14°C to 28°C: Cool in Pont St Martin Warm, with a few clouds La Thuile
Pont St Martin to La Thuile: Bus from Pont St Martin to Aosta then to Courmayeur then to La Thuile
Ascent/Descent: 8k in dribs chasing phone cards, checking routes in Courmayeur and La Thuile
Accommodation: BnB Le Thovex
Masks on bus: Pont Romeo behind
Morning tea Aosta waiting for bus
Blue skies and dry alps
Strolling through La Thuile
Another day chasing gear and hopping on and off buses before finally arriving in the magnificent mountain Village of La Thuile and getting to our home for the night, BnB Le Thovex, about 1k further up the mountain. Tomorrow is the start of our Tor des Geants hike, but as accommodation in Courmayeur was impossible to find being the end of the school holidays, we decided to do a double up of two nights at La Thuile, catch the bus back into Courmayeur the next morning, walk the the first stage of the Tor des Geants from Courmayeur to La Thuile, stay a second night in La Thuile, then take off on the second leg of the Tor des Geants the day after. Sounds complicated but it should work.
It was a very hot night, still high twenties at 9pm, but when we wake, it’s a cool morning, a pleasant 14°C. We’re up before 6am aiming for the 8.15am bus to Aosta. Plenty of time to have breakfast of yoghurt and fruit and do a final sort of our extra gear that I squish into a small back pack, with rope, and stuff hanging off the edges. We’ll leave this bag with our host and pick it up on our way back through in 10 days time. It’s a one k walk down to the bus station just outside the train station of Pont St Martin. Masks are a legal requirement on all public transport in Italy. Some drivers are pedantic and enforce the rule to a t, others couldn’t care less. We don masks just the same, as we roll out of Pont St Martin past the famous Pont Romeo bridge built AD 26 by the Romans. This one and a half hour bus ride feels much safer going up hill with a good driver than when we came down last night. Time to look out of teh window instead of swaying around the corners like yesterday. The alps on this side of the valley are very dry compared to the Chamonix side, with stunted dry bush rather than lush fields and pine forests.
It’s 10.15am when we arrive in Aosta and the next bus for Courmayeur leaves at 11.45am, so there’s time to get lost in the narrow streets until we eventually find Windtree, the phone shop where Ian buys a sim card for 25 euro for the month with 75g of data. Time for a Jet Boil coffee in the park with dried Digestive biscuits and a few cashews. The bus arrives on time and 45 minutes later we’re back in Courmayeur buying tickets for the 2.55pm bus from Courmayeur to La Thuile as well as return tickets for early the next day.
Then lunch in the park - tea and more nuts. After lunch, we walk across to Dolonne to check out the start of the hiking route we’ll take tomorrow so we don’t waste time in the morning fluffing around when we need to be up and over the Col d’Arp at 2,500m hours before the predicted storms at 2pm. The route was easy to find so we should be set for a quick getaway in the morning on our first stage of the Tor des Geants. The bus ride from Courmayeur to La Thuile is through a gorge lined with pine forests and 35 minutes late we’re in La Thuile, a pretty little village wedged between alps on all sides, and buzzing with hikers, campers, rock climbers and just plain tourists.
BnB Le Thovex - magnificent
Cold beer in the garden
It was supposed to be a 10 minute walk to our BnB Le Thovex, but one hour later, we find it one k up a steep valley road. It was a bit confusing as we had followed the signs intended for cars to detour up the valley to avoid the narrow one way streets in Le Thovex. But the climb was worth the effort as our BnB Le Thovex was magnificently perched on a ridge overlooking the valley and the rooms were beautifully decorated. By now it’s 5pm so back down to the village to buy supplies for the next 3 days - tonights dinner, in Le Thovex, tomorrow nights dinner also in Le Thovex after our walk back from Courmayeur, and teh 3rd night we will be in a Bivouac in Promoud high up in teh Alps. We return, unpack, and sit in the garden with a cold beer from our hosts fridge as teh stores in town only sold warm beer, and pick at our bread, cheese tomato and and sliced meats.
We’re a bit tired not from hiking, but from hopping on and off buses for teh past few days getting set up for our wonderful Tor des Geants hike which starts tomorrow. Time to blog and have an early night.