We began in Courmayeur yesterday. I rode up Val Ferret, where I had been cross-country skiing just before the Covid lockdown in March 2020. It was strange and wonderful to see it without snow. The jagged peaks are still jagged and the restaurants are still there. It’s just that this time I had to arrive there on my bicycle. Yikes. There were some very steep sections on the way there.

In March 2020, I had to park at the bottom and take my skis on the bus up to the ski trails. This time I took myself up!

Click on the photos to see a larger version.

First, here are the photos from my Prana attempts. Prana’s rugged head rears up above the small town of Camaiore. It rises up above the tree line, so its outline is sharp. I’ve wanted to hike it since I got here.

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The day after Christmas, it was time to try Matanna. It was clear but we had high winds and cold temps. Nonetheless, I drove up to Casoli to start my hike. Nobody was there when I parked, but before I left a woman drove up in her car. Turned out she was the person on my first Prana attempt who had given me directions. Antonella. I hope to see her again. Maybe we can hike together sometime.

The hike was beautiful but OMG cold. Suddenly I was walking in snow and the wind was howling down the valley. I put on every piece of clothing I had and it Just Enough. I found a slightly marginally sheltered place behind a rock to eat my sandwich (nothing builds heat like food!) and kept heading upwards. When I got the ridge before the last climb, I was almost being blown off the trail. It was beastly cold. I came to my senses and turned around… enough!

I was so happy to get back to my car. I was a frozen block and as soon as I got home, I took a long hot bath!!

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[Apologies for the slow loading. I’m working on a way to speed that up. Stay tuned.]

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BUT the day before we were cut off, I decided to explore the edges of this town. My town, the comune of Camaiore, is in the province of Lucca, which is in the region of Tuscany. Turns out my comune is the biggest one in Lucca province. Hooray! Gives me plenty of room to ride… Well, not so fast pardner! Quite a bit of the comune is high in the mountains far from any road. In terms of roads though, there was still plenty of scope. The back road to Lucca is mostly in Camaiore’s area. I looked on a map and found three small hill villages I’d never been to, so a plan was born.

I rode towards Lucca, on my usual road. Zig zag up to Montemagno, a quick coffee at the bar/cycling shop at the top of the hill (uhoh, bar closed!), then down down down along a chilly shady road out into the sunshine.

As I rode uphill, I passed a cemetary, with this angel watching over it.

Way down the road, a sharp left to Orbicciano. Then up to Fibbiano, then a quick down and up to Stignano and Anticiana.

I had brought a sandwich and really needed it once I topped out at Fibbiano. Nowhere special to sit, but an amazing view. Prosciutto, panino, chips, a sweet roll. Good lunch. I was hungry!

From where I sat, I could see this ramshackle garage/shed. Loved the colors and lines.

Headed downhill, passed a group of men riding their bikes up towards Fibbiano. The roads were almost exactly perfect: challenging enough to make me work, but more long than steep. Moderate hilliness and a nice loop. Some older estates along the way. Here’s a shot of the old and new “iron work” side by side and a nice old, probably decommissioned, church I passed.

The villages themselves weren’t much, but I think there are many “second homes” here: Not too far from Lucca, houses nicely elegantly fixed up, and Mercedes cars in the driveway.

I had to put on both jackets even going uphill on my way back uphill. The sun was setting as I started down to Camaiore, and home.

I made a slight detour into Camaiore on my way home. There’s an old Romanesque church (the Badia) and convent just on the edge of town.  Lovely evening light.

To continue the hike…
PS. The stats for the hike are:
778m (2552ft) uphill and 2241m (7352ft) downhill!

The next peak was Gulmens. The tallest one. After that I still went up and down, but the ups weren’t as high.

The trail was clearly marked with these red and white stripes. This is the standard mark for all European trails.

Very beautiful scenery, lakes, vistas, flowers, crags.

At one point, I was sure I was lost, but I kept marching on and eventually got to the next peak: Cuncels.

Further on, the final pair.

To wrap up, a killer descent of 1800 meters straight down to the lake. Thank god my knees and legs were in good shape. Rocky trails along a stream.  I slipped and fell a couple times, but nothing serious.

along the way…

Finally I’m getting close to the bottom. Whew!

The final signage:

30 minutes later I was at the train station and on my way back to Zurich. A long wonderful day in the Alps. I want more!

Yesterday did an incredible hike only two hours from Zurich. It’s in an area that is called, yes really, Heidi Land. Tall alpine mountains, lots of lakes, gorgeous. My hike was the 7 Peaks Hike.

To get there I took a tram, two trains (both alongside lakes), bus, and two (!) gondolas. Yikes. Ended up at the very top but still the hike was hard.

First , a coffee at the panoramic restaurant. Well, I’m not in Italy anymore: weak coffee. Sigh… But the view was great and there were sheepskin blankets at all the seats. You can see the gondola below.

Then up and at ’em. The first peak was Ziger. Very near by.

One down. Six to go. Took my time. Took the views. You never know what you’ll see.

Leist was #2. Then a major descent but then up up up.

Ready for lunch by this time!

To be continued when I’m not so tired…

No, this post has nothing to do with Coronavirus!  I’ve been wanting to publish these photos ever since I got back, but… So now finally, here they are!

Take a break and look at some drop-dead gorgeous photos of XC skiing in the Aosta Valley, in the northwest corner of Italy near France.

I took several trips to the Dolomites (already blogged about) in January and February to prepare for the Masters World Cup XC ski races on March 4-12. Wow, only six weeks ago! The World Cup was one of the first events to be cancelled, in a seemingly endless list. As of today, I have nothing planned in the future. At all. Strange.

When the races were cancelled, since they were only 5 hours away by car, I decided to go anyhow. The Aosta valley is a very remote area, just south of Chamonix. The snow wasn’t great, but that could change, and the exercise would be good regardless. I threw my skis in the car and drove. On the way, I got my first real sign of the virus: a completely empty highway service station. Turned out the nearby village had some of the early cases.

I stopped in the town of Aosta before heading up the narrow valley: Roman ruins and wide open piazzas.

Way way up a steep valley perched the tiny village of Cogne. It was quiet and the hotel was mostly silent. After I checked in, I wandered the almost vertical alleys of the hill town.

I also went up to a village above Cogne and took a shot from there of the main ski area.

I ran into another guest and it turned out there were only three of us staying the hotel: me and two other American skiers from Alaska, Dorothy and Cindy. How unexpected and wonderful to have company! I’d thought I’d be on my own. The three of us got along great and did several ski adventures together. They are much better skiers than me, but it all worked out.

At breakfast, there were only us three guests.  All this food, and only three women to eat it. Very strange.

The very next day a major snow storm hit and the landscape changed. The trees bowed under piles of snow, the ski tracks were invisible, and the town became a puffy white wonderland. We were so happy! We knew we’d have plenty of good snow the rest of the week. Hooray! In aact, one ski area had so much snow they couldn’t open for several days.

The sun came out a day later and we skied up the valley to the village of Valnotay. Beautiful!

When Friday and Saturday arrived, so did many people from the Milan area. Lots of kids because schools had closed. There were plenty of people in the hotel and the restaurant was full for dinner. We didn’t think badly about them bringing the virus with them because it still felt like something “other” that had nothing to do with us. We sympathized with their desire to escape. The hot tub and spa room at the hotel was packed!

On the weekend, with all these people clogging the tracks (!), we got adventurous and headed down to Aosta and up to St Bartelemy on the other side. A narrow twisty road up to the tiny resort, very steep, almost scary. But eventually we arrived. OMG! incredible skiing. And a bar. Of course. And sunshine. We could see far across the Aosta valley to mountains in the distance. Amazing. Beyond amazing!

Worth noting in the above photo, there’s a really good system of snow hiking trails in all these snow areas. You don’t even need snowshoes. You can take the kids and the dog and walk in normal hiking shoes. And there’s always a restaurant/cafe somewhere!

Here’s the view towards Mont Blanc and the French-Swiss Alps. We passed this view on our way to Val Ferret, which was finally open. It’s a tiny but gorgeous resort that is tucked in on the Italian side of Mont Blanc and it had been walloped by the storm on Thursday.

The skiing was extraordinary. Just perfect. Mostly flat, but it was a good change for me. My legs were tired!  I stopped soften to take in the view. I took several videos so you can see how it looked. We skied along the jagged ridge of Swiss Alps. Incredible. And it was another day of unbelievable sunshine.

We met up at a restaurant along the trail and had Aperol cocktails (of course!)  and lunch, with wine. Life is good skiing here!

Check out these videos (all shot vertically alas. Next time horizontal… ) : Val Ferret, More Val Ferret, Val Ferret Short

We met several Australian skiers and a few Americans, so had some fun cocktail hours and a few group dinners. It was very fun and I hope we stay connected. As the week went on, the virus had caught up with us. Cindy’s flight home was cancelled and then the two of them rearranged their travels asap to avoid being trapped in Italy. The Australian couple left early to drive back into Switzerland to avoid being stuck and Friedl, a top biathlete, also escaped to Switzerland because the Italian biathlon range where he was planning to train for the competitions in Finland had just summarily closed. [Update:Unfortunately, I have since checked the web and found that his biathlon events were also cancelled. What a bummer for him!!]

By the last day, everyone had left, but the ski places seemed to be still open. I was alone once more and decided to go to another ski area that my friend Mary Lee had recommended: Etroubles (you can imagine how we pronounced this name?!) in the valley of St Rhemy. It was snowing as I drove up yet another steep road, which made me nervous since I didn’t have snow tires. But it all worked out.

I found a ski track, parked my car, and wandered up the valley. I spoke with a skier who was coming in and he said they’d groomed the night before. By now, with the snowing, the tracks weren’t very visible, but you could see where they went. Ah well, that was enough. After a loop on classic skis, I came back to the car, switched skis and did another loop. On my way back, a bulldozer had just scooped up the track as he cleared a parking lot. Okay. I turned around and went the other way. When I got back to my car this time, the trail had been closed.

Driving back down hill… more incredible views!

To finish off this unexpected and wonderful week, the last night I was moved into a different hotel because my old one was completely empty and I had a room overlooking the main ski start/finish area. It was a night of full moon, so here’s my last shot. It was so bright, I could have gone out and skied!

But it’s also a great time to discover how much wine you can get through in a week, to learn how much butter really goes into scones that you like to eat most mornings, and to see how long you can go without washing your hair before someone says something.

My life is empty of stress. My life is bathed in stress.

I have no appointments to go to, no retail therapy, no bike trips w/logistics, so my days are calm and pleasant. I can write blog postings, try new dishes, and explore drawing.

I have the uncertainty of not knowing how long this will last or who in my social circle will die. I have the certainty that the world will be severely impacted by this medical and economic catastrophe. I am relieved every night when it’s time to go to bed. Whew, another day wrapped up. But some nights I don’t sleep well. It’s too unsettling.

And some mornings I wake up feeling that I must explode! I cannot take this one day more!Then I tell myself to calm down, to have my cup of tea and scone, to let the day come to me. And it does, with its energy and enjoyments. But the day starts are sometimes rough.

Here’s a rich color-filled photo for you in the mornings. A friend in my photography group took it. It’s a perfect classic, isn’t it?

and more scones…

What news here? The numbers of new cases are finally dropping (only a 2.3%, down from a high of 15% on the 19th March. We all hope that after Easter some restrictions may loosen, but most will continue for a long time. And once we can stop fearing death, we can switch to fearing economic collapse. Italy and everywhere will be very different afterwards.

Every country seems to have different rules. You’re supposed to only wander within 200 meters of your home. Garden shops and nurseries are all open, so I can get started on my balcony garden. Opticians, bakeries, and fruit/veg shops are all open. Here in Tuscany you must now wear a mask if you go outside. Finally I bought one yesterday and it came with its own certificate of functionality from a city in Jiangsu China.

Stationary stores are closed. An odd result of this was that the aisle in the Esselunga supermarket that held pens and pads of paper and crayons had police tape over it. You could see the items but you couldn’t buy them. I needed a red biro pen, but no luck. The government wanted shoppers to focus on only essential and necessary things. Well, with all the kids at home all day every day, mothers around the country made a huge internet protest and the government backed down. Turns out crayons and magic markers are essential and necessary! So now the tape is gone.

My neighbor Patricia and I take a walk into the hills behind the house every couple days. The visits with her, a real person (!), keep me sane. She’s not confident in her English, so we speak Italian. I discover I can carry on a normal chitchat in Italian. Yay! We hike up a combination of paved roads and rocky narrow trails. Up and down, up and around. On the way back down from Santa Lucia we stop at an abandoned washing area to drink pure clean water.

Once in a while, we go the other way, down Via Cannoreto. Patricia has a friend, Pier Paolo (with a gorgeous deep voice!), who grows his own veggies. We go over with a backpack and buy today-fresh green onions, chard, chicory, leeks, celery, and cabbage. We’ll probably go tomorrow. Pier Paolo used to with for a high-level government agency for agricultural research. Now he farms. His wife is an accomplished jeweler. Neighbors.

But Easter is coming and two good things are this shop window

and this wonderful Easter loaf!

I had to go to Camaiore last Sunday to get a newspaper and the streets and piazzas were completely empty.

I took that excuse to ride around the town and see this lovely church (the Badia)

and to discover the gassed-water dispenser. Room temperature and cold natural water are free, but you pay E0.05 for a liter of fizzy. And parked next to it a raw milk trailer. I can get a bottle of fresh raw milk for E1.

There were a few low energy days where I feared I’d caught the virus, but I’ve bounced back. Reminds me of the early 80s in San Francisco when you feared AIDS with every cold.

To end this post, here’s a photo of priest who’s speaking to an empty church but with photos of his parishioners.

That’s it, for in-person interaction. It is enough, but only just. Connecting with people is the emotional juice and energy that restores and invigorates all life!

Plenty of internet socializing though… Chats with friends. My book club has gone online. Family+friend dinners several nights. My good friend Anne and I continue to video chat on Thursday, which we’ve kept going for a couple years.

Plus endless texts and newspaper articles and funny/wonderful videos. Some days it’s way too much: Too many social engagements. Too many emails. Too many tests and funny videos. Hard to be my normal introvert hermit. On Sunday, I took a day without news. Whew.

But I’ve been reading the Italian newspapers most days and my Italian gets better…

In the physical world, my life is very contained. I run up the hilly roads behind the house and hike some of the hill trails with my neighbor, although we are cutting that back after a fellow in a small village we passed through yelled at us. Plus the fines have gone up to E500.

Note: the statue of the twisted person in the left is my mom’s sculpture.

I ride my bike to the store, which takes 15 mins across fields and along water ditches.

I do yoga and other workouts in my living room.

The psychic unease is sometimes great. I’ve got complete freedom. I don’t even need to stress about filing taxes in April. All my trips have been cancelled. No need to rush anywhere since everywhere is closed. No need to clean my house or put gas in the car or make it a gym class.

So I could just lounge in bed… Ouch!!. I’ve got some projects that give me pleasure and structure. I’m just finishing up a mammoth project of photobooks for all my Bicycle Adventure Club trips. One each for Piedmont, Le Marche, France, and three for the Israel-Jordan trip (Petra and Wadi Rum get one for themselves!). I’ve also done a 80-pager for the bits and bobs of my life in Italy. It’s made me plow through all my photos in the last three years and make decisions about which are good (enough) and which are rubbish (most). Very fun. Very time consuming.

Coming up over the next few weeks is a new group. My friend Emily is setting up a weekly forum for poetry. I’d like to join them, so I’ll have to write some poetry. Or at least read some I can share. I’ve been wanting to do this, so it fits in well.

Having said all this, since I’m an introvert at heart (maybe an “ambivert” overall), on some days I revel in the soliture, the lack of obligations. This can be an incredible time of opportunity and self-challenge. I can finally unpack and organize all my mom’s leftovers and my own already-way-too-much stuff. I can take tiny steps into learning to draw and paint. I can write, prose and poetry, without interruption. I can build a daily practice of self care that’s quiet and reflective. I can learn to cook more adventurously (disasters can be tossed!).

I derive great comfort from the idea that the new case numbers are slowing and reducing here in Italy. It isn’t a solid drop, but they do indeed seem to have peaked. I haven’t heard an ambulance in a couple days, whereas last week they were going by all too frequently. On Sunday evening, the bells in the nearby Capezzano Pianore church are ringing. Are they bidding farewell to a parishioner who’s died or is the the normal Sunday series of rings? They have rung a lot many days. If I’m riding past (to get my newspaper), I stop to watch the huge bells fling themselves outside the tower. No electronic substitutes here.

This lockdown has been hard on everyone and people are less friendly, more cautious. If I pass someone on a walk, they move to the other side of the road and don’t smile.

Today it’s very windy and chilly. And will be for a while. But Spring will not be stopped. Flowers are coming out, buds are sprouting on trees, local farmers have plowed their fields. And strawberries are coming into season. Delicious!

This too shall pass.

Empty parking lots and highways

One place not empty of cars is the rental car lot at Pisa airport.

Only two flights going out yesterday, to Munich and to Amsterdam, and the Amsterdam flight was cancelled!

Lots of restrictions on queuing for shops. At the big Esselunga market, people spread themselves out very wide.

At my local newspaper shop, people are allowed to enter one at a time.

But it’s still lovely here. Spring is on its way…

Someone has a painting in his front yard. Who knows why…