Saint-Vincent

Looking at the door to our apartment I was struck by how quickly the culture changes when you go between countries on the continent. Within the UK you cross a border between Scotland and England and it isn’t obvious looking about you. But going between France and Switzerland and, more recently, between Switzerland and Italy the changes are immediate and quite startling. Some examples. Going back to the door. This was an inside door to our apartment, from a stair serving 4 or 5 apartments which itself was secured by a locked door. And yet our door required a 5 point steel bar mechanism the like of which I have never seen before. The day before, in Switzerland, at the hostel, there were a couple of hundred folk staying with all their fancy gear lying about, not a locked door in the place. The corridor was littered with fancy phones, bike batteries, GPS units galore all spending the night being recharged.

The traffic. In Switzerland anyone approaching near a zebra crossing brought all traffic, both ways, to a halt just in case you decided to cross the road. A couple of hours drive across the border in Italy and, if you are foolhardy, you can just about persuade drivers to stop if you throw yourself onto the crossing but I really wouldn’t advise it.

And then we have the prices. In Switzerland they frequently have an odd rule about a minimum spend of 10SFr in order to pay by card. I say odd because it is almost impossible to buy anything that costs less than 10SFr. In Italy I bought 2 pastries and a sort of tart for our (healthy) breakfast for about 4€.
Anyway, I digress.

An interesting day’s walk. Weather was just about perfect. Temperature in mid twenties, blue skies, a cooling headwind enough to refresh but not chill. I had decided against the official route which tended to climb from the valley floor only to drop down after a while and then go back up again. And repeat. Scenic but knackering. Instead we took the cycle route which stayed on the valley floor, close to the river, mostly on a dedicated cycle path. Probably annoyed some cyclists. Quite hard on the feet walking 20 miles on road surfaces but much kinder on the legs. And it meant you were able to get some lunch. Had a piadina which is a sort of flat bread. Fine and very reasonably priced.

Very fancy hotel although the double bed was split into twin beds faster than you would think possible. Dinner of charcuterie followed by risotto. Very good.

Important discovery on ice creams. Apologies for those who are way ahead of me on this but it was new to me. You get far more ice cream for two scoops on a cone then in a carton. Impossible to eat without requiring a shower and change of clothes but worth it. Extensive experimentation will be done over the next 5 weeks believe me.Read more