Photo Update

Today has turned out to be a great day to update the blog and post photos. We went out this morning to the grocery stores, returned for lunch, and soon after the sky opened up! It’s currently raining here. It was pouring harder than I’ve ever heard before and hailing as well. Luckily we didn’t go out for a ride. Our intention for today was to do laundry as well, but unless it dries up out there, we won’t be doing that. 

As promised, here are lots of photos and captions from the past three days. 

Isola Madre is home to the original 16th century villa and botanical gardens. Here is a view of some flowers with Verbania Pallanza as the backdrop about one mile away.

The whole island is immaculately groomed. Here is a view of a staircase up to the villa from besides the chapel. Today this area also includes some more modern buildings that house a snack bar, book store, and bathrooms. 

Geckos are everywhere here. They’re very hard to photograph since they are small and very fast.

A view from Isola Bella across to Isola Madre and Pallanza. 

The landscaping on Isola Madre must take a lot of people a lot of effort, as it has for nearly 500 years.

Just look at all of those vine flowers growing up the side of the villa. 

The palace at Isola Bella housed a music room which featured a few harpsichords. This one was the most well displayed, likely the most ornate. 

The mosaic tile of the floors in many of the rooms is unbelievable. It is very hard to capture especially with people and furniture in the room, but the scale and detail of these designs all made up of tiny cm2 tiles is incredible. 

Isola Bella also has amazing gardens, but the main feature is this landscaping with the sculptures. The best way to get a good photo of it is to get a post card. Then there will be no people in it. Otherwise, it’s a very popular tourist destination. 

We ate a wonderful meal at Osteria del Castello. The kitchen is upstairs with a dumbwaiter to transport everything to the wait starff.

Green Eggs and Ham

One of the most beautiful views all trip. I love the view from the top of the mountains, but this valley view is equally as incredible. 

The cow has just given birth to her calf moments before we arrived. 

The view from the dam at Alpe Cheggio. 

The color of the water at the mountain lake at Alpe Cheggio was unreal.

Cows chilling out in Cheggio/

The flies didn’t seem to phase this young cow. 

A calf feeding from his mother. 

A well earned plate of Risotto Funghi Porcini, and we didn’t even have to go out. 

Italians, and in this case Swiss, do love their signs. There are signs for everything, but especially hiking trails. Everywhere we’ve ridden here has tons of hiking trails. This must be one of the best places in the world to hike. It think you could hike for weeks, only visiting small towns and mountain shelters to take refuge and get supplies.

Recycling is very important to Italians and Swiss. This sign was at the top of the Alpe di Neggia in the middle of nowhere. They are trying to stress the importance of not littering on the trails. 

On the steepest slopes of the north side of Alpe di Neggia. 12% grade for a long time. 

Kristen arriving at the top of the Alpe di Neggia from the north side. Incredible and dramatic view of Locarno, Swizterland  with a backdrop of the Swiss Alps. 

Here are the goats we ran into once we re-entered Italy. You can see how many of them are just chilling out in the road. Further up the road where most of the 20 or so goats were situated, a many was try to get them out of the road so he could get to his parked car. These goats became our friends for while.

This was the first goat to approach us. She led the other goats to us but quickly lost interest in favor of eating some brush and then relieving herself in the road. 

Once these goats realized how salty Kristen’s bike and cycling shorts were for all the sweating and drying they wouldn’t stop licking her and her bike. It was adorable.

And it tickled. 

These goats were so friendly and so cute!

We could have stayed there all day with them but they probably would have eaten our clothes and our bikes and we would have been left to wander the mountains of Lombardia like naked gypsys. 

So much cycling... so little energy to write.

The past two days have been a whirlwind of great cycling. Yesterday after riding almost 80 miles and cooking dinner, I had no energy left to do much more than sit by the lake and watch the lightening of storms beyond Mottarone. Tonight, after an incredibly epic ride, I’m pretty much in the same place. Alas, I’ll write because if I don’t, I’m going to get off track with keeping up this blog. 

Part 1: Alpe Cheggio

Let’s begin with yesterday’s ride. Like I said, just under 80 miles. The destination was Alpe Cheggio, which is a mountain just south of Domodossola, west of Villadossola. The ride there was wonderful once we got beyond Gravelona Toce. On flat roads with a tailwind, we sailed through many valley villages, first of which was Ornovaso, the hometown of Elisa Longo Borghini. She has been around training and we were hoping one of these days we’d run into her. We’ve come close. The flat road through shared a path with the autostrada but in was mostly quiet and stunningly beautiful to ride through corn fields set between giant mountains. All the towns were neat too. Beautiful churches, farms, everything you’d expect from an Italian town. 

Along the way, we stopped to see a cow who had clearly just given birth to a calf. The calf was not yet up but the mother was licking it and I’m sure not too long after the calf got on it’s hooves. We checked back on the way home but the farmer must have brought them into the barn. We continued on from there into Villadossola, which is where we turned up and onto the climb. The climb at first was very mild, much like the climb we did on Tuesday. Very long, but very gradual. And gradually the gradient increased. Once we reached the quaint mountain town of Antronapiana the climb to Cheggio really began. It wasn’t terribly difficult, but there were no shortage of switchbacks, one after the other for quite some time. 

When we reached Cheggio we were treated to incredible views of the high Alps, a quiet village, many cows, and a large Alpine lake being held back by a giant dam. We rode out onto the dam, admired the remarkable turquoise water, and had a snack. Before we began the descent, I was able to take some photos of the dam, the view, and the cows. There were many young cows, some calves. What a place to be a cow!

The descent took us quickly back to Antronapiana where we paused when we heard the church organ resounding through the ancient streets. It was immediately clear that it was just the organist practicing on a Thursday afternoon. We stuck our heads in to listen for just a few moments and then carried on our way. The final part of the descent was really fun. There were some long straightaways of very safe wide road which while only declined at about -5%, was awesome to rip down. 

The return trip brought us onto the other side of the river, and while we faced an ugly headwind, we were back to Mergozzo in little enough time. The ride from Mergozzo to Verbania, especially after Fondotoce, is always a drag race. It’s just a fast piece of road, especially at “rush hour”. Even with all those miles in the legs, it’s hard not to ride it fast. All in all, it was a great ride with a perfect mix of climbing, descending, and fast flat roads. 

Part 2: Alpe di Neggia

Anyone who knows me knows that I generally despise doing “out-and-back” rides, wherein you go the same roads out and back. There is a local ride back home which does this and I think it’s incredibly stupid given how many great roads we have. 

Here, there are tons of great roads too. On my last trip in an effort to avoid out-and-back rides, I avoided everything that couldn’t be part of a loop. That means I never did the rides to Cicogna, ValGrande, or Alpe Cheggio. I’ve come to realize that these are amazing rides and there are tons of them that you can do here. 

That said, today’s ride could have easily been some sort of loop, at least for the most part. However, I really wanted to do the Alpe di Neggia pass into Switzerland but I couldn’t decide which side to do and didn’t want to ride on the lake for too long. Kristen said last night after yesterday’s ride, which was hard but not insane, that we really needed to do something epic. Challenge accepted!

There is a lot of epic riding that can be done here. I put together a 100mi ride with 20,000ft of climbing. That is just too epic! That would be close to the stats for one of the hardest Tour de France stages ever. What we settled on was a mostly out and back to Alpe di Neggia, which included climbing it from the south side including the Focara Pass, descending the north side into Switzerland and basically tuning right back around up going back up. Granted this is not like going over the Sourland Mountain on Lindberg and coming back again the opposite way. The Alpe di Neggia pass peaks at 4800ft above sea level. The north side alone is 12.5km at 9.5% average grade. And this is after we climbed it already from the other side. We decided we had to do it. 

The ride started by cruising to Intra to take the ferry across to the other size of lake to the town Laveno, and then riding about 14 miles up the lakeside road, though many tunnels, to Maccagno where the ascent began. As I mentioned we climbed the south side with the addition of the Focara Pass which brought up higher up on the mountain to see some sweeping views of Lago Maggiore. The was a short descent after climbing some steep grades to get back to the main road SP5, which crossed in Switzerland climbing up to the 4800ft Alpe di Neggia. When we reached the top many kilometers later, we were treated to an unforgettable view of Locarno, Switzerland to the north, and the part of Lago Maggiore from where we came to the south. 

The descent was a bit of reconnaissance since we knew that in short time we’d be climbing back up the thing. It was immediately apparent how steep of a climb it would be once we started down. After a luckily uneventful descent we were back on the lake to a bench for a snack before heading back up. The north side of the pass is absolutely the harder way and when we hit the bottom we had already racked up 5500ft of climbing for the day. The climb is consistently steep, but it never get above 12%. That said there were who kilometers where it didn’t drop below 11%. It was testing, but finally after over and hour of climbing, we heard the cowbells of more mountain cows and saw the hotel that sits atop the pass. 

There wasn’t much delay. Our of water and with no Swiss Francs to buy anything, we beelined it down the other side to get back into Italy and find a little town with a store that accepted Euros. At the border there is nothing that resembles customs or a border, all of a sudden the road is labeled SP5 and you start to see Italian flags on houses instead of Swiss ones.

Just as we crossed into Italy, however, we were stopped dead in our tracks but a pack of at least 20 mountain goats. The were taking up the entire road, some of them just laying down like they were in a pasture. Unsure as to how to proceed, we stopped, which is when several curious goats approached us. We were quick to make friends. First one came over then three. I was trying to get out my phone to take some photos when all of a sudden the goats were sticking their heads between my handle bars. I tried to explain to them that I had nothing for them to eat, but it was clear they didn’t care about that, they were just happy to see us. Given how much climbing and then descending we did, how much sweating then drying, and our bikes were very salty. The goats like that! They started at first licking parts of the bike and then two of them decided the best source of salt was Kristen’s legs and shorts. We must have been there five minutes before they finally content to move on. We probably could have hung out with them all day if we didn’t have anywhere to go. They were so friendly. As it so happens, one of my students raises goats. He is showing a goat at the Hunterdon 4-H Fair this week. He told me that goats love to be petted between their horns because it’s the one stop they can’t get to. He was right. These mountain goats were thrilled to get rubbed on the head. It’s so surprising because even the sheep at Kristen’s family’s farm are quite flighty, despite being around people. These goats were more friendly than any animal I’ve ever seen. You have to be careful of any animal like this, especially ones with such big horns, but these goats were our best friends. It was wild! Definitely a highlight of the ride!

From there, we found our little store with some water, made our way back down to Maccagno and then it was a crazy “rush hour” ride though Luino back to Laveno. On the final push into town, the Garmin clicked over 10,000ft of climbing, more than I’ve ever done before, and likely more than I’ll do for some time. We arrived in Laveno road a cool down around the block, grabbed some well deserved granita, and were back on the ferry to Intra, with a short easy ride back to our apartment. 

It was absolutely an epic day. 75 miles with just over 10k feet of climbing. It’ll be a day to remember, that’s for sure, and Kristen and I, while tired, are absolutely thrilled that we did it. That’s is why we came here after all. We have three more days of riding, though tomorrow will certainly be a real recovery day, with a trip to both the grocery store and the laundromat. After that we’ll see how the legs feel for Sunday. 

I know that this is a ton of writing to read and no photos. We have lots of photos and still owe photos from Wednesday, but right now it’s 12:30 and I need to go to sleep. Please check back sometime tomorrow. I’ll have photos up with captions from all three days. 

Isole Borromee

Today we forewent our usual cycling in favor a rest day and some tourist activities. On this trip we’ll do very few tourist activities. I think I used to like touristy stuff well enough but now I’ve been to Italy enough that I’d rather just hang out, ride, and eat. However, the Borromean Islands in Lago Maggiore are quite a sight to be seen. The trip to them on the ferry is quick yet enjoyable. It’s nice to see the mountains from the lake, as opposed to the lake from the mountains, which is what we get cycling.

It was a sunny and warm Italian day, perfect to spend visiting botanical gardens and villas. Our first stop was Isola Madre, which is the main island featuring the gardens and original villa dating from the mid-1500s. It’s a beautiful atmosphere filled with aromatic flowers, plants and trees from around the world, and many peacocks. The villa is expansive and well set at the top of the hill that makes up the island. Touring around it you get a glimpse into what it must have been like throughout the past 500 years living at this estate. The Borromeo family was beyond wealthy and well connected. They were tied in with other powerful families like the infamous Medici as well as the papacy and Catholic Church. The villa on Isole Madre was only one of many estates owned by the family. 

The second is the palace on Isole Bella, respendant with it’s sulptures and well manicured gardens. This palace, built in the early-1800s is more grand than the villa on Isola Madre. The palace sits at the south end of the island, and it’s gardens expand all the way to the northern end. It’s beauty is beyond words. Of course there were more peacocks as well. The peacocks are very used to people and will get really close. I even saw someone feeding one from his hand. They are regal birds and it’s amazing to see them up close, but it’s interesting to note that despite their grace they still walk bobbing their head like a common farm chicken or city pigeon. 

Both estates feature different style architecture of course, but both are equally incredible. Again, another one of those days when we could taken thousands of pictures. One of the main things that is apparent about the Borromeo family is how much they loved putting on marionette shows. A half dozen rooms between the two estates featured giant and extremely elaborate sets, musical instruments, playbills, music, and of course the string puppets themselves. It’s quite remarkable. Between the buildings and grounds, the furniture and art, etc it is a great window into the attention to detail people put into things when they took the time to worry about such things. You look at some of the carving on the furniture or think about how much work it would be to build these structure on normal land, no less an island, and you realize that we’ve gotten impatient and satisfied with simplicity a little too much now. People must have had a lot more focus and determination back then. Probably less distractions too. 

Besides the somewhat expensive visit to these islands (you have to pay for the boat ride and pay for entrance into the villas), we spent the rest of the day after a very late lunch walking to and around Intra. We stopped in a few shops, best of which was a Do It Yourself store, which was basically a hardware store, kitchen store, garden store, craft store, and more all put into one. We stumbled across it on this back alley in a modern part of town that no tourist would ever find. We barely found it ourselves. I left with a metric tape measure that has no inches to be found on it. I’m excited about that. There was tons of stuff in there I could buy and after a day spent around overpriced tourist BS that you can find anyhwere in Italy, I was thrilled to find a real Italian store where no tourists probably ever go. 

We wandered around some more and eventually ended up in the main part of Verbania, which you probably know by now is called Intra. Here can be found many shops, all of which were starting to close up for the day. We stopped in a few, but nothing peaked our interests. Intra has a lot more shops and restaurants, so we decided why not stop in somewhere for dinner tonight. After a long sit on a bench in Piazza Ranzoni I started looking at the Michelin guide website and found a place a few meters away that was given a Michelin plate, which unlike the stars which are reserved for high end cuisine, the plate is awarded for restaurants that have really good food but are more typical. 

This particular place, called Osteria del Castello was situated in the quiet Piazza del Castello and served traditional food in a nice yet casual environment. We shared half of a large outdoor fourtop table with a young Italian couple who were there a bit before us. The whole place was like this. Long tables shared between guests, typical of an osteria. An osteria generally is a casual restaurant with an emphasis on “bar food” Italian-style. This is a Michelin plate osteria so the food was great and the place was busy with many Italians. We really enjoyed the meal and the setting left for our long walk back with very full stomachs. I’d certainly go back there again. I think the Michelin guide might be the way to go. My favorite restaurant in Pallaza also is on the Michelin plate list. I didn’t know that, but it’s the best restaurant I’ve eaten at on this side of town so that makes sense. There is also a Michelin star restaurant here in Pallanza but I don’t think I have the budget or desire to try that right now. 

After walking and sweating a ton today, I’m ready to go to bed with plans to do a long ride tomorrow. I’ll post more photos from our day sometime tomorrow, I’m just running out of energy and photos take a while to load and configure with our internet situation. 

Insieme- Together

The last time I did the ride we did today, I wrote on this blog a post called Solo-Alone  In this post, I wrote about how this ride was one ride of many that is inevitably the solo ride. This time, I had Kristen to share the ride with. Last time it felt like a long ride; today we rode even more miles that my previous route and it went by as quickly as any other 70 mile ride. Riding alone is part of cycling training, but I was glad to have company today... and everyday, really.

We started in a roundabout way (no pun intended, there are tons of roundabouts here), heading towards the scenic panoramic road just for variety. We rode through Intra, made a few turns, and I realized we should be going a different way. An awkward turnaround later, we were headed in a better direction, and of course uphill. In an effort to find a little quieter roads, we avoided the lakeside Strada Statale, in favor of a little road parallel to it, up on the ridge. The scenery is better, there are less cars, and the little climb to get up there is a good warm-up. 

About 10km later we were back down along the lake, on a beautiful section of road, heading north towards Cannobio, where our turn north west into Valle Cannobio awaited us. Seeing as how we were already 30km into the ride and we had a 22km climb ahead of us, we stopped for a quick snack on a park bench under some pine trees, and then carried on for 22km of mild grades through the valley while passing a half dozen villages along the way. There could of been a hundred times that we could have stopped to take photographs, the scenery was that beautiful, but once you’re climbing, you don’t really want to stop. 

At the summit of the pass, we stopped to admire a monument placed in rememberance of Marco Pantani, wherein one of his local fan clubs dedicated the pass to him. From there we descended quickly to a little town called Malesco. Malesco is one these beautiful places that let you know quickly that you are practically in Switzerland. The architecture is half Italian/ half Swiss. Especially notable are the stone roofs that you typically see on mountainside huts making their way into larger buildings in town. I got a little lost in Malesco last time I did this ride, which while beautiful, is especially challenging because most of the town is paved in stone. Not really cobbles, actual stone. It’s tough to ride on, especially when you’re lost and making lots of turns while staring at the Garmin map. Today, we make the correct turns and were out of it all too quickly. 

We likely would have stopped there if not for the impending rain between us and Domodossola, which was our destination for a late lunch. Mountain weather is very strange. It’s very hard to read where it’s raining, where it’s going to rain, etc. With that unpredictability’s in mind, we pressed on, up a painful false flat uphill before the remaining descend began. 

Just as we started heading down, the rain started, I think. I say “I think” because I’m not actually sure it was raining much, but it must have just poured. The roads were soaked. It was a bummer for two reasons. First, this descent is one of my favorites I’ve ever done. It’s not really technical, the road is a State road so it’s wide, and the pavement is everything you’d expect from a bigger road on the Italian/ Swiss border. Unfortunately we had to take it more gently since we were pretty well soaked. Secondly, the giant Swiss Alps just beyond Domodossola were hidden by a curtain of thick clouds, and that view was one of the most memorable from my previous trip here in 2014.

One of my favorite things about this descent is the 700m tunnel that we go through. It’s probably a 8% grade downhill through it, and it’s very well lit. Today we couldn’t zoom through as quickly as I did last time, which was a bummer because I was really looking forward to it. I almost want to do this ride again just to do that descent. Once we exited the tunnel, it was like it had never rained. The roads were dry, but now we were stuck behind some cars. I hate getting stuck behind cars of descents. Ruins all the fun!

We stopped in Domodossola to eat lunch as planned. Domodossola is a railway hub for trains into and out of Switzerland through the Simpson Pass, which is of historic significance. Domodossola has existed in some capacity since before the Roman Empire. It’s an interesting town because so of it is so historic and well preserved, while a lot of it is modernized. That’s Italy really. It’s not just a tourist attraction, people live and work there every single day. I wouldn’t mind living there. 

We visited Piazza del Mercato which is beautiful. Less beautiful, but equally interesting to us was a quick stop in at Barale Ciclomania bike shop. When Michael at Wheelfine says he has a European-style bike shop, he’s not lying. This shop is exactly like Wheelfine except the ceilings are higher, which allows for even more inventory stacked sixteen feet in the air. An older husband and wife must own the place. It’s filled with Italian everything. I wish we could visit it without our bike so we could really browse. One of the most interesting things about the shop is that the service portion and the sales portions are in two different shops across the street from each other. I guess they ran out of space. It’s a little nutty but after spending so much time at Wheelfine, I felt very at home there. Apparently they have another store in Verbania Intra, so we’ll try to visit that at some point too. 

Our ride home was flat as anything gets here. We were flying for the most part. First though the “Italian Suburbs” which was very strange. It’s weird to see individual houses on flat land with their own yards all grouped together. It’s not totally like American developments, but it’s like nothing else we’ve seen in Italy anywhere else. We zoomed through one town then the next until we arrived in Mergozzo. Mergozzo is a really lovely town on Lago Mergozzo, just south of Lago Maggiore. We stopped there for one final snack after trading some tough pulls on the flat road. We stayed a while to watch a guy and his very happy dog play fetch off the dock and into the lake. The dog had endless energy. Since we didn’t, we cruised back the last five miles into Pallanza and the day of riding was done. A nice 70 miles in the books. 

The big event of the evening was Kristen cooking her own dinner. I helped her a little bit, but she did it mostly herself. She really wanted Spaghetti alle Vongole but since lupini di mare were priced better, she prepared them instead. Basically the same as clams, just smaller. Being a vegetarian, I know only one thing about cooking shellfish, which is that if they don’t open, you don’t eat them. Kristen did a great job of cooking them with white wine and while a few flew like popped corn when we added the shelled meat to the olive oil, Kristen said it was pretty succuessful. Since she prepared a half pound of pasta she’ll have some leftovers for another meal. Seafood can be expensive but if she gets two and half meals out of it, not bad. Cooking from a recipe is tough, especially for a person who doesn’t cook. There is a lot of intuitaion that comes from experience and a lot of finese that can be lost when having to read a recipe, so I think the next time she ventures into clams it’ll come more naturally. Regardless, her meal turned out better than mine. My meal got away from me. At least the bread and salad were really good. My pasta... not so much. 

After a little evening walk down to the lake, midnight is here and past. Tomorrow we’ll take a rest day and do some tourist activities. We’ll visit the Borromean Islands and maybe Villa Taranto. I’ll try to take lots of pictures. I did bring my real camera. 

Living In Italy

Some people go on vacation to Italy. They travel from place to place seeing lots of the country’s most visited tourist destinations while staying in nice hotels, eating a continental breakfast at the hotel and lunch and dinner at restaurants. They are in the country for a week to ten days, and so they bring along enough clothing to never have to do laundry. A visit to the grocery store is rare, if only to pick up a snack or a bottle of water. 

What we’re doing is basically living in Italy like retirees. It’s like we live here, renting an apartment just without the responsibility of going to work. That means, groceries need to be bought, meals cooked, laundry done, trash/ recycling taken out on the appropriate days and cans taken back in*, and cleaning done around the apartment. It might not sound like vacation to some, but don’t think I’d enjoy it half as much any other way. It’s as if for a few weeks every other year or so, we get to live our dream of living in Italy. We use our bikes or our feet to get around, just like many people here. Perhaps it’s best not to call it vacation... but I quite enjoy it. 

One thing I’ve learned is that living the Italian way is to grocery shop in small batches. Fridges are small, you can only carry so much, and while large supermarkets have replaced the stereotypical street markets, the idea is the same. Get what is fresh and cheap, even if you get to use a shopping cart and a frequent shopper card to do it. The market is cool, but here in Verbania you don’t see very many Italians there, it’s mostly tourists and it’s priced accordingly. I want to experience the romanticized Italian market, but in reality if I’m keeping with the theme of “living in Italy” the supermarket is the way to go. 

So today, living a retiree lifestyle in Italy, we did a “recovery ride.” Kristen came up with the route more or less. She saw a town on Google Maps and said, “let’s go there!” And we did. It was only a 20 mile ride. We knew there would be climbing because aside from riding along the lake, everything is a climb here. We basically climbed from the moment we stepped out of the door. It was very gradual and beautiful making our way through little towns that surround Verbania, perfect for a recovery spin. 

The real climbing started once we crossed Ponte Nivia. It was gradual enough at first, heading up to Intraga. It was past that town that things got real. The entire climb from the bridge (ponte in Italian) was 4.3mi at an average of 9.9% climbing 2300ft. The final 2.1mi beyond Intragna climbed the final 1300ft at an average of 11%. Most of the time my Garmin read 13-15%. For at least half a mile, it was pinned at 15%. Quite brutal. 

The views however were spectacular. The top was not much to see except for a parking lot for hiking trails in ValGrande, but it served as a good spot to sit down and eat some focaccia. The descent was slow going until we got back to Intragna due to a half dozen drainage grates that spanned the road with slots wide enough to eat a tire. Once we got back to Intragna and stopped to take in the view across all of Verbania and Lago Maggiore, we were able to enjoy the twisting descent while stopping at one point to smell some purple flowers. One the way back to Verbania, we saw two donkeys sitting by the road. They wanted to befriend us, but only because when I stopped to take their picture, they figured we would have some food for them. 

All in all, the ride was only twenty miles, in which we climbed about 3000ft in the first ten. It was a great ride though, and tomorrow we’ll do another long one. 

For dinner we had a nice meal of pasta with cherry tomatoes, arugula, and borlotti beans. I saw the fresh borlotti beans the other day at the grocery store and figured they’d be a good source of protein. Plus, how often do you get them fresh in the US? I shelled them and par cooked them for about 30 minutes while eating lunch after our ride, and they were ready for dinner. I sautéed the tomatoes with garlic in olive oil, added the beans, then added the arugula. Once the pasta was cooked, I tossed that in with a little fresh olive oil and served it with some warmed sesame seeded semolina Sicilian bread dipped in olive oil with dried oregano from Sicily. Why go out to eat when you could eat that?! 

After doing laundry up until the moment the laundromat closed at 11pm and racing some threatening storm clouds, lightening in the distance and big wind gusts, I’m ready for bed. I should have went to be a half hour ago, but I wanted to make sure to fill you all in and stay in the habit of writing these posts. Forgive and typos. I’m too tired to proofread. 

*As a quick side note, this town, and most in Italy, really have their recycling together. In Pallanza, Monday is glass, Tuesday is compost, Wednesday is regular trash (which you shouldn’t have much of), Thursday is paper/cardboard, Friday is compost again, and Saturday is plastic. Even in mountainside towns they do this, except instead of everyone putting out little bins along the road, they have one central location in town that everyone drops things at. It’s very simple. It’ll probably never happen in “America that is supposedly being made great again” because, well, American doesn’t have the potential to be that great; but it would be nice, wouldn’t it? Americans are too lazy. Actually Americans aren’t too lazy, they’re too busy doing too many things and working to much to take care of the thing that are important, like taking care of the planet. 

Mottarone

Today was all about cycling. Besides a trip to the small grocery store and bakery for breakfast, and another trip to the big grocery store for some things for before dinner, all we did today was ride our bikes. 

It was a big ride. Sixty miles with the climb up to Mottarone. Mottarone may be the biggest climb around at 4600ft. This is the highest elevation we’ll get on the trip. The pass of Alpe di Neggia between Switzerland and Italy, which we will do sometime this week, is a little over 4500ft, despite the mountain that it passes between, Monte Tamaro peaking at over 6000ft. Mottarone is a long climb at just over 20km from Baveno. The descent down to the Lago d’Orta on the other side features a nice wide road that can be a joy to descend. The way back featured a winding road through some valleys with only a few grades above 5%. The descent back to Stresa on Maggiore has potential to be really fun as well. 

The climb itself went well. We only stopped once very briefly to pee, and it wasn’t nearly as steep as I remembered it. It was a very enjoyable and scenic climb. The early slopes out of Baveno featured sweeping panoramic views of Lago Maggiore with Verbania in sight beyond the Borromean Islands. Those views were replaced first by quaint mountainside villages and finally dense pine trees. Things opened up and the sun shone brightly at the very top, with increased human activity at the funicular, ski bars, hiking trails, and rollercoaster. A massive radio tower topped off the mountain to remind you that you were at one of the highest points around. 

After spending a few minutes in a clearing at the top, catching our breath and having a snack, we proceeded down the mountain. Our descent was paused only a few hundred meters down to see some grazing cattle, resplendent with giant cowbells, eating along the side of the road. These cattle were eating to produce milk for the famous Toma Mottarone cheese. Mottarone is known for it’s cheese, with Toma being one of the most known. 

When we finally reached the bottom, we contininued on some tiny roads through yet another mountainside town, over some train tracks an onto the lakeside road, which we rode to Orta San Giovanni. There we stopped for a snack and some water at a bar/gelateria. With gelato in our stomachs we gingerly made our way up and out of town, eventually ending up in what could easily be considered Italian hillybilly land. It’s quite interesting the juxtaposition of the glamorous villas in Stresa and the sunbeaten farms of the hills just outside of town. 

The final descent down to Stresa should have been fun, but traffic was heavy and a cyclist can easily descend faster than a good driver on switchbacks, no less a tentative one. At one point, we came to a complete halt because someone’s child had dropped an inflated beach ball out of their car window. As the beach ball was so valuable and important they decided to stop in the middle of the road with no regard for the rest of the drivers/ cyclists on the road. I was able to unclip one foot and kick said beachball out of the road. I hope I popped it. Idiots!

Our arrival back in Stresa was stressful, especially since we were greeted by ominous clouds over the lake. With only seven miles separating us and our apartment in Verbania, it was full gas on the mostly flat road back around to our side of the lake. Luckily the clouds passed up an over the mountains to the north and we were spared being rained on. 

All in all, the ride was quite nice. I am glad we did the longer route. Perhaps next week we’ll do Mottarone again, only the shop loop back through Omegna. We’ll see. There are still lots of great rides to do here. 

Tomorrow we’ll explore another town on the other side of ValGrande. It’ll be a much shorter ride, and we’ll leave time to visit some of the local bike shop in Intra and Pallanza. 

For now, I’m calling it a night. After the big ride, quick grocery shopping, and cooking dinner, I’m wiped out. 

By the way, this is the view into the courtyard out our windows, which we keep open pretty much all day, only closing the shutters at night, when we’re gone, or during the late morning/ afternoon when the sun wants to shine in. No need for air conditioning here, just good shutter/ window management.