August 28, 2006
Berbenno - Olgiascha
After breakfast we retraced our steps to where we'd last seen the phantom horsemen and then up to Fusine where we turned west, along a minor road paralleling the A38, through Cosina to Sirta. Here, we thought we might take advantage of the re-appearance of the cycle path on the opposite riverbank. We followed the path as far as a chain-link fence, which marked the boundary of the local hydro-electric depot. Back to Sirta and back on the road, we reached the junction with the A38, where we intended to backtrack across the river for 200m and pick up a local road to Desco.
My map of La Valtellina, kindly provided free of charge by the TIC in Bormio, definitely shows a road at that location. What we were confronted with was an unrideable rocky track with signs warning of the possibility of unannounced release of water from a reservoir some long way above our heads. Random piles of water- born debris bore witness to this possibility. We pushed on nevertheless. I was on the point of giving up, prepared to go back down and endure the still heavy traffic, now enhanced by HGVs on A38. 'Come on, let's go back,' I said to Barbara. 'Have a look at the top of the hill,' Barbara suggested. I pushed the bike up another 100 metres or so and we were, with no warning, in a village, with sealed roads. It was Desco after all. We freewheeled down the hill to Paniga, passed Campovico then took a left turn to re -cross the Adda by means of an old stone bridge, barred to motor traffic, to bring us to the edge of Morbegno.
I had waited for Barbara to catch up before the bridge, so even after having taken a sharp right turn on the other bank, I didn't think she could have missed my direction. She had though. At the next junction, I fully expected to see her a short way behind, but she was not to be seen. I rode back to the stone bridge, waited a few minutes, then phoned her. She was back within five minutes or so. We re-traced my pedal strokes, looking for a supermarket. On the edge of a new municipal housing development, we found one. It had closed for lunch at 12-30pm. It was now 12-40pm. It would not re-open until 3.
At the end of the block was a bar-restaurant, offering €10 lunches. Hungry now and deprived of our usual roadside picnic, we went for that. When we arrived, a group of building workers were putting the finishing touches to their lunch. One, with a perfectly formed pot-belly was teased by his workmates. We sat outside, though the weather was cloudy and grey, by no means hot enough to merit a two and a half hour siesta. We ate ravioli with sage and butter, roast shin of pork [me] and a milanese cutlet [a bit like a Wiener Schnitzel, Barbara] For the price it was very good. Inside, the bar was clean and stylish, there was a larger restaurant area out back. Barbara was inclined to wonder how such an establishment would survive in a similar location in London.
We set off again, towards Lake Como without much in the way of contours to disturb us. We never saw the centre of Morbegno, our efforts to avoid the feared A38 kept us away. We re-crossed the river, turned west and trundled through the newly industrialised delta area until we hit the main road to Lake Como. We turned south on the A36. Our road to the airport at Bergamo, lay on the Eastern side of the lake. Anxious to leave this busy, new road, I took a turn marked Como, across il Piano di Spagna, the Plain of Spain, which after a kilometre or so, I realised was the wrong way [to the city of Como rather than the lake]. I turned back, explained to Barbara and irritated with myself, stepped up my pace a little. Heading in the opposite direction, another cyclo-tourist gave me a big wave and a shout. I waved back without changing pace. I reached the junction with the A36 and turned south again, this time on course, for our still unknown, lakeside destination. We needed to turn away from the main road, this time at the correct junction, for Colico. I stopped to wait for Barbara. I heard another cyclist pull up behind me, turned round, slightly surprised that Barbara had caught up so soon, but she hadn't. It was Antonio.
Barbara wasn't long behind. The shout I heard was one of recognition. Antonio had stopped to talk to Barbara and then chased me down. We swapped stories. Antonio had climbed the Stelvio pass from the South Tyrol side. 'Oh, it was so hard.' he said, shaking his right hand for emphasis. 'Once in my life, only.' He also told us, that he had avoided the busy section of the Valtellina road by putting his bike on the train. He said, unlikely as this seems, that the ticket inspector had told him cyclists went for free on that stretch of line. Antonio was making his way to Zürich for his flight home. He was disappointed to have seen so few other cyclo-tourists. We said our goodbyes and took pictures before we set off in opposite directions.
We reached the lake shore at Colico, rode through the town without seeing anywhere to stay that took our fancy. We continued on the lake road, until, while waiting for Barbara at a minor junction at the top of a hill, I noticed two small advertising boards for hotels, pointing up the turning. I suggested to Barbara that we took a look. She demurred at first, put off by the apparent severity of the ascent. It was steep, but short, maybe 500m. It was made worse for Barbara by the fact that she had an audience of construction workers, building a house at the edge of the village, Olgiasca. We stopped outside the Hotel Belvedere at around 4pm.
We checked in, locked the bikes on the terrace and took our gear up to our room. It was comfortable, spacious and spotless. As the name of the hotel would suggest, we had a view of the lake. After a shower I went back down to the bar and ordered a beer from the proprietor, who was reading Corriere dello Sport. We spent the next couple of hours talking, mostly about football [soccer]. After Italy's recent feat of world domination, and the demotion to Serie B of Juventus [Renato is a fan], we had plenty to talk about. We spoke in English. It emerged, between examination of the dismal failure of England and the excellence of Fabio Cannavaro, that Renato had worked at London's Dorchester hotel and the Waldorf- Astoria in NYC. A local man, he trained at hotel management school in Lausanne, Switzerland. In the world of hotel-keeping evidently, this is as good as it gets. I have no reason to disagree.
Rain was falling outside, as Barbara emerged from her first floor comfort zone. There was an hour and a half to fill before the restaurant opened for dinner. For want of anything better, we took a walk, in the drizzle, along the small promontory beyond the village, to il Abbiaza di Piona, another monastery. A small, roadside shrine bore witness to a vision of the Virgin, hardly the first and unlikely to be the last. The grey stone monastery and its out- buildings looked grim under the damp. heavy cloud and inspired in us nothing but a gloomy indifference. There was a shop selling honey, among other monastic products, but it was closed.
Back at the hotel, for dinner, the menu included fish from the lake. I chose lavarello, without knowing what it was. My small Italian dictionary wasn't up to it. In any case it was unavailable. Renato promised it for the following night. We both had lake perch instead.
After dinner, we drank beer in the bar with two American couples who had fled from the apparently sub-standard accommodation offered in a timeshare swap [beyond my sphere of experience] and had fetched up at the Hotel Belvedere in a desperate search for a night's sleep. New Yorkers, now resident in Florida, they were lively company, especially so, after their recent misadventure.
Today's ride: 53 km (33 miles)
Total: 556 km (345 miles)
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