Despite yesterday’s concerns about the heat, we managed a good night’s sleep all things considered. Maybe it was the pure alpine air, maybe it was the relaxed nature of the trip or maybe we were just getting old and tired?
We packed up the room and made our way down to reception via the old, dangerous looking lift. For just one floor, we were taking a pretty unnecessary risk. We would not be jumping off the mountain with a parachute, so this would be the limit of our adventure holiday. I dont think it is something that the guys at Red Bull will be picking up, but we had a little rush nonetheless.
We checked out of the hotel and the guy on reception continued to be a warm and welcoming host. Brit Hotels’ official mascot, Mister B, was sat in reception so we got ourselves a photograph with the man himself, their “Creator of good vibes and inveterate traveller”.
We needed Petrol and so our first stop was the Relais La Savoyarde just on the outskirts of Pussiez. It’s not what you’re thinking, I haven’t mentioned the petrol stop just because we can add this place to the growing list of rude place names we have visited (but I have done that) but it’s the most fitting name possible. This petrol station came with its very own cat!
After filling up the tanks, I walked over to pay and this little thing jumped out at me and then confidently walked over and lay on the ground fully ‘floofed’ and ready for a belly rub. I needed no second invitation and spent some glorious bonding time with her. It was obvious that this glorious creature was a feature of this petrol station as there were posters inside warning you to not squash her and loads of cat nicknacks for sale.
Easily the best petrol station we had been to so far but, dont worry, this isn’t going to be a blog that rates petrol stations. I’m not quite that dull.
With a full tank of fuel, we set the satnav and headed through village after village joined by winding roads and perfect clean streets to match the perfectly clean air. All the while, we had Mont Blanc looking over us, intimidating and aloof. You talk about big sky country…..you could see forever. This was August, I dont think it would have been too many weeks prior or to follow before these skies and mountains would have given a much less warm and welcoming feeling.
As the gradient increased and we made our way up the mountain towards La Rosiere, it was staggering just how many cyclist there were on the roads. I would have quite liked to have been one of the people going downhill, but the uphill guys and gals looked to have a hard job. If I were wearing a cap, I would have taken it off in admiration. There was one guy on a bike going down the mountain that, pretty brazenly, overtook a van that was hardly slouching! Show off.
We had a little rest for lunch in La Rosiere which was quite obviously taking a little break from being a ski resort while the sun was out. All of the buildings, all of the shops, all of the infrastructure…..it was made to be a ski resort but we were too early or too late for that. So we enjoyed pastries, we looked at the shops that were filled with any form of tat you could think of linked with the Saint Bernard Dog and just marvelled at the views.
Filled with sugar and refreshed, we jumped back in the car and headed out towards Italy. The first point of interest was the Little St Bernard Pass, the border between France and Italy where everything suddenly got a lot busier. La Rosiere wasn’t quiet, dont get me wrong, but here, there was a lot of camper vans, a lot of motorbikes and some of the worst parking I have ever seen along both sides of the road.
You got the sense that the soil and the grass was not quite used to being visible and was looking forward to returning to being under the snow and getting back to the quiet life. I knew how it felt, but with both of the kids falling asleep at this point, totally missing Aosta and the glorious valley views, I put on my Dad music, I took my time and just loved my little moment of peace and tranquility.
Heading downhill was a lot better for the driving statistics, that’s for sure. The hybrid electric car was loving the downhill section and for the first time since St Omer, I was pretty much at a full charge by the time we came out of the mountains….magic!
As the mountains faded away behind us, we picked our way through the lowlands and along the A4 towards Milan. What a difference. Not trying to be too mean to the area, on any other day it would have been a lovely drive with pretty villages and open fields with blue skies in all directions, but it just wasn’t the same as being in the mountains and all of the power and the splendour that that brings with every turn of the road.
Eventually, in late afternoon, we pulled up in front of the Modo Hotel on the outskirts of Vercelli. There was a weird looping driveway that dropped down under the hotel and into the underground carpark that was a bit of a challenge to get around, but we made our way from there to reception and then into our rooms.
It was a surprisingly grand hotel inside, compared to the modern and angular exterior, filled with artefacts and local history. The rooms were air conditioned and clean and, also, massive. There was a room with two single beds that the kids picked and I have the double bed in a separate room with a slightly more suspect air-con unit but it fired up and all was good in the world. The kids pointed out that the walls seemed to be covered in a green baize, the type usually reserved for snooker tables.
We had a shower and a relax before heading down into Vercelli to see what it had had to offer. Initially, it offered very little. It was around 5pm and everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, seemed to be locked and shut tight. There was no apparent centre to the town and there was nowhere to eat and nowhere to get a drink.
We followed a pathway along the centre of a long boulevard that ran in a perfect straight line with the road tucked in either side of us. There were monuments and fountains along the way and a series of locals who were all over the age of 70 sitting outside in the sun, putting the world to rights. I suspect that if I were to go back there right now, the same people would be sat on the same park benches sorting out the same problems.
At the end of the boulevard was a series of roundabouts and the bus station joined to the train station. There seemed to be a little more life here, but not too much, but for a train station it was remarkably clean and tidy.
With not much to look at, we turned and headed back up the street and did eventually find a cafe on the corner, the Bar Garibaldi. It looked like a 1950’s diner but was bustling inside and felt like the centre of a community with families and friends gathering to have coffee and ice cream and generally catch up.
In that Italian style, it was hard to tell who was chatting, who was arguing, who was joking and who was furious. It was a mess of noise and emotion and I loved it. It was Italy, summed up perfectly. We watched as an elderly lady fell off her bike sideways on the junction outside and several local lads ran towards her to help her back up and repack her shopping bags and get her back on her way again where she left, albeit embarrassed and ashamed to have made such a commotion, but safe and well.
We planned our next few days of travel, more of that to come, and decided we would head back into what we thought was the centre and have a drink before getting a pizza. We passed a shop that sold nothing but coffee pots, filters, machines, brewing stands…..pretty much anything that you could make coffee in or with…..but not coffee beans that my son wanted to take home with him. She looked at him like a lunatic when he asked for beans, initially because his Google translate seemed to suggest the word for pulse version of beans, not the coffee!
Like the time we went to Amsterdam and spent 45 minutes walking around in circles not able to find the red light district, we spent an hour walking around Vercelli trying to find a pizza restaurant without any luck at all……not even a closed one! We had all but given up and started to make our way back to the car to phone in a takeaway at the hotel, when we found a little piazza that was thriving. Families watched as their kids ran around the square chasing pigeons in their smart clothes and the place seemed to be waking as the sun dropped away over the buildings, somehow without losing any of the intense heat that we had faced all afternoon.
Italy was awake and with it we found ‘The Form Secret Club’, a pizza restaurant in Italy, we had done it! They were delicious and everything we had hoped for. We laughed about the day, chatted about the sights, and I told them what they had missed at Aosta!
We wobbled back to the car, very happy and glowing with warm faces and full bellies. We drove back to the hotel, again through very quiet streets and squares, I think it may have been a rest day in Italy or a day where they all played ‘hide and dont seek’.
Back at the hotel, we made our way to the bar that, like the cafe earlier, doesn’t seem to have changed at all since the 1950’s. Two families were spread across four tables, two inside and two outside on the patio through the patio doors. They didn’t look like travellers at all, they looked like locals, but why they were sitting inside the hotel bar was a mystery.
But not as much of a mystery as we were to them. Eventually the older guy, I would say late forties but could have been anywhere up to early sixties, came over to our table and spoke to us in patchy English. He wanted to know why we were here, in Vercelli.
We explained that we were passing through on a grand tour of Europe and it became clear that he was not a spokesperson for the Vercelli tourist board. He explained that the area was known for being the rice growing part of Italy…who knew?
The problem with that, he explained, is that there is a lot of still water and, as a result, there are a lot of mosquitos and, according to our new tour guide, a lot of malaria. His suggestion was to get out as quickly as possible and ‘go somewhere nice’. He wasn’t trying to get rid of us from the bar, he couldn’t have been any more friendly, but he didn’t think we should be in this town!
The more we tried to explain that we were having a nice time, the more he explained that it wasn’t a nice place to be and, as a lorry driver that had driven all over, this is the last place he would have stopped.
Quite why he had stopped here with his family was never explained but, do you know what, I was happy I was there with my family. 174 miles in five and a half hours, that was some day.
Itchy Feet and Titchy Feet 