Thursday 1st of September 2011

I was awake a little earlier but kept missing the bathroom when it was free so not out of the room so early. Breakfast was deliberately kept small by me in order I'd have space for lunch later... I'd been invited to Andrea's wife's mothers house/restaurant for lunch and boy what a lunch. Primi piatta was bresola and shaved parmesan along with artichoke hearts stuffed with tuna/sundried tomato and fresh paninos. Main course was spaghetto, a fatter version of spaghetti along with a source and also appeared to be finished off by being baked in the oven. After this I was full and couldn't take another plate of it unlike most of them sat at the table. Andrea managed to go up for thirds although to be fair one of his daughters when helping him out and the latter portions weren't big. I was looking forward to a coffee from the espresso machine in the restaurant but I didn't know that there was more to come. Desert was a peach - nothing unusual about that in an italian household. However the stone and a little bit of the fruit had been removed and the fruit part was mixed with biscotti broken up and chocolate. The resulting mix was then put back in the middle of the peach and it was baked. Yummy!

After lunch the ladies (Wife, wife's sister, wife's mum, wife's aunt and two girls) too the aunt to the bus stop so she could get the coach back home. Andrea and myself had a wander up the hill for an hour or so in the sun. It was quite hot now - probably 25 in the shade and after the storm in the morning I was hoping it would stay cooler for my journey in the afternoon. Soon after getting back to the restaurant (Anfo) we headed back to Ponte Caffaro so I could pack up and set off.

My stuff was ready packed and just needed putting back in the car. The bike was disassembled again and put in the boot on top of the luggage. In the morning I'd been warned about taking the mountain road as it would probably be quite difficult because of the fog but by now the clouds had almost all but gone so the mountain route looked like a good option. So after saying goodbyes I headed off up the hill to Passo di Croce Dominio and then down the other side to Breno. Further along the valley I should probably haved stayed on the road for Ponte di Legno after Sonico but I followed the signs for Passo di Foppa which turned out to be the Montirolo climb mentioned as one of the most difficult in the area due to it's gradient which is almost always OVER 10% - ouch!

Ponte Caffaro - ciao ciao ciao 

bye bye house 

Passo Croce Domini

More of the Domini Cross Pass

After driving down the Mortirolo I'm now fully certain that I don't want to ride up it.  Makes Stelvio look like a children's slide

View coming down from the Mortirolo pass

Once back down the hill again on the other side of the valley I was back on the main road and after a few long tunnels I popped out at Bormio with the Satnav taking me straight to the hotel. The car park was full but someone kindly directed me to the underground carpark. I was later told that the cctv covered bike park was off the car park (there was a big clue with the "bike corner" sign admittedly) and once checked in I easily managed to transfer my things to the lift and then to my room. Dinner I thought was a buffet affair but I must have been getting things a bit mixed up. There was a menu for me to chose tonights dinner and another for tomorrow night. The food portions weren't huge but ideal after my large lunch and the quality was excellent. Might give the horse steak a miss on tomorrows menu though.

So here goes 10 days in the mountains without friends and their families. Time to catch up on some sleep although I've been getting 9 hours a night usually and certainly time to catch up on some language studies. I think my ear has improved quite a lot as far as listening is concerned but I'm being let down now by my technical knowledge (verbs/tenses) and vocabulary.