Monday, June 12, 2017

Friday, June 9, 2017 - I Hate Driving


As much as I complained about the Italian trains being late I prefer them to driving. At least driving while we are traveling. The actual act of driving is fun, especially on the curvy mountain roads. The Italian drivers we encounter are crazy, but good drivers. They pass on curves, the motorcycles weave between the cars in the city and on the highways often riding right on the white line, they consistently drive 20-30 Km/hr over the limit and I have not seen a turn indicator in use yet. Now that I write these traits, I think I listed the traits of a good driver, none of which the Italians employ. Yet, they are predictable. If a car pulls up behind you, you know they will pass you. If a motorcycle is anywhere around, you can bet it is in between the cars riding the white line. Cars are generally running at full throttle or full brake. But, it is not the nature of Italian drivers that makes me hate driving when traveling. It is the inability to see anything but the road ahead with only sideward glances at the things I came to see. Also, if I am driving, my hands are occupied, my eyes are occupied and my feet are occupied. I can't read, write or text. All I can do is drive. I would much rather let a train do the driving so I can do something, anything, else. 


Why this diatribe about driving?  Today we rented our first car of the trip. We were up and out the door early from our wonderful hostile of the past five nights, catching the 6:45 am bus to Como at the end of the lake. The bus trip was an hour. Surprisingly, the bus was nearly full. We think it was mostly workers commuting to town. 


Some of the old towns along the lake shore are very old, built back in the day when streets only needed to be as wide as two donkey carts. The buildings are built right to the road's edge.  This does not work well for buses and trucks. At each of these choke points either a light or a team of two persons let traffic through in only one direction at a time. The bus only clears the buildings in some of the tighter spots by a foot or less on each side. 


Our rental car station (Europcar) was just a block from the train station. We exited the bus at the train station and walked over to the car rental. It opens at eight. We were there at 7:45 am, so we waited until 8:00 am to avoid a before hours rental fee. Precisely at eight we entered the office in this underground station. A very nice woman helped us. As we chatted with her about how much we liked Italy she said she would gladly trade places with us. We reminder her we had an idiot for president in Donald Trump. She acknowledged this, but then unloaded on us about the trials of living in Italy and still wanted to trade places. Some of her talk revolved around the idea of anti immigration and taxes. Interesting.


She gave us a turquoise Citron 4 door. With Google Maps guiding us, we headed for the town of Bormio, about half way (4 of our 8 hours of driving today) on our journey to Bolzano and the Dolomites. Bormio is a ski resort town and sits at the west foot of Stelvio Pass. 


About two hours in we were detoured off the main highway. Some type of accident had occurred. This put us in the middle of a long line of very slow moving traffic for the next hour and a half. We are in the southern margins of the alps. The main road we are following is in a deep river valley with towering side hills, all cultivated with grapes or orchards. It is beautiful. 


One of the girls that runs the hostel in Menaggio had told us to stop for a special meal on the town of Taglio. I had the town and food name written down, but I can't remember the food-some type of pasta dish made only in that town with local ingredients. We decided to give it a go. We pulled off the main road and began switchbacking up the side of the valley. At one point we were driving up what Sally called a "trail". It was wider than our car, barely, and paved, but it did have the red and white trail markings and trail signs on it. There were wide spots every few 100 meters where cars could pass each other and we got to test his out when we met an oncoming car. 


We reached Taglio, found a restaurant in the very small village, parked and walked up to the outside seating only to find they didn't start serving lunch until 12:15 pm. It was 11:30 am. We didn't have the time to sit and wait. We headed back down the mountain to the main road and continued on our way, a little disappointed.


When planning this driving route, I had chosen to cross the mountains by driving north and further into them rather than heading south to avoid them. The road led over a switchbacking road, which I thought culminated in Bormio. At least that is how I remembered it from my earlier research. I was disappointed when reach Bormio with hardly a switchback. We wanted to stop for a few minutes and check out this ski town, but here is the next disadvantage of a car. Parking the damn thing. We cruised around a bit, saw no parking and decided to push on as we still had many hours of driving in front of us. 


My disappointment quickly turned into delight as we began switchbacking up the side of the mountain on a narrow paved road. And I mean switchback after switch back. Hairpin corners at 10 mph where the steering wheel is turned all the way to the pins. In a few places the road passed through short avalanche tunnels too narrow for two way traffic. Stop lights at either end controlled the two way traffic. 


There was a bike rally happening over this weekend and the road had a steady stream of cyclists pumping there way up the hill. Also, this road is a favorite of motorcyclists. By the time we climbed to the pass and descended the other side we had passed well over 400 cyclists and an equal number of motorcyclists. 


We stopped at what turned out to be halfway up at a small chalet to view down the valley and get a bite to eat, then continued our zig zag path up the mountain until we reached Stelvio Pass. Here we found a party. Hundreds of both types of bikers eating in outdoor restaurants, vendors hocking t-shirts, hot dogs and souvenirs, a ski lift and a few hotels and ski shops. We ate a sausage dog and hung out for a few minutes enjoying the view, then mounted our four wheel bobsled and began an even more improbable trip down the steep western face. About half way down the switchbacks I noticed a three story orangish yellow mountain "hut" across the valley sitting on a sharp ridge with a deep and steep valley of glacial debris and instantly recognized it as one I had seen in my textbooks and research as an example of receding glaciers. In the 1930s and 1940s a massive glacier extended far below this hut, filling the steep valley. Now, there in no ice, and no snow. The glacier is totally gone. Such a stark reminder of the effects and absolute evidence of global warming is frightening to see. 


We made the bottom of the switchbacks and soon we're moving down a narrow river valley that emptied out into a wide one, full of farms. An hour later we pulled into Balzano. Reportedly, the hostel we are staying at is the finest in all of Italy. It is located directly across the street from the train station and parking is difficult to find. However, we got lucky and found a spot just a block and a half away. 


We checked in and found an elegant and spotless room we were to share with two others, but they were not there when we arrived. It had taken us nine hours to make the journey and I needed to just close my eyes for a few minutes. 


After a rest we made plans for hiking tomorrow in the Dolomites and planned to walk to a nearby grocery for food to support or endeavors. Our room mates arrived about that time, a couple in their fifties cycling for a week. They lived south of Venice and spoke no English. I did my best to use my fledging Italian and we soon got to know each other. He was fun and quick to smile and laugh as we fumbled through our language barrier. She was a bit more reserved but seemed very nice. 


We broke off our conversation to get to the store before it closed at 7:00pm, then returned. We prepared an amazing salad Of of mixed lettuce, cabbage, grated carrots, Red and yellow peppers, hard boiled eggs, tuna, tomatoes and wonderful dressing.  In the prep room we met three wonderful girls, a blond, a brunette and a red head. We thought they were good friends traveling together, but when we asked how they met, they said they were sisters, aged 27, 25 and 23. We cooked together and found they were interested in the PCT. We encouraged them to do it and took their names and emails so they could come stay with us when they came to the US. All three were sweet girls, the middle girl, Lisa spoke the best English. 


We ate our super salad behind the hostel in the court yard, enjoying the evening air as it cooled. We washed up afterwards, then returned to our room. 


Our room mates were out to dinner, so we packed for the morning and were in bed when they returned. We "talked" for a bit before getting the chance to say, for the first time, "Buon notte". 








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