These few days were intended as my riding interlude while Di was away but health and weather seem to have conspired to make riding infeasible. Without Di's sonorous tones I slept in till 8:50 - unheard of. The visibility seemed worse than yesterday. Am I destined to never see the mountain tops?
My riding base was going to be around Lago d'Orta probably Orta San Giulio so I decided to drive over to see what I was missing. There are about ten world heritage listed sacred mountains in northern Italy and one is in OSG (too long to spell every time). With my new shoes based on the 'famous climbing shoes of scarpa', but modified for everyday use ( according to the box) I thought a climb would be perfect. Following the instructions of the bar man (he speaks the best English, only reason), I took off with Gloria mark 4, the wide-screen version of mark 2. I am pretty sure I only went the wrong way up a one way street once, not bad. Having found OSG a quick check of the sign and a group walking from a tour bus lead me to walk up 'the mountain'. Reaching the top I noted with some sadness that the road went all the way to the top.
The sacred part of the mountain is the 20 chapels filled with painted statues and frescos. I have to say they are amazing - see the photos. All the chapels are quite dark so I learned a bit about the camera on my phone, but generally it did quite a good job. In case you were wondering, everything inside the chapels in the pictures is a lot of painted statues made of terra cotta I think. The frescos are on the walls and ceilings. The amount of effort and I presume money that was expended on religious expression in this country is quite astounding.
Having had my fill of frescos I needed some food, so down to OSG. Another quaint medieval town of narrow lanes and that certain smell of decay. It is pretty and the lake water laps right up to the town, but don't arrive between 1 and 3pm or you will go hungry. What is it with northern Italian tourist towns that shut down in the middle of the day for two hours. It would have been pushing to be 14c and most tourists seem to come from northern Europe, so I am sure they too would think towns that seem to survive on tourism should service the tourists when they want to be serviced. No wonder half Europe has their hands out.
Rant over.
Back to Stresa where they know where the money comes from. I took the overhill route, no sooking along by the lake. Many small towns with narrow streets and signs that seemed to say things that Gloria didn't know about, but we (as in Gloria and I, for those wondering if I had gotten lucky) made it. Speccie views coming down into Lesa.
Having missed Parco Della Villa Pallaviciino yesterday it was back on the agenda. It is another fantastic garden but it has a twist, or rather a zoo. The garden is not as exotic as yesterday's but it does have some magnificent mature trees and some garden areas. See the photos. I can't say I am a fan of small zoos. At least the animals looked healthy, but the single male deer in an enclosure beside a pen of several females looked like he would sooner be elsewhere. Why would you have zebras in alpine northern Italy?
The sky has lifted a little and the hill tops are almost visible so it is off to the mountains tomorrow.
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