Day 4 - Aosta to Chambave = Thursday June 18, 2015

Since we didn’t have instructions on where the hotel was getting here, we didn’t have instructions on how to get back on the via Francigena.  In the morning, breakfast was at 8pm, it was nice but we didn’t get started until almost 9am. The hotel fellow said, ‘well you have a map’ and we said ‘no.’ He told us how to get started, but not how to carry on.  Russ had GPS tracks, but they didn’t line up with the way we set out.  All to say getting out of the big city was awkward.

In general, the walking instructions are really pretty bad. We are having a lot of trouble figuring out what they telling us to do, and keep getting lost. In particular, they mix up left and right randomly. We seem to be spending 30 minutes standing around figuring out where to go for every hour of walking. Needless to say, that is a colossal waste of time. And, it’s not as if the time doesn’t count, because we are on our feet the whole time.  Thank goodness we now have GPS tracks – but that isn’t fool proof either.

Today was a tough day – 26km plus 938 meters climb and 857 descent – the ascent was almost equal to climbing the Alps (1137 meters) and half of the following day descent (1537 meters). But that wasn’t the major problem, the major problem is that so far we have never gone past any stores or bars, and today it was really hot and we ran out of water. In general the climbs are really brutal, but today we had a massively long, steep climb right before the end, and with no water it was very difficult. When we got to the hotel at 5pm we bought 1.5 litres of water and drank almost all of it by 7:30pm.

The Italian government was complaining about bars and hotels wanting to divert the via Francigena to go past them – as a pilgrim I’d say yes it’s a good idea to go by them! Running out of water is no fun when it’s hot and you are constantly climbing.

On the other hand it is beautiful country. We are walking through the mountains, along ancient irrigation systems (they call Ruz or canals). Today was like walking on a balance beam for about 5km, we had to walk on the concrete edge of the canal, with a gorge on the other side.  Falling into the canal meant getting your boots wet, falling the other way was certain death.

At least the Italians are trying pretty hard to mark the Way (which they have declared to be a Cultural Heritage Route), which is a big help, except there are tons of trails, so you have to know where you are going.  In general, the via Francigena is 103, but that too can’t be relied on.

The hotel was an agri-tourism establishment, being a vintner. The dinner was delicious, consisting of a lot of pie like things (they were very good at making pie crust). The best part of the dinner was an egg noodle dish with sheep sauce. We thought that was primo plato, but it wasn’t, so we were too full for the final course. Everything was ‘home’ made (even the yogurt at breakfast). It was a beautiful establishment- lots of cedar beams and stone.

We were both pretty tired and sort of staggered out after dinner without having coffee. The next thing I knew it was 1:30am, and I finally got in under the covers.