July 23 and 24, Courmayeur, Italy, Hotel Berthod
Miles logged: maybe 1.5–all flat!
After the usual drill of checking into the hotel, washing up wet, smelly clothes, then soaking in the tub, the group headed out for dinner at Restaurant Fenty…….in a pouring rainstorm. Three blocks to the restaurant. My rainjacket protected me, but my leopard-skin flip-flops took a beating.
The restaurant produced what can only be described as an avalanche of food………when the smoke had cleared, we realized we’d been served ELEVEN courses. At the point that we were totally stuffed, they started bringing out the main dishes—all three of them. Ai yi yi! Great fun and laughs. Good thing we’ll have the chance to sleep this meal off.
I’ve got to mention Mr. Bill here. One group member – named Bill – has brought along the ‘action figure’ of Mr. Bill from the SNL skits of the 70′s. The deal is to get funny pictures of Mr. Bill. Tonight, they got a great shot of Mr. Bill hanging onto a wine bottle with his trademark “Oh no!!” expression. I’ll get pictures of Mr. Bill and some of his future antics, whatever they may be.
We were extremely lazy on Day 4, taking full advantage of nothing to do. No one took the guides up on their offer of a hike, so they headed off (hiking, of course) to a lake for a day of swimming.
My big news is that I bought my very own hiking poles! Now I can truly power up the mountains.
But mostly, we just enjoyed the brilliant sunshine, sauntering around town, lunching at a wonderful place called Cadran Solaire, exploring a very interesting cemetery that we happened to pass by, and then dining at Cadran Solaire. From the cemetery we learned that 1) ‘alpine guide’ seems to be the #1 profession in town and 2) they tend to live happy but short lives. (Except for one guy who reached the ripe old age of 90.)
So….not much else happened today…..we didn’t even see other group members. So enjoy the pictures! We hit the road again tomorrow at 8:00.
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- Courmayeur – the morning after the rainstorm
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- Cute sign in Courmayeur
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- Lunch at Cadran Solaire
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- The little peak sticking up is the ‘tooth of the giant’ and is often used by extreme sports people for ‘base jumping’
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- Tribute to an alpine guide who died on the job in 1964 @ age 26
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- the Courmayeur cemetery
Tags: Alps Italian, Giant's Tooth Peak, Italian cemetery, Mont Blanc
