Food of the day: Olive pane - olive bread. We bought two sticks in a little shop at a town we weren't even planning to visit, and combined them with other bits and pieces for a great picnic in the mountains.
Word of the day: Allora - so, used as a preposition to a question or a suggestion - eg, so, what will it be? A very common expression in commerce and in social settings.
We woke to fresh snow ringing the valley. The tops of the mountains here approach 3,000m and you can see a dozen or so of them from the hotel window. The sky was clear though, so I was keen to get onto the bike and take one on. It wasn't to be the Stelvio, as that was still closed, so it was to the Passo Gavia instead - a climb of around 1,300m over 22k.
The climbing starts straight away. For the first few k's it's through pine forests, along a rushing snow-melt river. Then it turns and starts winding up through snowy forests. On a sunny morning, with almost no cars, this was magical. Fresh snow plip-plopping, the occasional bird sound, and nothing else but the road and the silent vistas towards incredible peaks.
The descent on the other side, to Ponte de Legno, is shorter at 17k and drops to about the same height. So it's average is 7.6%. Most of the road on the northern side (my uphill) is rough because of snow, and it's narrow and windy. On the southern side, it's the same at the top, but about half way down the surface improves and the switchbacks are longer - then you can fly! You get to beautiful shady trees eventually, and with the great road and almost no traffic, it's magic. Ponte de Legno is not actually the bottom - you can keep on rolling if you want - but it's a pretty town with a snow-melt river rushing between cobbled streets. So a nice place to finish.
(PS for the cycling fans, there were quite a few cyclists going up both sides. Just ahead of me was a group led by a pro from the Schleck brothers new team - that is, they were behind me at first, then just ahead of me, and then out of sight til I got to the top. I'd seen said pro at Bormio before I started, and made a scornful comment to Anne about the fact that he was all decked out in pro team kit. I had to eat those words, didn't I? Pro team kit is all the go here - nearly everyone wears gear proclaiming something, and everyone checks each other out as they pass. They typically don't greet each other, unilke the custom in Australia.)
This was a very special day for Anne too! She still trembles (just a little now) when the conversation turns to that long, twisting drive up and then down again. The road is very narrow, to the point that sometimes you just can't see how two cars can pass. Then there are the drops into the frozen wastes - enormous and steep. The views too of course, although somehow it sounded like she wasn't spending too much time admiring them.
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