BAC Val d'Aosta 2012

Another surprising day. The weather was supposed to be ugly again, but we awoke to blue skies with scattered clouds. It was a bit chilly, but very comfortable.

We left Arvier around 8:30 trying to beat any rain on the horizon. After a short downhill, we started our day's climb. It was relatively steep to begin with and continued that way for several kilometers. Once again we were going up a mountainside along a glacial stream that was moving fast. The road went through several tunnels and snow sheds. I had to walk through one of them because I couldn't tell up from down or right from left. There were a couple of very small villages on the way that I didn't pay much attention to because I was concentrating on trying to make it to the top. Finally after about 20km the road leveled out a little and we peddled easily into Cogne .

Me, Julie Leever, Marie Tesch and Henry Lam eating a picnic lunch in Cogne

The town is a hiker's destination or starting off point. There were lots of outdoor types there and very few cyclists. Julie Leever, Marie Tesch, Henry Lam and I found a deli-type shop where Julie helped us order a picnic lunch. The clerk was a bit confused on what we were ordering. She couldn't understand why we asked for sliced bread and pesto sauce to spread on it. It all worked out OK. We had our bread, pesto, cheese, ham, salami, drinks and chips and sat on a bench outside of the shop and made our lunch.

The hotel dog

Afterwards, we joined most of the group at a bar down the street for cappuccino. After that, we pointed our bicycles down the hill and made record time back down the mountain. We reached Aosta around 1:00 and checked into Hostellerie du Cheval Blanc.

Archeological dig

After showering and doing the daily laundry a few of us waked into the old part of town. Aosta is a really old town with Roman ruins including an old bridge, some arches and an archeological dig in the middle of town. We focused on finding gelato. A gelatoria was recommended to us by a young American woman expat. I had licorice and cream. We wandered around finding a bicycle shop, some more Roman ruins and a tourist information office. I left our group there and went back to our hotel to rest.

We had a group dinner in the dungeon of a local restaurant. We all had a sampling of three souffles. For a main course, I had pork with some kind of special sauce. It was good but not memorial or else I would have remembered what the sauce was called. For dessert I had a meringue filled with ice cream. We also had lots of wine. I sat next to Midge Cross who was the only one who asked for white wine. I shared the bottle with her after I finished my glass of red wine. I'm going to try to sit near her on the other group dinners.

Click here for more photos from today.

Here are my statistics for the ride.