DAY 89 – IVREA TO VIVERONE

Once the trick or treaters went home we got a good night’s sleep, though the alarm went off too early! We had asked for breakfast at 7am but as that was too early for our landlady she delivered breakfast last night so we could get going early. Having asked for some milk we were able to make tea, real tea – our first since leaving home!

The restaurant behind which we had a room on an inner courtyard

The weather forecast was for rain this morning…and it was right, so we set off in light drizzle wearing our caghoules and with rain covers over our packs. Counterintuitively the route headed out of town in a north-easterly direction, back towards the hills, but it was on the flat initially. On the way through town we were stopped by an African man, probably in his twenties, asking for cash. We wished him ’buon giorno’ and continued on our way. But something nagged us to know more about him. Is he a refugee migrant trying to make his way across Europe to a new life? We wished we’d stopped and talked to him, to find out more about him.

Heading for the hills…

It took quite a while to free ourselves of the urban environment, but once out of town we found fields freshly sown with winter wheat and some extensive poplar plantations. It was interesting to note that the soil had changed from the dry sandy/silty loam we’d become used to in the Aosta valley to a heavy clay which was quite saturated and claggy. Hidden in the woods we came upon Lago di Campagne, mirror calm but for occasional spots of rain and the casting of a fly by a lone fisherman on the opposite bank.

In the poplar plantation we met a couple walking a small dog which was initially friendly, but then took fright and started barking at us. This little dog was plucky and had to be called off to calm down, unlike the two big dogs guarding a builder’s yard further along the road which furiously leapt at the wire fence as if to get at us, but then slunk back as soon as we shouted and shook our walking poles at them.

We then began to gain height, and walked through a couple of villages. It looked like a previous pilgrim had lost a sandal on the road, and we wondered how or whether they were able to continue walking. With all the rough ground and road bashing we’ve been doing we’re very glad to have Vibram soles on our boots!

In the village of Bollengo we found a cafe advertising that it has a pilgrim stamp, so in we went to get our pilgrim passports stamped for the first time this trip. It would have been churlish not to stop for a warming latte and a chocolata. In Italy it seems that hot chocolate is served with a consistency close to a paste or sauce, so perhaps it will be better to ask for extra ’latte’ another time!

A wall of murals across the road from the cafe

On the way out of the village we came across the first of several monuments to the memory of the Agli Alpini, Italy’s specialist mountain soldiers, who gave their lives serving their country. Unlike similar monuments in the UK and France, there don’t seem to be lists of individual names on Italian war memorials, but there are always fresh floral tributes.

Up the road our path detoured to take us to the very old Romanesque church of San Pietro, perched on a hillock overlooking Bollengo and the valley beyond. The church is undergoing renovations since being given to the local community by the landowner. Sadly all information about it was on display boards locked up inside the church and we’ve not been able to find out about it elsewhere.

View inside through a broken window complete with impressive spider’s web!

If this was a Roman church, we wondered how long after St Paul brought Christianity to the Romans it had been built. Possibly not very long.


From Bollengo we continued to climb up amongst the vineyards which are mostly well tended here. There are some sizeable villas behind enormous ornate metal gates, suggesting there is plenty if money around, though even they rely on dogs for security. At the village of Palazzo Canavese we found a selection of wooden benches in the main square facing the church and bellfry, just right for a lunch stop, and watched people come and go to use the adjacent water vending machines in their own small building. For just 7 cents you can have a litre of ’frizzante’ so long as you bring your own bottle. What an excellent idea!

7 cents in the slot buys you a bottle of naturale or frizzante water!

On the way out of the village we passed one of the several roadside shrines we saw today, this one as neglected as most of them but interesting in that it contained a tableau of the Last Supper rather than the more usual Virgin Mary or lonely pot of plastic flowers.

At Piverone, a small village twinned with Deg in Hungary, a very friendly woman stopped to ask where we’d come from and where we were heading next. She had excellent English, more than making up for our woefully inadequate Italian, and told us that the balmy temperatures of the last few days are not typical for this time of year. It seems we’re lucky to be comfortable walking in shorts in November, even this far south!

Piverone was completely asleep, with all shops closed, though a small church in the main street was open: the first one of the day. We have noticed that in the churches that are open, use of hand sanitiser on entry and seats labelled to ensure social distancing are still the norm. It seems Italy has not forgotten the trauma of its high rate of deaths from Covid, which hit this part of the country particularly badly.

Around the corner from the church the village administrative office had adopted a novel approach to fundraising for Unicef by making rag dolls, all very stylishly dressed and coiffed – as we’d expect in Italy.

Another stylish item caught Julie’s eye on the way out of Piverone: a downpipe draining the gutter of the gateway to a house. How delightful to make an artistic feature of something so utilitarian and mundane!

Back into the vineyards we meandered along the hillside towards our destination for the day, Viverone. By this time the rain had cleared and the sun was shining, though we could see some black clouds in the distance dumping rain elsewhere. So far we’ve had temperatures of around 23 degrees centigrade, but today was several degrees cooler.

Another isolated and ancient Romanesque church stands on a hillock between Piverone and Viverone. Sadly it has no roof but the remnants of frescoes are visible at the sheltered east end. It is known as the Gesuin church and dates from 1202.

Soon after we got our first glimpse of Lago di Viverone, shimmering in sunlight in the distance across acres of yellowing vineyards.

Our billet for tonight is located beside the lake and, with a balcony overlooking the lake, we were treated to a spectacular sunset across the water whilst watching our laundry drying.

Highlights of today? Walking through the vineyards, and tonight’s sunset were both special. More importantly, the hotel manager took pity on us and very kindly offered for the chef, who is his brother, to cook us a meal tonight as nowhere else in Viverone is open because the holiday season has ended, or because it’s Tuesday when everywhere that hasn’t closed for the winter closes for the night. We dined well with a glass of excellent local red wine and very happily too!

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