After our big hike, it’s now time to slow down and do some recovery. The house that we’re staying in faces the patio of the restaurant/bar in the heart of the village. On the one hand, very convenient. On the other, we felt a bit on display as we walk out of the door every morning because, in a town this small, everyone knows everyone. We get a bit of a late start this morning, and as I open the door, I can feel all eyes on us. As we lock up and head toward our car, I see one of the gentlemen get up and motion toward us. It turns out that he is the father of my colleague with whom I have been texting for a week. It also turns out that my translated Italian is pretty good, which is a problem because he had inferred that I was somewhat fluent. Outside of menus and greetings, I am not. However, we managed through a coffee and some pleasantries, including Cincinnati chili. One of his cousins joined us as well. It turns out, unsurprisingly, that most of the town is somewhat related.
The plan for today is pretty mild effort-wise but should get us big yields. We first stop by Pasticceria Rubinelli and pick up some fortification in the way of mini strudels, one apple and one “fruits of the forest.” Kris also got a lemon tart sort of thing. The strudels were delicious, and judging by how quickly the lemon pastry disappeared, I’d say it was pretty good too. We’re headed to Val di Genova to do some mild hiking and see a bunch of waterfalls. We park at the southern end of the valley and walk up to Cascate Nardis.
Absolutely breathtaking! The original plan was to head back to the parking area, catch a shuttle to the north end, hike around, and then get lunch. However, due to our late start and then the coffee chat, we decide to head to the rifugio closest to the falls. Unfortunately, everyone apparently had the same plan because, while the hostess didn’t outright laugh at me, you could tell she was close to it.
We figure the pastries will hold us for a while, so we decide to head farther north, walking along the road like everyone else. At one of the next falls, there was a bridge to the other side of the river and a much quieter-looking trail. I misread the trail sign to say 0.15 kilometers to the next bridge and thought, “That’s not too far.”
About halfway up, I remembered that all the other trail signs we had seen on this trip were talking about minutes, not distance. The silver lining of the farther-than-expected hike was that we got to see a bonus waterfall that we otherwise would have only heard from the road.
We eventually cross back to the road and, after a few more kilometers, come to another rifugio, Rifugio Fontanabona, and this one is much less crowded. AND it has sheep! Just wandering around grazing amongst the patrons! I ordered a plate of speck, two local unnamed cheeses, and bread; Kris got gnocchi in a gorgonzola cream sauce and a beer for both of us. 1) We’re on vacation, and 2) we’ve been hiking for several days now. We’ve earned this lunch! The speck was amazing: smoky, tender, with melt-in-your-mouth fattiness. The cheeses were nutty and delicious. The beer hit the spot too.
Since this was such a late lunch, we decided we couldn’t have yet more strudel (as tempting as it sounded), so we gathered ourselves and hiked a bit farther north, reasoning that we could take the mid-valley shuttle if we were too worn out. Fifteen more minutes and we reach the midpoint, just as the hourly shuttle arrived! As soon as it pulled in, a different bus also pulled in and disgorged a raft of people who then immediately crammed onto the shuttle.
Kris and I took one look at the cramped bus situation and agreed that, especially since the return was largely downhill and we could take the road the whole way, we’d be much better off walking. In part due to the downhill and in part due to the fact that we weren’t stopping every quarter of a mile to enjoy the view, we quickly returned to the car.
Since we got home at a decent hour tonight, we managed to explore a bit for dinner. We headed just down the road to Agritur La Polentera. It was a nice meal, with the most surprising element being a polenta mousse for dessert. Afterwards, we headed home for an early night in.
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