Italia -- Terzo Giorno

Italy day three
(October 30, 2007)

Relaxed morning of Stresa found me waking up to the view of Lago Maggiore and caused for me a missed breakfast. Or not quite. I was starting to like this tradition. My considerate companions had served my bedside table with a plateful and it meant for me the luxury of not having to hike two flights of stairs as I scramble to put the world in perspective.

Dense fog covered Lago Maggiore just outside of the balcony and fine trees queued up at the margin separating the lake from the road. My breakfast buddy listened to my gibberish and I was glad to seize that luxury as well. The Italian morning was so relaxed and easygoing, I could hardly take it.


Stresa is known to attract tourists and turned out to be the only touristy place on our on-the-fly itinerary. It is a popular vacation hideout for many Europeans and is thus amenity-rich. Clouds covered most of the mountain and island views but the fine-looking landscaping in gardens of the grand villas along the lake front compensated for it. We spent quite some time browsing the precious and semi-precious stone shop, took long walks by the lake and watched the playing ducks. It was easiest to fulfill my magnet wish in Stresa and I was thrilled to hear myself utter few Italian words with the air of a seasoned Italian to the shopkeeper. How could I already feel so comfortable in a completely unfamiliar country; not feel alienated due to my lack of knowing the language? Why was I not Lost in Translation?


After having reveled in the breathtaking beauty of dolomites, Steve craved the Alps. And so did we. We could not wait to get to the snow-studded summits and drove tirelessly looking for Aosta Valley to bring ourselves to the heavenly destination. It was quite a dream to be in the Italian Alps. I was enchanted by the thought of having the chance to see a wonder so matchless as Mont Blanc. Clouds hung midair in the mountains and created a dreamlike aura around any scene. Scintillating white snow clothed the otherwise bare mountain peaks and arrestingly overhung against the black Alpine rocks.

Hiding and seeking of the rock black and snow white behind the clouds beckoned one's imagination to wander in the almost inaccessible paths of the Alpine crests and troughs. Our imagination must have made up its mind to explore one such path that day. Cormayeur was going to be the resting place that night. Entry into Cormayeur was dramatic. We were stopped short by the appearance of an amber-colored, agile animal of innocuous size. Taller and much slender than a racoon with a gracefully carried tail. It surely was a fox! Some shade of orange, as it looked then, in the dark, with extremely curious, questioning, glowing eyes. It was calling us, drawing us to the mystic vista point encircled by Alpini. We were reassured of having reached the Val de Ferret (valley of the foxes)! The valley had lived upto its name and was resolute in its intention to lure us. Magnificent Mont Blanc towered on the left and as we parked the car at the rounded dead end, we saw the appearance of some more amber. There it was, another fox! This one seemed much more composed than the introductory one and patiently waited to give us a chance to excitedly observe it and even capture its sleekness in pictures if we wished. Murphy does not fail to act up in critical time slices like that. Cameras had either battery or flash or other such mundane problems and having given us enough of its precious time and even having posed, the amber sensation, disappointed by our incapacity but still happy to see us, decided to bid farewell. It almost made us forget about the Alps and the valley itself for which we now got the opportunity. We enjoyed the aphotic night, rather the alpine evening precociously turned into night, where stars, moon and anything denoting the faintest light was covered by the clouds.

Cormayeur seemed fast asleep although it was still quite early in the evening. The quietness and darkness at that rounded, forsaken cul-de-sac with behemoth mountains encompassing the line of sight in all directions, dispensed to it an eerie peculiarity. The fog and the snow aggrandized the specialness of the setting. We were determined to probe into the mountains till we could go no further. While we drove unyieldingly into the dark, my mind wandered the paths of what would become of me were I to be left behind at any spot on that uncanny route. The flowing river that ran parallel seemed like the only moving thing besides us. The headwaters of the whole valley met us during this excursion. High up in the mountains, a stream, and another, joining up in Cormayeur and then with others flowing south to feed the whole Aosta valley in the form of River Dora Baltea. Running along the complete length of the Val Ferret is the Dora di Ferret river which is born, impetuous, at the foot of the Prè de Bar glacier, as one Cormayeur website describes. We were thrilled to have taken on this unplanned adventure of not stopping till stopped. And eventually we were stopped. The way to going any further was blocked. It was the most private, remote and desolate spot.
Was it the French border or that the road simply didn't exist beyond there? We had no idea and we could care less except that we could have dug farther in had it not been blocked. This was the end point of Val Ferret. The only sign indicating that any soul would ever venture there was the signboard showing the map of Val Ferret. It was surreal. I felt like I was sucked into a movie scene. Pitch-dark night, snowy trees, gigantic Mont Blanc befriending other mammoths of the Alpine range and streams meandering around in the valley; it was for me a natural wonder. The golden peaks of the dolomites will have to accommodate with it, Val Ferret in the first position. Light was completely absent except for what our car would choose to emanate. The atramentous night had a starless, cloudy sky. The most amazing thing happened when cotton-like, shimmering snow started to shower and surely enough my mind started running out of adjectives to describe the experience even in thoughts. A few unsuccessful attempts of taking pictures in the tenebrous setting later, it dawned upon us to quit trying. Not only because it was no time to spend on quotidian things like cameras but also because we surrendered to the fact that no man-made eye could capture that inexorably bewitching beauty. After some research, I found out that the blockage could have been either French or Swiss border; or it could have been that precise meeting point of France, Switzerland and Italy.

Phew, I was satiated. I could peacefully go home now with half the trip still remaining and feel like I had come back from a fulfilling and refreshing month-long vacation.

As soon as we got back to the civilization and the haze wore off, hunger took its toll. We had forgotten about all else and it had gotten quite late in looking for a hotel as well as food. After an hour of desperate but successful hotel-hunting, we unloaded and rushed to look for an open restaurant. The restaurant at walking distance from the hotel was the one to serve us what I would call the worst meal of the trip. The soup was nothing but stringy cheese. But, it was all good. Who cared about good food that day? Besides, the topic of conversation that dinner was boyfriends/girlfriends, love lives, first kisses etc. How would hot soup rate when compared with so much hot gossip?!

We got back to the hotel to realize my cellphone had decided to stay back. A phone call to the unfriendly restaurant owner found Pete and me running frantically as a reaction to the threat of losing the cellphone for the night. It was not a bad exercise, I must admit. Besides, we were thankful we even got the phone back! The restaurant owner had seemed hostile towards American tourists and despite my repeated attempts during dinner to convince them(in English) that I was not an American, the only person who showed some sympathy was a fellow-customer. He nodded cluelessly and acknowledged my crazy talk in an alien language. What was I thinking? I was hardly able to convince Pete that I was not just another California girl! His teasing provoked a patriotic "No Pete, I AM AN INDIAN" reminder at least thrice a day. Traveling with these crazy Americans is not easy, I could tell that much.

The hotel was cold and this was going to be the night of jet lag making its presence felt for me. But several wonderful episodes of Wonderfalls made me survive the cold night; I completed my long hair-washing ordeal as well as my first official breakfast-room breakfast before anyone else even saw the daylight.