Italian Alps – day 7
Colle delle Vallette – Camping Chisonetto
13.7.2024 Saturday
→ 34 km ↑ 904 m – total 150 km
It was fairly cold overnight. In the morning the thermometer in the tent reads 5°C. Alarm’s at 6:30am, but we really don’t feel like facing that cold. We have breakfast in our sleeping bags, bread with ketchup and salami. Since we’re low on water, we skip coffee too. We pack up and set off properly bundled up. The sun’s out and the sky is clear.
Beautiful mountain views all around us. We continue along the road through Gran Bosco di Salbertrand Natural Park. We pass old military structures. We soak in the views and keep stopping every so often when we spot a marmot.
After two and a half hours, we reach the Casa Assietta hut. We’re the first ones there, and at the door the owner asks what we’d like. We say coffee. He offers us fruit cake too, and I can’t resist, though if I’d seen it first I probably could have. The coffee was good, from a moka pot, but the cake turned out to be dry sponge smeared with jam. I pay €8 and we head off quickly.
Traffic starts picking up, mostly cyclists for now, but the occasional motorbike too, even though they’re banned here on Saturdays. Doesn’t seem to bother them much though. We head down the fastest route, along the road. Just the motorbikes start getting pretty unbearable when 10 of them go by in a row. So we turn off onto a longer, but purely hiking-and-cycling route instead.
We descend the other side, through a lovely forest. By Lago di Laune we have lunch. We sit in the shade and I’m actualy a bit cold, it’s only 13°C. We continue descending a bit more and then join asphalt road. We went from the frying pan into the fire. There are motorbikes on this side too, of course, though a bit fewer. I get that they want to see the views too, but some of them just ride up and down turning it into their own personal motocross track. Not exactly a pleasant walk because of it. We could’ve been done with this stretch already and ended up dragging it out for nothing. Luckily, from Colletto di Costa Treceira, it’s downhill on a trail all the way to Sestriere.
Along the way we filter more water, since we’re probably a bit dehydrated. We had too little water last night, so we’re feeling it a bit. We reach town at 5pm. Sestriere is one of the biggest ski resorts in Italy, and it hosted the 2006 Winter Olympics. It has more than 400 km of slopes and the highest-altitude golf course.
Since it’s such a sports hub, we figured buying a gas canister would be no problem. How wrong we were. I went into 6 sports shops and every single one only had clothing, shoes and sunglasses. We go at least restock at the only grocery store. We’re low on gas, so we buy a cold dinner, fruit and vegetables, beer, and prosecco. Today up on the hill I remembered we’ve actually been together three years now, we’d just forgotten. It’s three kilometers downhill to the campsite. We walk past the golf course. We reach the campsite right before reception closes. They’ve got a spot, and we pay €34 for the night. After 9 days I go wash my hair, and for the first time this whole trip we get a hot shower. We dry, charge everything and do a bit of laundry.
For dinner we end up going to the pizzeria next door, since we really should make the most of the opportunity even with a pile of food already on hand. We each get one, eat them fast and go have prosecco in the tent. I catch up on the blog and start writing another entry too. Jozef’s already asleep.
