Perfect weather in the morning – sunshine, light wind, warm. We get ready for the first trip to lac Ansabere.
When we arrive after 5km drive to the parking place we decide to get use of the excellent weather and to climb the Ansabere summit as well. The 2360m high summit is on the Spanish border. Height difference – about 1400m.
We get to the summit rather exhausted. The toughest are the last 200m to the summit. We take a rest here and watch how two mountaneers climb the nearby rock. The rock-column is close to our summit – there is only a 30-40m wide abyss between us and them. The column is about 300m high.
Driving to Pyrenees. While moving through one of the towns we have to deviate from our route because of road repair works. We get to the road uphill to the castle. We have noticed the castle before but decided not to go because of lack of time. Still the Providence in shape of repair works have decided otherwise 🙂
Having done with castle viewing we proceed to Gorge de Caqueta in Pyrenees. Gorge de Caqueta is several kilometers long and narrow chasm with a wooden footbridges, handrails, waterfalls, weird moss-grown trees and similar items. At the other end of the chasm there is a little grotto where comes out the stream we walked by and over all the way in the Gorge de Caqueta.
Getting back from the Gorge de Caqueta we drive to Lescun to search our accomodation. We drive very narrow serpentine about 30km. We have been instructed in an e-mail that we have to stop by the second house at the right in the village and ask for Mr. Passet. Everybody in the village knows him therefore no problems should occur. Except that he speaks only French. Thank God Ilze understands French 🙂
It turns out that these instructions work very well in practice. We stop by the second house at right. There is a correct name on the post box. The door is not locked and a sympathetic Frenchmen in his best years comes out to meet us. He shows where to drive (our accommodation happens to be near the house of Mr. Passet) and comes to show everything. Our house looks exactly as perfect as we have seen on the web page. In our disposition for two weeks will be the ground floor in a three store house at the edge of the village. Here are three bedrooms, kitchen with everything we could need, guest room, bathroom and a terrace. At our disposition will be excellent view on the mountains and a small courtyard with a lawn. The only shortage (is it really a shortage?) is a lack of internet access – this is available whenever we will need but only in the house of Mr. Passet.
The sky clear up gradually. We have a 1350m high Monte Gioco for today. The track starts in a San Pelegrino Terme town about 20km North from Bergamo.
Leaving the car near the shore of Brembo river we start by finding a gap between houses to get away from the river. Then we proceed further uphill first by the streets of the town then by the winding road that was converted to a stream by the “Beautiful Italian weather”. Winter roses bloom everywhere and soon the sun starts to pour its light. The rainbow follows as an extra. We walk through the Santa Croce village where the church service is in progress and a choir of sonorous Italian voices sing. Out of the village we climb to the Croce hill (Croce is a cross in Italian) with a huge white cross at the top. After a short rest we proceed further to Gioco. In a two and a half hours up-and-downs by the forest paths we reach it. The last section is a mountain ridge in a strong wind. Still the views from the ridge and from the summit are excellent.
On a way down the final km features a very steep, wet, moody, slippery, rough and endless path. It is twilight when we are down at last.
We find a café in San Pelegrino Terme and recharge our batteries, then drive to Bergamo. Fly home tomorrow.
Crespi d’Adda village is located some 15km to the South-West from Bergamo in direction of Milan. The village was built by magnate Kristofors Krespi for the workers of his factories. Only the factory workers and their families were allowed to live in the village. Every house had an orchard and a kitchen garden. The school was free of charge. The village had a contemporary lighting and a closed pools with showers and warm water. This happened at the end of the 19th century.
The magnate himself supervised everything from the palace built next to the village. At the one end of the village one next to other are located (still today) the houses of a physician and a priest. At the other end – the cemetery with a stone made wall and impressive chapel. In 1995. Crespi d’Adda was included in the UNESCO heritage list as the most complete and best conserved workers village in the Southern Europe.
We stroll the streets of Crespi, take a look at the palace, church, cemetery as well as beautiful and strong buildings of the factory.
Next we proceed to North-west to Bellagio village located on the cape between the legs (as they appear in the map) of the lake Como.
After a walk to the very end of the cape we take a photos of one another on a background of the lake and the mountains screened by the rain (our Italian friend Giorgio commented those shots later on with – a beautiful Italian weather).
There is a Monte Isola island inside the lake Mont Isola. The tell it is the largest island of the freshwater lake (we did not check). The island looks like a stone thrown by somebody in the middle of the lake. The road circles around the island (lake at one side, rocky wall at the other) plus there are a couple of other roads that goes up and inside the island. The main means of transport are motor bikes, mopeds and small buses. There is Sanctuario della Madonna della Ceriola at the top of Monta Isola which we plan to look at.
The boat takes of to the island from Sulzano. In ten minutes we are there and start our walk by the shore Westwards. It is rainy and windy – luckily we have appropriate clouds on. We proceed Westwards then Northwards then take the road inside the island uphill to the sanctuary. The road and then slippery stone plates. The sanctuary is at the top of the hill indeed and has a court with a stone wall around. A little bit unreal – the lake is not in the sight – only clouds with some hill tops stretching out.
Having done with the sanctuary we walk the road to the North of the island then return by the Eastern shore passing a large boatyard. Close to the end of our round trip we find a multistore motor bike parking place – no need for car parking here.
