Italian summer

Lucky for me, a big geoscience conference was held in Perugia, Italy in July. I had some new results to present and made some good new connections with the European cryospheric community. I also got to stay in beautiful nearby Assisi, and met up with Lisa's good friend Kate Wilson now at GNS in Lower Hutt.

View of Assisi from Hotel Giotto

After the conference, I rendezvoused with my good friend Frank Olive from Fairbanks, who'd put 3000 km on his bike from his sister's house in Budapest - taking the long way round, via Austria, Switzerland, France, Monaco and the Italian Riviera. We met in Arco where we hiked in the 30 C sun so that we could climb in the shade. There is so much fantastic limestone around Arco, it's just unbelievable. And hard to photograph when you're either climbing or belaying!

While in Arco we met up for dinner with Marghi and Giorgio, Lisa's Italian sister and brother from her high-school year in Italy. They both travelled about an hour from different directions with a friend to go out with us for Tex-Mex, Italian style. It was so great to see them again, and we had a really nice evening.

Me in Campiglio, and Frank with a rope, a rack and a bike on his back.

Then after 4 days, we packed up the bike and took a bus up the Brenta Dolomites. This is where Lisa had spent that high school year, and where we'd stayed with her host family on our 2005 trip (see very first blog). Frank and I also stayed with la famiglia Valentini, this time for a couple of nights in between a trip up into the mountains. These guys are incredibly generous hosts and went out of their way to arrange things for us. Giorgio gathered hard to find route information, hooked us up with his friends in Rifugio Tuckett, spent a long day climbing and hiking with us the day before a 10 km running race, and generally included us in what was going on. The language barrier wasn't too bad with Giorgio and I trying to met on some common ground.

Castetletto Inferiore from Rif. Tuckett; on the summit.
Frank on the crux of 'Rapunzolo'; Rif. Tuckett.

The Arco crash-course in climbing fitness paid off and we enjoyed some really nice climbing high in the mountains. We spent one day climbing on the Castelletto Inferiore right by Rif. Tuckett and then a second day at Corna Rossa with Giorgio. The climbing was fantastic. The routes we climbed were Rapunzolo (5+, 7p), Kirka(5+, 3p), Mazun(6c, 4p), Big Daniel (6a, 3p) [we had to climb that once we saw the name], and Via Carabinieri (6a, 8p). We onsighted the lot, the highlights being Mazun, and the top 4 pitches of Carabinieri. Without Giorgio, it would have been a very different experience: the route information is not widely distributed, at least one reason for which is that the local guides put up routes and then work guiding on them.

Hiking to Rif. Tuckett; view of, and looking down Via Carabinieri.
Giorgio; farewell dinner; Frank, and me thinking about the crux ahead.

Back in San Antonio di Mavignola, it was the Festa d'Estate - summer festival - and our long day out was followed by a long night out. It was really nice to meet up with some of the people I met last time - friends of Lisa's and the Valentinis, Violine and Enrico, and Teresa and Renzo.

On Sunday, we watched Giorgio's race, lay in the sun eating polenta at the Alpin festa, took in some local cragging, enjoyed a wonderful farewell dinner from Bice's kitchen and then bused through to Milan on Monday. The floor of Malpensa airport is cheap but not that comfy.

It was a great trip, made possible through work, but made so enjoyable be meeting up with Frank and through the fabulous generosity and hospitality of the Valentini family -grazie mille! It was a real pity thought that we couldn't work it for Lisa to come too. There was a Lisa-sized hole in all of us up in Mavignola.

Grazie di nuova, ciao, ciao. ciao. ciao, ciao, ciao.

More pictures from the trip here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/danielpringle75/Italia2007/