The trip is over... sniff sniff

Well friends, family and any random people... we have reached the end of our trip. The flight, though uneventful was long and now we are both exhausted and jet lagged. Last night though well intentioned we were unable to do the blog post. In fact, we were so tired that we fell asleep on the couch like this...

So here it is.

After we left our friend Dave's place, and Brussels we drove up to Vught to see Anne and Erik. We arrived extremely early and washed lucy. It took a ton of time to wash all the bird crap off the roof but it came off nicely. After washing lucy we hung out in Vught for the afternoon until Anne and Erik arrived home from work. They served us a wonderful chilly and we had a fantastic evening.

The following morning Emilie and I drove for the last 30 minutes of our trip. The drive to Utrecht was uneventful and we listened to Cat Steven's 'Tea For the Tillerman' for the 400th and final time in 4 months. I will never listen to him again. It was a fitting end to the circle. Upon arrival in Utrecht we were able to sell Lucy for a reasonable sum. She really turned out to be a fantastic investment and it turned out that she payed for herself within 60 days of arrival in Europe. So my advice if anybody ever intends to take 4 months to travel through Europe is to visit www.dutchcampervans.com and get one from there. Highly worth it.
After dropping off Lucy Emilie and I wandered through Utrecht. We bought a board game called De Beer is Los! (known as Tally Ho! in english.) Fun two player game if a little too random. We played it for most of the afternoon until dinner. I also managed to totally destroy Emilie almost every time :) For dinner we decided to return to the very first restaurant we had been at when we arrived 4 months earlier.

The following day we took a train to Amsterdam. We dropped our bags off at the airport and then checked into our hostel. We decided we did not want to drag our two 25kg bags around town (Luckily no extra charges for the bags to fly home).
What followed is two days of debauchery in Amsterdam. Fortunately, none of the debauchery was undertaken by us. Amsterdam is a crazy city that really one has to experience for themselves to truly understand. Imagine a city with no limits on pretty much anything, legalized prostitution, coffee shops for smoking weed, sex stores on every second corner in the red light district, and some history to top it off. Very interesting city. I'll let Emilie fill in more if she wants to. (Tons of horny men walking around alone or in groups...Temptation land I suppose!) The second picture shows the red light district around 11am, not quite as busy as later in the day. For the ladies sake, i only took a side picture, you can see the individual windows where from a perpendicular angle you would be looking at mostly naked women...
Yesterday we flew home and officially marked the end of the trip. In the end it was a fantastic trip. Both Emilie and I grew both personally and as a couple. Four months in a van made us stronger in many ways. And for many, just the fact that we didn't kill each other for being cramped up in so little space is already surprising! I have come to several strong personal decisions including a choice to return to school which most who know me will find as a surprise. As for Emilie, the long needed break, 4 months of relaxing and no stress, was like heaven on earth. It had been a long time since we both had truly laughed and been happy. I have to say that in the end we regret nothing and had an amazing world class trip. I will finish with a saying.

The best dreams are those that when realized give birth to more dreams.

Stay tuned for the next big trip. We will be back and I promise there will be more exciting posts. (And I will try not to bore everybody to tears with long climbing posts). Thanks for reading, your comments and e-mails kept us going and we truly enjoyed doing it.

Carpe Diem!

One last photo... David on our last day of climbing in Belgium...

The last climbing in Europe

So, man, where have we been. It's been a bit of a hectic little while as we have been heading back up towards Utrecht where we will be dropping off Lucy. After our last post we spent a few more days in Munich. Corina, a friend we met in Naples, lives near Munich and she came to see us for a day. We had WiesWurst and WeisBeer for breakfast (actually only I had beer but everybody had wieswurst). Weiswusrst is a traditional bavarian breakfast. We were instructed by our German friend Heiko that we weren't allowed to eat weiswurst after noon. We almost broke the rule because the service was really slow, despite us arriving there at 11. We did finish eating before noon, so its all good. We attempted to use the metro to reach the olympic park, but we couldnt quite figure out how the metro tickets worked so we had to come up with another plan - within walking distance. We walked to the Octoberfest grounds where in October there will be an insane amount of drunk people drinking beer in these humongous tents (holds 8000people per tent). It also happens to be the location of "the Bavaria" statue. We will attempt to post pictures of it in our next post...

After Munich, we decided to take the advice of our dear friend Rick Steves (aka Guide book guy) and went to visit Rothenburg, which is theoretically Germany's best kept Medieval old town. Rick Steves suggests doing all your shopping there, specifically in all the towns special Christmas shops. Needless to say that the superb looking Nutcrackers were above 100euros a piece, which makes these gifts beyond our reach... :) It was quite a pretty old town, though comparable to previous old city towns of Italy that we saw earlier in our trip.

The truly exciting part was leaving Rothenburg and driving to Heilbronn, quite ugly industrial town, but with great company. AnneMarie, a good friend from Waterloo has been doing a Coop there and we hung around with her for 2 evenings. She sadly had to work during the day, and even though her job is terrible and they treat her badly, we could not convince her to skip work, perhaps because she only actually had 3 days of work left before her coop term ended. It was fun to catch up on our various adventures of the summer as well as walk around the city park and downtown. We had yet more German beer, and yummy food. I specifically like "Kaspaztla", really not how it is spelt i am sure, and probably not how it is pronounced. It is a cross between spaghetti and gnochi, and is eaten with delicious melted cheese......

At this point it was Friday, and only having to be in Brussels on Sunday, we decided to return to Mayen, the very first climbing crag we visited in Europe. We thought we may enjoy it better than the first time, but turns out we didn't. We climbed a few of the same climbs and decided it was best to simply just move on.

We drove to Brussels on Saturday and met up with Dave, also one of the first people we met we when arrived in May. On Sunday (today) we decided to go to one of the "local crags" (about 45min away) and it was actually quite interesting and enjoyable climbing. Certainly a good way to conclude the climbing for our trip. Dave bravely led two difficult climbs (6a and 6a+ aka 5.10a and 5.10b) which David and I had alot of fun falling off of and hauling ourselves up. (Dave made it look like childsplay :) ) We did both make it to the top and were quite proud! We also in the process took about 100 pictures of the same climb - taking advantage of being a party of 3 climbers rather than our usual 2. We also did a few easier climbs in between...

I think that overall we didn't end up climbing quite as much as we originally had in mind before leaving Canada. I guess its easy to forget while planning about difficulties such as unpredictable weather, sickness, distances to travel... ;) But don't get me wrong, we are not at all disappointed. While we are not going home as suddenly super strong climbers, we have had a great climbing season, explored and sampled sooo many different areas, and learnt a lot about ourselves and our strengths in the process. We also enjoyed quite a bit of sightseeing, and that part of our story isnt quite over yet!! And of course we now have many places we can dream of returning to in the future... We have officially retired our ropes. We left one with a party of climbers in Mayen, and gave the other to Dave to use as a potential rope rug or knitted outfit (there is talk of a rope sweater)!!! They have been well used.

Tomorrow we must find a place to wash Lucy and give her a really good scrub before giving her up on Tuesday in Utrect. Unfortunately, we think a flock of birds had a party on a branch above Lucy after eating copious amounts of berries. We have a seriously huge mess to scrub off the roof... We also have to finish packing up our bags so we are ready to run off to Amsterdam for our last few days in Europe. We will be spending tomorrow evening in Vaught visiting some friends of Davids family. We are looking forward to meeting them!

We will have at least one more post before we conclude our trip. We are also sure to have interesting stories from Amsterdam... so don't give up yet!

PS. We have been entertaining you, hopefully, all summer. We are rather curious to see who has been keeping up, if you have a minute, post a comment to say hello :))) And to all those who have already commented on previous posts, thanks :)))

Mmmm Bavarian Beer!!

So I can only imagine that by now you are all totally confused as to where we are, what we are doing and where we are going... I will therefore backtrack a bit to put you back on track.

Really the reason we have been changing our minds so much in the past few weeks is the weather. I think the rain chassed us all through Italy, as we wanted to climb in Val di Mello and it called for rain... so instead we drove to Arco, and got Ok weather. On the friday it had called for rain, so David and I decided we should try canyoning! (as per an earlier recommendation we had received...) My original idea of canyoning was repelling down into canyons and having to dangle 60-100m in the air before reaching the base of the canyon. Obviously, i was clueless. Canyoning is described by "jumping, sliding and repelling....", and involves wearing a full wetsuit and harness. Get the idea?? We were a group of about 14 plus 2 guides. Half girls half guys. All italian, and a hilarious group they were as well! Turns out that canyoning involves jumping from cliffs into the water below...from various heights. Of course the guides give you the option of rappelling, if you are too scared. Obviously, all the italian men didnt hesitate at the first jump - and i totally chickened out and rappelled. It was about a 7m drop - and all i could think of was that i wouldnt jump far enough and land on the rocks below :S Now I did manage to get my courage together and jump a the next opportunity, though it took me quite a bit of guts - as well as a terrible shriek to make the jump! It was a longer jump than the one i had just avoided. I do pride myself however in that of all the girls present, i was the only one that did any of the jumps woot woot. Now, to put the icing on the cake, the final jump was about 10 or 12m high! And both David and I did it! A few of the guys had opted out and repelled...And the last guy after us, we were told, said to the guy "I have to be brave like the canadian guy and just do it", which he did :)) Fun to try, though I dont think I have discovered a passion for canyoning...

After that, we had planned on meeting some of davids family in Verona - mostly for a quick stop to pick up some stuff we had left with them and jump in the shower. There was some confusion when we got to Verona however, and we only stayed with Davids family for a few hours. We had gone to Venice that same day - and walked around and got lost in the town for several hours. Venice really was beautiful, and we enjoyed it as long as we stayed away from the extremely crowded touristy streets! (And getting away from the swarms really wasnt all that difficult)
I have to admit i was really disappointed that the "gondeliers" didnt sing to their passengers :( Although of all the boats, we did see one which had two musicians singing and playing the accordeon, the sound filled the tiny "water streets" and we listened for a while as they floated away...

After Verona, we headed to the Dolomites. We couldnt possibly come to Europe and not climb in the oh so famous dolomites. We had planned to stay for a week, and had even picked 5-6 climbs that looked really exciting. I was slightly nervous, having heard the reputation of the dolomites... Loose rock, hard to protect, mostly pitons, difficult route finding... Yikes! Of course, the weather once again threatened to ruin our plans. For this, and also to get used to the area, we chose a "shorter climb" as our first pick. A 9 pitch, 250m ish route. I LOVED it! Ok, so you have to be a bit gutsy because protection is difficult, but no worries - the route difficulty was well within our reach and at no point did we fear we would fall...
(In red, the route that we climbed, in green, the long convoluted route we took to descend...)


Thankfully! The following day, because it was suppsoed to rain in the afternoon, we did an even shorter climb, of 150m. While still enjoyable (and David would say with more varied climbing), we got overtaken on the first pitch by a father and son, who stupidly slowed us down for the remaining 6 pitches. Not only were they climbing slower, but they decided to stretch out their pitches, making us wait at each anchor longer - and frustatingly wait while the father downclimbs because he has run out of rope. Gosh. That aside, it was fun, and the walk down was even more interesting. Turns out that there is a really easy descent from the mountain, and it used to be some sort of trench system dug into the mountain side probably from WWII. With tunnels, trenches, caches, rooms dug into the rocks... Pretty cool!! Seeing as we had our headlamps with us, we did a bit of exploring...
After the climb, we checked the weather only to realize that it called for rain for the following days, which cut our dolomite experience short - much to our displeasure... We were looking forward to the 500m climb Heiko had recommended, as well as a few others we had picked. Sigh.

Our spirits were brought up again however after we discovered Munich and the delicious Bavarian beer and food! We spent most of today walking around the Englischer Gardens (apparently one of europes largest city parks) and enjoying ourselves at the BeerGardens! Yes, both David and I endulged in a 1litre beer (ok, so i cheated and had half lemonade - half beer, miam, much better in my opinion).

We had a chat with a German couple, talking about our travels and their trips to Canada. Its amazing the random people you can meet while travelling... We also found this english bookstore where we replenished our stock! Yes, no denying that we are reading tons of books this summer, having guilt free reading time has been awesome for the both of us. Especially now that we had this series we had started and really wished to know the end...

The plan for the next few days remain blurry. We may go climbing in Frankejura which is north east of Munich, but the weather may have more rain in store for us... if that is the case, we will see... We now have only 11 days left, and time is running out... We do eventually have to make our way up to Amsterdam prior to Aug.31st! And we have to be back in Utrect on the 28th to sell Lucy, as well as go back to Brussells...

Going back in the past, 2 pictures from switzerland... Though we did quite enjoy Bern, we were very sad to see they keep up the very old tradition of keeping bears captive in pits in the park... They looked rather miserable...
The dying lion of lucerne - in memory of the swiss mercenaries, carved right into the rock.
And some random pictures... Anyone willing to give information on the meaning of the picture below, we re interested about thoughts-ideas

The grapes are becoming juicier every day...
And after climbing our first climb in the dolomites we drove past this man... and decided to stop by for some cheese. Perhaps the tastiest Pecorino I have ever encountered... And ironically, we only wanted a little bit of cheese...and ended up with 13$ worth, HUGE chunks. Thats what the man thought "a bit" was (I suppose a lot of cheese would have meant buying the entire thing! And they were huge!)

Hello Gentle Readers,

Today we are going to grace you with a picture post as we haven't really done a whole lot except for move from one rainy area to another... so without further delay:



One of our 66 or so shot of the matterhorn. David on the Summit of the Rifflehorn.


The Matterhorn as seen through Emilie's Eyes...


Emilie leading a corner on the route up the Rifflehorn.


The famous Troll eats babies statue in Bern...


Emilie leading one of the many slab pitches we climbed in Grimsel Valley.

Emilie following the Limestone route "New Entry" which we climbed on Saturday (rained off) and Sunday. 3 pitches 5c, 5c, 6a. I lost the red point because I screwed up a clip on the crux pitch and needed to hang to fix it. Nice route and unlike the other route wer bailed off of on Saturday was not polished at all. The route we bailed off of was a 16 pitch 5a but we could see our reflections on the rock.

Emilie being really naughty after we finished the climb New Entry... mmmm Grapes.

An artistic picture of Venice. We visited Venice yesterday. Very nice city, lots of water, smells and tourists.

David sitting on a budget gondola. .50 Euro Cents for the authentic experience without the singing. The real thing would have cost about 100Euros. Ouch. Only one that we saw had any music and that seemed to be from a travelling band... one can only guess how expensive that would have been.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures! We gotta run as the internet is funky here and I have no more change. Tomorrow assuming the weather holds, we do our first climb in the dolomites. Weather is looking funky so the future is cloudy.

Just a quick post - and more...

Hey everybody!

Just a quick post as I am at a Mac reseller and probably shouldn't be writing this here...

The day after our last post Emilie and I hiked 4 hours for a 200m climb. The panorama from the top was superb and we really enjoyed the climb. Very clean rock with a little bit of everything. Only problem with the climb is that it was sport bolted with approximatly 2 bolts per pitch... they were there when we needed them I suppose.

Oops, I got kicked off and have to start again... well not again but anyway from here I start.

The climb we had done was on a little mountain called the Reifflhorn. Theoretically it was supposed to be a crag used as training for the Matterhorn, I dunno about that though. Even after hiking all day, I still didn't get the impression that we were doing anything near to the difficulty of the Matterhorn. Regardless it was fun.

The following day Emilie and I left Zermatt, we intended to head back to Italy and try to climb Gran Paradiso. However, it seems that it was not to be as my eye had not yet become well enough to go onto a Glacier. So back to the hospital we went, where we found that the previous doctor was an idiot and I needed a stronger perscription. We didn't end up attempting Gran Paradiso. Insted we went back to Switzerland and did a bit of sight seeing. It really wasn't all that exciting actually. I think that we are getting a bit jaded as we have been sightseeing for 3 months and kinda want to stop seeing sights.

Bern was a nice town. A few nice sights. However, they had captive bears and it was pretty sad to see them in their concrete environment. We watched transformers in Bern and found out that the swiss need to have a 10 minute break in the middle of all their movies... it was quite odd.

After Bern we drove to Lucerne. Another nice town but not really much to do but walk around. We did the walk and it was nice. The next day we went to Zurich. Zurich was an interesting city. Very full of people. There was supposed to be an electricity in the air, but I didn't see it. Zurich ended up being very expensive as I was nabbed by the police travelling through a red light about 1 second too late. They have short Yellows in Switzerland.

The next day we went to Interlaken. Turns out that in order to have fun in Interlaken you need to spend a ton of money. We left shortly after arriving. And went to Grimsel Valley.

Grimsel Valley is a nice Glacier carved valley with a TON of granite slab. We spent a day sampling a slab route and decided that while it was fun, slab is not really our thing. We had intended to climb a couple of crack routes today but the weather moved in and isn't going to lift until Friday. So we moved on.

Right now we are in Lugano just north of Milan. We are heading back to Val del Mello (where we visited 2 months ago) to climb what is supposed to be the nicest climb in the alps. It's a 5.10a dihedral route and we have high hopes.

Stay tuned!

Switzerland is bleedin expensive

Hello gentle readers. I once again will bless you with one of my overly long and wordy posts. Just a note, Emilie forgot to note that there were two posts last time we posted. So if you missed her post on Croatia you should read that now (two posts ago).

So where have we been since you last heard from us? Well our plans have changed faster than our underwear in the past week. I´m kidding of course... maybe. After the post we made we had intended to climb Gran Paradiso (4081m). Coincidentally, this mountain is located in Gran Paradiso National Park. However, shortly after the post it became obvoius that I was missing a critical piece off safety equipment. The anti-ball plate for my crampons. (sits on the bottom of your crampons and prevents snowballs from accumulating and making the crampons ineffective) After looking all throughout aosta we were unable to find a suitable anti-ball plate we were presented with a suitable excuse for not climbing Gran Paradiso and for heading towards Chamonix. If you can´t find a specific piece of gear in Chamonix, you will not find it anywhere in the world... or so they say (and said). Of course lesser acknowledged excuse was that we had bought the new Harry Potter novel.

So rather than making the hike up to Gran Paradiso, we drove off to Chamonix. Emilie read Harry Potter to me while we drove. Since we had been unable to decide who would be able (or lucky enough) to read it first, we took turns reading to each other or just reading together (how cute heh?). Once in Chamonix we looked for the anti-ball plates. But of course were unable to find some. A clever employee suggested a trick I had read about but forgotten. The use of duct tape to achieve the same goal. Seems a little skechy but really not too bad at all. Perhaps not as good as the real thing but it served the purpose.

The following day Emilie and I took the cable car up to Auguille di Midi (3800m) on the Mont Blanc Massif where we had planned to do a glacier traverse to Helbringer on the Italian side of Massif. We intended to do the traverse and then take a cable car back to Auguille di Midi and then back into Chamonix. It really and truly felt like cheating as we were wisked above the tree tops up to the Auguille di Midi. It also felt like cheating because we spent a fortune on the tram ride. But it was worth it I think as there is no easier way to get to altitude. In fact, we enjoyed the experience so much that should anybody be considering travelling through France and into Italy, we recommend finding a way into Chamonix then taking the cable cars up to Augiulle di Midi and towards the Italian frontier and then down into Valle d´asota. Well worth the cost.



Once at the cable car station at 3800m Emilie got cold feet. So we dressed her up a bit warmer. It was quite windy and the first section of the glacier traverse was a razor edged ridge... ok more like a kinda thin ridge but wide enough for two people to walk beside eachother comfortably (in some spots only...). (Anyone else feel queezy by the ridge in this picture???)The discomfort came from the snow and the fact that if you fell one way you would quickly arrive back in Chamonix and if you fell the otherway... well lets just say that niether of us fell or even came close. The rest of the traverse was comfortable if a little breathtaking. The thin air and altitude affected both of us and often we were out of breath. I can´t really describe the scenery but we will upload photos at the bottom of this post. Suffice it to say that Mountains are beautiful. (View from the return cable car of the route that we took. Its not as bad as it looks!)

("Summit Picture" At the end of the hike...)After the traverse Emilie and I finished Harry Potter back in Chamonix. Quick review: good and entertaining novel and a really good end to the series. I think that JK Rowling finished the series extremely well and didn´t screw it up when there was plenty of potential.

At this point something weird happened to my eye and I was felled by the eye infection that had been growing since the second day of the Alta Via 4. Of course wearing contacts again whent the infection was still in full force was a dumb idea but you need to wear sunglasses on glaciers. So anyway saturday was a Doctor day (making full use of this insurance I paid for!). The doctor prescribed an antibiotic that stings and an eye wash. The eye is getting better.


On sunday we had been planning on doing a couple day hike to see some dinosaur footprints near a lake. But of course, we ended up sleeping too long and the weather wasn´t co-operating so instead we drove to Zermatt. Zermatt in a word - Matterhorn. Zermatt in two words - Very Expensive. Zermatt in some more words - First place in Europe I have been able to find Chicken Wings!!! (Any guesses as to how much 10 small chicken wings cost in Zermatt?)


Our first day in Zermatt included walking around the town and getting some information about the climbing in and around. We broke a bank (they have a ton here in Switzerland... probably where they store all the tourists money) and ate a fondue. Quite tasty. (Money seems to fly away, even faster than it has before.... scary)


Today we did the Mammut Climbing Path... ... ... now that you have wondered what the heck that is, I will explain. It´s a via ferrata. I know, I was surprised aswell when I found out. Anyway, it was a 3 hour waltz over metal things stuck into the rock. The highlights included a short section of overhanging ladder, walking along flexible wooden planks that Emilie declared were Emilie ONLY sections. So I had to wait. A weird wire ladder that swayed as we went up. It was some good fun, but neither Emilie nor I will become Via Ferratista´s or Ferratisto´s.


Oh a brief glimpse into the future: Emilie and David will find Switzerland too expensive and find their way back into Italy... Emilie and David will spend three nights sleeping with strangers... Stay tuned...

This one was just funny...

Valle Daosta, Cogne and Alta Via 4

David and I lost no time to leave Torino following my arrival from Croatia. We went directly to Aosta, direction Cogne for some hiking\climbing. The first day we decided to take it easy and go climb in Lillaz by the waterfalls. Turned out to be a very pleasant crag with really easy routes! It was quite different than our previous climbs in Val dOrco where it was mostly Slab or Crack climbing. This crag was one or two pitches long with nice jugs all the way up :)) (aka always nice big holds for the hands!). It ended up being rainy and sunny and rainy and sunny and...

While on rappel, David was singing "Rain drops are falling on my head...but that doesnt mean my eyes will soon be turning red... Crying is not for me..."

That evening we slept in a parking lot - which we thought was free. What a surprise the next morning when as soon as we open the door to Lucy, this man standing outside says "10 euros please". Sigh. We apparently drove into the parking lot through the exit, thus missing the sign, at the entrance, saying it cost 10 euroes per camper for the night. hehe... Cant believe we paid money to sleep in a parking lot without even being able to shower!!!!!

The following day, David and I went totally crazy. We decided we wanted to do some hiking around Gran Paradiso (a 4100m ish peak), included in one of the hiking books we brought from Canada. (Beginning of our hike, in Cogne, below) David and I decided we would buy new boots. David because his boots are way too old, offer no support, and are pretty much broken. Me, david insisted, because my boots are no longer waterproof and a stiffer pair would do better on possible glacier routes we might do.

We prepared and the next day, off we go on our hike. Of course we know we are doing the famous rooky mistake by wearing, without breaking them in, new boots for the first time on a long hike! The first day was pretty short, about 3h30minutes of hiking. Mostly uphill, from Cogne to the Riffugo Sella. At which point we were about at 2600m. The italian rifugos offer 1\2 pension, which means that dinner and breakfast are included in the price. We were thus served pasta, deer and sausage, and dessert for dinner! :)) Turns out that my feet are somewhat in pain, with mostly sore ankles... David seems fine. Does he ever complain?? :))

Early start the next morning, as we have a reaaaaaaaally long day ahead of us, to hike towards Rifugo Chabod.We were told from 8-10 hours of hiking (maybe a distance of about 12-15km). Including 2km of altitude gain and loss, 2 cols to pass and one reaaallly long descent. Early in the morning, we could see a man and a dog slowly catching up to us, and just before the col, I had to step aside to let the doggy pass. It was pretty hilarious :)) (cant see very well, but the dog is trailling behind me in the picture...) The man was a park ranger, he was intense, never ever stopped for a break! (Picture below at the first Col, the ranger nicely agreed to take a picture for us :))

The last col included some scrambling while hanging on to chains and a short Via Ferrata. The col being over 3000m, and being slightly exhausted, I was having a tough time! David was amazingly strong all day, constantly encouraging me, and waiting for me to catch up on the uphill :) I have to admit, I felt rather out of shape most of the way. In addition, my feet were hurting (who knows whether its the boots, or my socks, or just my feet that suck. David ended up taping my ankles, and taping my socks to my calfs in hopes that the rubbing would stop!). Nevertheless, it was such an exciting day, with awesome views. We were happy.

(I am in that picture, look for the black dot...far far away haha)

We were supposed to continue on the hike the following day, with a quick stop in Pont to gather up a bit more food and some new socks for me. By mistake, we ended up hiking to another rifugo (Vittore Emanuelle) and then having to take another path down to Pont. My stupid feet decided not to cooperate, and I was in so much pain all the way down to Pont that we had to call it a day... Sigh. I was disappointed.

Some random pictures...

The MGB in action! Lo Stambecco (Ibex) This one is quite old, obviously!
David enjoying the flowers...

The french have the funniest fashions....

Today, we are giving my feet a rest. I will have to test out the new boots again... and perhaps compare with my old boots. Neither David nor I had ever done such a sustained hike before, so perhaps my feet would have hurt regardless and I just need to toughen up :) (or give up on hiking, not sure hehe).

We have exciting plans for the next few days... but we shall only talk of them once we successfully complete them :) No worries here!

Ciao!