Re: Suggestions for Northern Italy

On Tue, 16 Apr 2007, jstammer wrote:

and we have another week to explore. We want to hike in the mountains

which mountains ? where in Riviera are you ? If you are on Riviera di
Levante (east of Genova) your inland mountains will be Appennines, if
you are on Riviera di Ponente (west) they will be Maritime Alps.

These areas won't be touristy, and the mountains are not very high.
There should be a couple of regional parks, one near La Spezia (Aveto ?)
and one inland of Genova (Capanne di something). Might check on the
parks.it website. Never been there.

Also a trip to the old forts above Genova could be interesting (seen
them from afar on the train, wanted to do it but never done it)

Or are you thinking of real Alps ? (which will be quite far, and perhaps
not easy to reach ... you say you have no car and want to carry bikes,
did I get it correctly ? Bike transport on trains is subject to
limitations (usually possible on regional slow trains, not on long
distance fast ones).

We're thinking of Gran Paradiso National Park and the Dolomites are

Dolomites are quite far from where you will be. Gran Paradiso (PNGP) is
a bit closer, but still not obvious to reach by train from Ligury. Will
detail more if you confirm your transportation.

On the other hand Dolomites are lower and there are big valleys with
roads which can be biked (some of the passes are very famous among
bikers because of the Giro d'Italia). I know them very very little.

PNGP has higher mountains, with valleys not interconnected by roads
(passes on the paths are usually above 3000 m). More suitable for
mountaineering. I know this area quite well.

I read somewhere you can hike/bike across the border from Italy to
France but didn't find much info. Is this something that could be done
as a day trip?

To do a day trip I guess you'd have to be based in Ventimiglia,
otherwise you'd have to go there first. I often spend part of the winter
in Laigueglia and a trip west to Ventimiglia is almost impossible (the
first viable train gets there after the bus has left, and the next bus
is after 11).

Surely you could bike (instead of bussing) along the old coastal road,
towards the Ponte San Luigi border point. In La Mortola you MUST visit
the Hanbury Gardens, and about 2 km later, just before the border, you
can go down to the Balzi Rossi prehistoric site and also have a look at
the "egg beach".

I have no ideas of hikes in the hills across the border (these used to
be smugglers and illegal immigrants, or refugee, paths), nor of the
state of the paths.

Places you could visit near Ventimiglia, inland, are Dolceacqua and
Apricale, two well preserved ("orange flag") old villages.

A place (in France, in the area passed from Italy to France after WWII)
which could combine train, bike and hike is Valle delle Meraviglie (now
it should be Vallee des Merveilles) near Mount Bego. Never been there
(too far for me). Famous prehistoric rock carvings.

There is a secondary railway from Ventimiglia to Breil sur Roya (where
it receives a line from Nice) and then up to Col di Tenda (an Alp pass)
and down to Limone Piemonte back in Italy.
Somewhere after Breil and before Tenda you should leave the train and
bike up the valley (this is the part too long for a walker like me), and
finally walk.

If you then want to continue with the train to Limone and Cuneo you will
be in Piedmont. There are plenty of nice valleys in the Alps west of
there. Of these I know only the upper Po Valley with the river sources
under mount Monviso. You could continue with local trains from Cuneo to
Turin, and then catch the Turin-Chivasso-Ivrea-Aosta train to the Aosta
Valley (for PNGP and mt. Blanc).

Also read about taking a lift over Mt. Blanc between Italy/France.
Where does one go to do this, could we combine that with some hiking?

The "lift" is the Courmayeur-Chamonix cable car. Never done it. Maybe
you can just walk from Courmayeur town to where the cable car starts.
The nearest train station is Pre S.Didier (some trains from Aosta
continue and terminate there) which is just below Courmayeur. There
should be plenty of hikes in Val Veny and Val Ferret (the two side
valleys around Mt. Blanc). Landscape alike (or even better) than in
PNGP.

Where would be a good place to stay to explore Gran Paradiso for a few
days without it being too touristy or expensive, yet accessible (we
will not have a car).

PNGP is a park covering some valleys in Val d'Aosta and some valleys in
Piedmont, around the 4000 m Gran Paradiso massive. No area particularly
touristy, rather secluded. I know the valleys of Cogne, Val Savaranche,
Rhemes and Val Grisanche. All reachable from Aosta by bus. But with the
exception of Cogne, underpopulated. As far as I remember during summer
there were only two buses per day in the other valleys.

Cogne (altitude about 1600 m) is probably the most touristy/expensive
place, but you are going off-season. I was there off-season too
(september) and prices were reasonable. My advice would be to stay at an
hotel with full board arrangement, and ask them to provide basket
lunches. Cogne is located near a large meadow (Prato di S.Orso), and
there are at least three directions (toward Valnontey, towards Lillaz
and then even Champorcher, up towards Gimillian) where you could bike on
consortile roads (the upper part of such roads are usually closed to
private cars in the Aosta Valley). You can then walk further, or higher
(e.g. the rifugio /shelter/ Sella at 2600 m).

Rhemes Notre Dame (the last village of Val di Rhemes) should be at about
1750 m, and when I used to go camping further up it had only two hotels.
The valley is narrow here, it opens up if you go higher (but the side
valleys are all pensile valleys, if you know what it means). With a
mountain bike you'd be able to reach rifugio Benevolo at the end of the
consortile road.

In Val Savaranche the main town is Degioz (1500 m, at the valley centre)
and the last one is Pont (1900 m). Nice trips (up) from Degioz or better
Eau Rousse to Leviona on the old Royal Hunting Road (a large footpath),
or from Pont up to shelter Vittorio Emanuele (for climbers of Gran
Paradiso) or up to the Roley cross and the Nivolet plain (a plain at
2200 m ... reachable also from Piedmont via Ceresole Reale, the rifugio
Chivasso is just at the piedmontese end ... they wanted to build a road
from Ceresole to Pont, but the Park blocked the works).

Val Grisanche as far as I know is even less populated. The end of it
(where the roads end) is occupied by a dam with a lake. Then walkable
paths continue to rifugio Bezzi (and up to passes).

Consider that the passes across valleys are at 3000-3200 m. They used to
be covered by snow even in July, when I used to go there (but that was a
while ago, don't know now with global warming).

Same question about the Dolomites, where would be a good place to stay
for a few nights while exploring the region by train/bus?

Trentino-Alto Adige (the region, composed of Trentino, the province of
Trento, and Alto Adige /Suedtirol, the province of Bolzano/Bozen) is
known to have a very good local transport network. Just google for
"Trentino" and "trasporti pubblici". Train is limited to a few lines in
the bottom of the valleys (the main Brenner line, a side line to
Fortezza-San Candido and then into Austria, a side line terminating in
Merano, and the private Trento-Male' line. But there should be lots of
bus lines.

Probably more touristy, definitely more populated than the Aosta Valley.

We're thinking it would be fun to bike Passo dello Stelvio. Is that
possible the last week of May or will it still be under snow?

Stelvio is 2700 m high. I suppose it is free because I heard of a trip
arranged there for early June, and I guess the Giro is going through the
various passes in the area more or less at the time.


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