23km and a bit up and down. The Aosta valley has finished we have entered Piedmont with it’s white on red cross (plus or minus a blue border), passed the moraines damming the lakes near Ivrea, and seen the exit of the Dora Baltea from it’s confining corsetry.
Most of the day was spent traversing the lanes connecting the vineyards,which are all made up in the same manner.
Small areas of flat land have been excavated out of the rocky landscape and filled with vines on pergolas held up by characteristic tapering stone pillars which apparently retain heat for the tender plants.
When not constructing vineyards the locals clearly spent their time building chapels or castles on inaccessible crags.
We manage a beer stop at an outdoor climbing centre and get a gratuitous pot of peanuts with a spoon and some round bread things to power us up the next hill.
And Ray finally gets shift of the apples he’s been carrying since Aosta at a lunch stop under the watchful eye of a Saint Rocco by a scrapyard.
The long descent to Ivrea with distant views of glacial lakes through some woods brings us to tonight’s lodgings in the Canoe Club in Ivrea.
We watch canoeists practising on the river as our socks dry in the afternoon sun.