Gressoney-St-Jean

We discussed where we would like to go on our first day after leaving Lucca. We had planned to go to Siena but we would have had to come back on ourselves to head home. So Parth suggested that we spend a couple of nights in the foothills of the Italian Alps. After visiting so many towns and cathedrals, lovely though they were, it did seem like a really nice idea to have a change of scenery.

 

The place we headed for was Gressoney-St-Jean. We arrived there in the early evening, checked into a hotel and then had a look around the town and planned what we would do the following day.

 

 

 

After an early breakfast we headed out. We walked along a river and then crossed over and headed up into the hills. The sun was shining and I wished I hadn’t put on my coat. We hiked up for just under two hours and reached the Alpenzu, an Alpine Refuge, where we had some lunch. At the Alpenzu we saw there were other paths going higher up into the mountains. As we were not wearing hiking boots we asked the locals whether they thought it would be okay to carry on. They advised against it. However we optimistically decided to carry on.


We got up to over 2000 metres above sea level but then it started to rain and we looked up to see dark clouds gathering. We thought it might be a good idea to start heading back. Then it started to thunder. We quickened our pace but it was slow going as we didn’t really have the proper gear and as the rain was getting harder the ground was getting more slippery. Now I was glad I did have my coat! The thunder started getting louder which sounded awesome echoing across the mountains but it was a bit scary. It felt like the storm was chasing us back down the hill. We made it safely back to the Alpenzu and waited until the storm subsided. The sun came back out and we climbed back down.