After two years Gaby and I are back at Lou Pitavin, our favourite restaurant/hotel/inn. October 2013 we celebrated my 50. birthday here and 2014 we returned for a few days in June. Now we're here for a first time in summer. The ride is hard from Fürth, Germany to Marmora in Val Maira where Lou Pitavin is situated. Crossing Switzerland takes 5 instead of the normal 2 hours, and the Italian highway toll system drives us nuts: Every few kilometers you have to stop, stand in line, and finally pay. After 13 hours we arrive at Lou Pitavin. Marco, the landlord, gives us a very warm welcome, and in the moment we enter our room, the whole ride is already forgotten.
The next day we take the car to the Colle del Preit, a crossing of two small alpine roads at 2083 m height. We go for a little hiking tour and a picnic with some cheese and bread we bought at the shop of the Marmora camping place. Sun shines, no clouds, comfortable temperature and clear, fresh air. We do slowly, take our time for photographing and just looking around. It's a great start for some wunderful days.
At Colle del Preit are quite some tourists. It's Sunday and many Italians from the Padan Plain are in the mountains for the weekend. We take a small hiking path, away from the road to the lunch station at Rifugio Gardetta, and after a few minutes we're all alone with mountains and nature.
We return to Lou Pitavin, relax a little bit, have a shower, and then go for dinner another time...
Next morning, after a wonderful breakfast, we hike to Lago Resile, a little lake about 2-3 hours up in the mountains. We cross the path of a bunch of white cows called Razza Piemontese. Originally from this area it's a very popular race of cows today all over Italy that produces milk as well as meat.
At Lago Resile we meet quite some Italian tourists as you can also reach it using a little mountain road. Also the water looks a little muddy. No place to stay so we move on, following a little creek back down the mountain. After a few hundred meters we come to a beautiful place with some meadows, old larch trees and the little creek with cold and clear drinking water. We stay for a lunch break.
Then I suddenly see a kind of a dog in the meadow about 50 meters away from our resting place. Looking at it again it's a wolf. We know that there are wolfs living in these valleys and mountains and that they have become more in the last years. But we also know that it's almost impossible to see them as a tourist. So this is really a lucky moment. Unfortunately I have the wrong lens mounted to my camera and no time to change to my tele-zoom as the wolf has seen us and is quite fast passing by and moving to the nearby forest. So I only manage to take a very fuzzy and small photo of the wolf. But showing it to Marco and other folks from that area it's sure that it's a wolf and they all were very excited about it...
Walking down again to Lou Pitavin, we pass an old, abondened farm, Grange Ischia, and also have time for taking some photos of flowers and butterflies...
It's afternoon when we return to Lou Pitavin, sun shines, it's warm and nice so we stay at the garden of the inn, enjoy "la dolce vita" and wait for the evening and for dinner.
The next morning we take the car again. A 15 minute ride brings us to another little pass called Colle d'Esischie. Yesterdays tour was quite long so today we're good for another day of relaxing and enjoying nature. We take our photo-stuff and go for a little walk that brings us up to the flank of a small mountain where we enjoy a wonderful view to three directions. The clouds become more and more, there is a fresh wind but it's not cold. We hang around, read, have some cheese, bread, fruit, and cookies and take quite some photos...
We return to Lou Pitavin in the afternoon. It's our last day, tomorrow we will go for a hiking trip in the mountains with our tent. So today's dinner will be our last dinner, this night will be our last night at Lou Pitavin for this vacation. We're a little bit sad but we're also looking forward for our hiking tour and the rest of our vacation...
Time for our last dinner...
Next day we leave Lou Pitavin. But we will be back. In October :)
Homepage of Lou Pitavin: www.loupitavin.it
Thomas Timmermann, August 2016, Fürth