Penultimate cycling and other less pedantic adventures
Yes, this is the second to last day that we’ll be cycling.
We’ve got two nights in Orta San Giulio before we finish up back at our start in Somma Lombardo, but neither K or I are jumping at the opportunity to do another day ride out of Orta. That’s not because this is not a great area, because it certainly looks like it is, it is because our mental landing gear is now down, we’re satisfied with where we’re at … and it’s getting bloody hot!
Like yesterday's post, I’m going to keep this one short.
First, a final shout out to Mario and Rosalba at B&B 21, they were very friendly and helpful with suggestions on making the best of Cannobio. Next, a shout out to Cannobio, its a really nice place and it just seem calmer than the similar towns around lake Como.
So, today’s ride … lakeshore riding along the SS34 until Verbania, good road and moderate traffic, and I think we even bit of a tailwind. From Verbana until we started to head up the Torrente Strona di Omegna (which I’ll just shorten to ‘the Omegna river’) we had dedicated bike paths and trails - wonderful! All types of trails and surfaces but they were all good.
Once we started heading up the Omegna river, both K and I were surprised at how busy and developed it was. For the approximately 10 km’s until we hit the north shore of Lake Orta we were in developed area with quite a bit of traffic. However, once we hit the lake the traffic seemed to drop off and it was pretty good riding the rest of the way to Orta San Giulio. Good riding, but now officially hot. It was approaching 30°C in the shade, and well above that in the sun, where we were for most of the time.
Orta San Giulio is one of those amazing old towns that have been around long before there were any cars, and for that matter you could plausibly believe that they didn’t know about ‘the wheel’ when the place was built. Lots of stairs and impossibly narrow walkways that are ‘streets’ between the buildings.
We’re right in the heart of the old town and have a nice apartment in a very old building. The bikes are stored on a small back balcony three twisty flights of stairs above the street. One more reason that we won’t be biking anywhere tomorrow!
We miraculously found the apartment on almost the first try and quickly got settled in. There’s a washing machine and a cloths line by the bikes… K’s happy!
This is also a very tourist driven town, and there’s no end of restaurants and bars to choose from …. And that’s when it becomes a problem as we’re sometimes not very good with too much choice.
There is a three star Michelin place just up the hill, and some halo effect trickling down. A more humble one star is about 100 m down the lane from us and a few other high end bistros, but it might come as a surprise but K and I aren’t really interested in any of that tonight. There’s a funky looking place right across the street from us (the 3 m wide, max, street) and that’s where we’re headed tonight.
Another Jacquie Gaudet route we did in reverse. We changed a few things near Casale Corte Cerros … and we had to remember that when you do someone else’s GPS track in reverse - you may run into a few problems with one way streets! We got it worked out though.
Relatively small queue waiting for the ferry. We commented that in high season it could be difficult to get here or leave by bike as there are no ferries where bikes are guaranteed transport … they are always at the discretion of the captain depending on the amount of foot traffic.
The first part of the ride was along the SS34 Carso Belvedere road beside the lake. Nice views along the way but steady traffic making it difficult to get to the lake side of the road for descent pics. managed to get one of the abandoned fort (vintage unknown)
The welcome we got coming into Verbania, the largest town along the Italian part of a lake Maggiore. From there until the end of the lake we had dedicated bike trails
It was heating up so we found a shaded veranda by the lake to eat our sandwiches and get our water refilled - even I was getting low on water, and that rarely happens
We’re headed to the gap on the left .. up a small rise to much smaller lake Orta …. Our last lake before we close our loop in a couple of days when we return to Somma Lombardo (we’re only about 50 km’s away from there now.) Taking a winding and leisurely final few days.
Very nice gravel section. Once we reached the end of the lake. Smooth fine hard pack … better than a lot of asphalt …. And the only noise was our tires on the gravel crush and bird songs.
And everyday needs to have a little bit of dirt single track. This was still a little bit tacky from recent rains .. nice to ride but I’m sure it would be getting dusty by later today … it was getting hot!
In Orta San Giulio, a pretty amazing and beautiful very old town on the shores of Lake Orta. Didn’t have any pics of the ride into Orta San Giulio … surprisingly we were on relatively busy roads with not much of any dedicated bike infrastructure.
Bingo! All the buildings in the old town where we are are multi centuries old but are pretty well preserved. We’re on the third floor .. no elevators of course!
Kirsten KaarsooTo Jacquie GaudetHaha. Good one!! The carrying was ok but the stairs are ‘leaning downward’ so I am a bit worried about tripping on the way down!!! Fingers crossed 🤞 Reply to this comment 3 days ago
Jacquie GaudetTo Kirsten KaarsooI’ve worn my walking shoes to carry my bike and switched to riding shoes at the bottom. Not so bad with my current shoes but the ones I had before had no tread left and the SPD cleat was slippery. Reply to this comment 3 days ago
Kirsten KaarsooTo Jacquie GaudetThanks Jacquie I didn’t think of that but it is a really great suggestion. As my SPD cleats are very slippery. A added safety that I will appreciate. Reply to this comment 3 days ago
Our apartment for the next two nights is very nice, modern renovation and everything works, It looks down onto one of the ‘main streets’ - that’s about 2 m wide! And has this tiny balcony out the back … just big enough for our bikes and drying laundry … there’s a washing machine in th apartment. The laundry dried in about 15 minutes in the sun!
Mike HadenI think I have almost the exact same photo from our visit to Orta San Giulio in the fall of 2023 - except - the piazza was a lot busier at that time. My wife and her Italian teacher were having lunch under the white umbrellas when I came through on a day ride around the lake. Reply to this comment 3 days ago
Rustic but very good dinner at Filo e Fieno … that was across the street and 20 m down from us! Very eclectic, very regional and very good. This was our starter of tagliatelle with turnips, squash and samphire along with some dried root veggies (mainly squash)
There was some pork loin, beef shank, marrow, chicken, some sausages … all very very tender and tasty … accompanied by mustards, horseradish, braised Barba di Frate /Friars Beard (Salt Wort / Agretti).Very rustic but very good dinner , accompanied by another Monferrato Barbera
After all that we had a long walk back home. I’m standing in the door of the restaurant taking this pic of K unlocking the door to our apartment. We took ‘eat local’ to the extreme tonight!
Great song, great artist and it sums up the feeling we had at Filo e Fieno, and our own feelings about our nearly finished tour. It’s been great and not without it’s challenges to keep us a little humble
