In Acqui Terme: a hike, and a bike and hike

October 12, 2021

With vineyard-draped hills rising steeply on all sides, Acqui Terme is a perfect spot for Rachael and I to specialize today - she’ll explore the hills to the south on foot, and I’ll head north on the bike. We wait around until 10 to allow the day to warm up and then Rachael prepare packs up to leave.

At the last minute I realize we’re about to commit a fatal error and ruin my day. We’re staying in a quite nice apartment, but it has one unfortunate quirk. We were left with only one set of keys. The door to the apartment locks when you close it, and if you forget your keys in the room, you’re locked out. Worse, the door to the street from the whole complex is of course also locked, and you need the key to either enter the complex or to leave it. Terrible - what if there was a fire?

So Rachael is about to leave on her hike, and I’m planning to leave ten or fifteen minutes later. She’s taking the keys, since she plans to return before I will. At the last minute I remember I need a key to leave the building. I came close to trapping myself in the courtyard for the day, locked out of our room but inside the building.

A hike

Rachael had herself a nice little 12.5 mile hike in the hills, the kind of thing I might enjoy if I were still taking 12.5 mile hikes in the hills. It sounds like it was as expected - a gorgeous walk with spectacular views and vineyards everywhere you look, and with almost complete solitude - she says that she saw almost no one else once she was outside of town. Looking at her photos, I’m envious - 12.5 miles of hills is too long for me, but I can see what wonderful country this is for hiking. This is a town we could pretty happily be staying longer.

Rachael calls me at about three to let me know she’s 15 minutes from the apartment (as I generally knew anyway, because from time to time I’ve been checking on her progress on the Garmin invitation I received through email). I’m still up north in the hills, so I tell her I’ll be back in about an hour and will call from the street.

Into the hills. It’s great that Rachael is taking more photos with her phone now so I can see what she’s been up to. The quality of the phone’s camera is much better than the old one, and her technique is improving with practice - she’s much better on the vertical axis, for example.

Such a wonderful region. You don’t have to go far to get world class views. As opposed to the middle of the Po Valley, as a counter example.

Now this looks like it would be great on a bike too. I’ll bet she was regretting not having it along.

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Hiking stats: 12.5 miles, 2,200’

A bike and hike

I’ve plotted out a loop to the north with no specific destination. I just looked for a route that pieced together as many small roads as I could connect up, and included a hill or a few to bring in some views. I wasn’t disappointed. You only have to bike a mile from town before you’re off the highway and on an empty road climbing steeply up the ridge with the valley quickly dropping below. Stunning views in all directions.

The ride begins with about a 700’ sustained but manageable climb - nothing like the cliff below Guido’s home - and then I roll north along the ridge for several miles before dropping down off the north end into a valley and enjoy about ten miles of flat, easy riding before turning south again. I stop for a lunch break at a bench by a small church, polishing off a bag of trail mix and checking the phone to confirm that Rachael’s really off on the hike she claimed she would be taking.

Then, it’s back to the hills again, starting with another manageable 700’ climb, and another descent. At the bottom of this one Rachael calls to check in, and I tell her I’ll be back in about an hour - probably less, since I’m under 9 miles from the apartment. That’s because I’m unaware that my outing is about to turn into a bike and hike. There’s one more 700’ climb left, but this one is not like the others - it starts at 17% and gets worse from there. Even on an unloaded bike this one is way over my head, so I push about a third of a mile, watching the Garmin max out at 22%.

And once on top I do some more walking because the next two miles are unpaved, course, and lumpy. I’ll bike for a ways, stop for a killer view, and then be unable to start up again in the gravel so I push up to the next plateau. Slow going. There’s a woman walking her beagle ahead of me on the ridge, talking on the phone. I’ll catch up and pass them, stop for a view, and they’ll pass me. We repeat this about three times before pavement returns and I coast down the 17% drop off on the south side, clutching the brakes the whole way.

There’s a market on this morning as I leave the old city. We should include at least one shot of town before leaving.

Probably two miles out of town and three or four hundred feet up, and already the views are like this.

A shot thrown in to make Rachael insanely jealous when she sees what she’s missed out on today.

This is even more fun than it looks here. 22%, reports my Garmin.

Looking east at the next ridge. I think the road I took earlier going north runs along the top of that one, but I’m not sure.

Back in town again. This is the hot springs that gives the town its name. Not quite scalding, but too hot for a bath. And you’d probably get arrested anyway if you tried.

Dinner was an unexpected delight and a great way to close out such a spectacular day. After walking across town to discover that the restaurant we’d planned on was closed today, we stopped in at the first pizzeria we came to on the way back. While we were eating our dinner and speculating about the extended family at the next table, wondering at their nationality - they don’t really look or seem Italian but are clearly on good terms with the waitress, who spends a lot of time walking their toddler around the room - one of the women, Claudia, opens up a conversation and then comes over by our table to chat. The family is not Italian, they’re Swiss. Their home is in Zurmatt, at the base of the Matterhorn, but they have property near here and come down regularly. We have an extended conversation, and Claudia talks about how much they’ve enjoyed America in the past. Their family lived in Kentucky for a year when she was younger - about 25 years ago, I think - and they traveled extensively then. They know the west, southern Utah, Highway One, Big Sur - and would like to return if the political situation wasn’t so awful in our country.

We share emails, I send her a link to the blog, and they invite us to stop in the next time we’re in Zermatt. And perhaps we will.

I’ve never seen a pizza dough like this. Claudia’s brother Mark said it was ink flour.

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Ride stats today: 40 miles, 3,500’; for the tour: 1,992 miles, 69,900‘

Today's ride: 40 miles (64 km)
Total: 1,992 miles (3,206 km)

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