Via Francigena Bike Tour: Day 1 - Val’d Aosta

In Piazza Chanoux, just below our apartment, the chairs were stacked outside the closed bars and the street cleaners were sweeping up after Saturday night partiers. It’s 7 am and we are clipping our panniers onto our bike racks. We are departing Aosta before the bars have started brewing the first espresso. First we have to negotiate the cobbled streets of the historical center and then the autostrada entry road maze, before reaching the bikeway. It’s early and it’s Sunday, so all is thankfully quiet. Today is our first leg of the Via Francigena. We rode 30 miles along mostly dedicated bikepaths, the surface ranged from smooth asphalt to gravel to grass & dirt. The route followed the River Dora along the green valley, the mountains on either side had an occasional castle perched on top, the snow covered alpine mountains rising up behind made for dramatic scenery. The grade was mostly level, with the exception of two steep sections, on which we climbed 800 feet. Very slowly. When we arrived to the hilltop town of St. Vincent we stopped to rest at a bar. We sipped our cappuccini while the post-Church crowd were already sipping Spritz’s and taking the pre-Sunday dinner passegiata. We arrived to Fabbrica before check-in time so we picnicked in the town’s tiny tree-shaded park, then while searching for the AirBnb after lunch, we stopped to visit some goats. I love goats. Most Italians dedicate any open space to cultivating a garden and/or raising goats and chickens, with at least one dog and many cats. While visiting the goats, I hear a woman calling my name. It’s Barbara, our host! We serendipitously found our AirBnB! These are her goats. Barbara’s big house has the goat pen on one side, chickens run outside their coop in the garage, the yard and garden. Barbara speaks French, no English, some Italian. Her Italian is better than ours so we can communicate. She graciously stocked the kitchen of our apartment with eggs laid by her chickens, herbs and salad greens freshly picked from her garden and a bottle of home-made grappa in the fridge. ‘La vostra casa’ (your house) she tells us.