(Yesterday we climbed a pass . . . Passo di Giovo or Jauffenpasse, 2095 meters.  Today we just couldn’t get motivated. Testing for stiff knees, feeling winded using the hotel stairs, we knew we wouldn’t be making the early train. Too bad, they trained up the valley we came down last year from Switzerland. Instead . . . . )

We have an elegant breakfast in the breakfast room – pots of fresh cut fruit, yogurt, circles of camembert, trays of salami and prosciutto or ham or speck, bread, croissant, cinnamon roll bread, more than I can remember. I’m stuffed from the night before but hungry again. We make arrangements with the other stay-in-towns . . . Four of us decide to cycle up another valley until we hit the predicted rain and then return. The rain never came.

The sunlit valley was rich and green, farms, forests, a few vinyards up the sides of the steep hills – and church towers … what is the difference between a steeple and a tower? . . .  The bike  path runs alonside the river Passeria – always with us the soft roar of the river tumbling down over rocks, bird calls everywhere. Our path crosses back and forth over the tumultuous river on narrow bridges just wide enough for one bike. All the rivers have given us this noisey back drop which feels like sounds of home at this point.

The bridges are a bit scarey; the narrowness has you looking straight down into the teal waters rushing under. We ride and talk. Lunch in San Lorenzo. An iced coffee is a soda glass with an inch or two of coffee, the rest filled with whipped cream and a few curls of shaved chocolate – and a metallic pom pom stuck in the top. I order speck – looking at the table next to me. The plate was enormous, fully covered with thin slices of the smoked meat curled in neat folds with one half a gherkin sliced on the side.

It’s a good tired day ride, gentle grade, a few hours. Afterward we walk around town. Going through the medieval portico, the street winds into the medieval walled section with the streets suddenly narrow and old arcades sheltering shops. Into the back streets, they constrict even more, we are in residential areas, tall walls, grafitti, no stores, then back to the promenade alongside the river. The gardens are lovely – stuffed into small fenced enclosures behind houses, or carefully tended, bright geranius, impatiens, succulent, smelly honeysuckles, petunias. In public garden spaces  sculptured shapes wind down the brick street alongside the river. Here there are flower sculptures – snakes, funny heads on sticks, a large geometric folded shape with flowers growing under a great lip, flower-formed pillars, and of course flower boxes on every facade.

Temperatures are very pleasant after some hot days. We meet the other stay-in-towns for dinner – they went to the spa where they dipped into pool after pool of salt water in and out of doors. They loved it. Dinner was so-so … I ate too much – the broken record. It’s hard to turn things down, I can barely read the menu, so I want to test out every dish. A garlic, cherry tomato, and pepperoncini spaghetti. Olive oil wasn’t very flavorful. We’re having weissburgunder wine which we like.

More dogs in this town, but still a shocking absence of dachshunds – I think I saw one wire-haired here. So the dachshund window motif seemed important to photograph, as well as the sign at the gelatto place which included a menu item for dogs: dog ice cream, 1 euro. photograph of dog and one small portion.

I can’t get the Internet on my phone, so I can’t upload tonight. It’s early, voices echo in the street below, but we’re tired from the pass. To bed early.