“An odd title for a blog post!” I can hear you exclaim. If you look transumanza up in an Italian / English dictionary it gives the helpful translation of transhumance. In case anyone could have forgotten, transhumance is the ancient, annual, migration in spring of cattle to graze on the high alpine meadows. In autumn the process is reversed and the cattle return to lower levels and their winter quarters. Our local centre, Bagolino, retains this tradition to this day. There are some 26 herds of cows still based in Bagolino all of whom, with their owners, continue this traditional way of life. Each herd is based at a malga, a cowshed and living place, and the milk produced by these cows is used to make the delicious traditional Bagoss cheese.

We needed to go to the council offices in Ponte Caffaro last week in order to correct the address the council has for us. Having spoken to the bloke who does the tax bills, with a bit of luck, we shall now receive our council tax bills on time and can avoid paying fines for non payment of said council tax. As we were idling away the time before being seen by the funzionario I spotted the following notice pinned on the noticeboard.

This notice was an invitation to look at some of the cows from the various malgas running through the main street of Bagolino. On the special day I rose early and made my solitary way up to Bagolino, taking at least 15 minutes for the journey. I parked the car outside Bagolino and made my way into the town at about 9:10 am in order not to miss the cows running through the main street, due to start at 9:30 am it said on the notice. The main square looked a bit short of eager spectators so I hung about for a bit as people gradually started to arrive. I had a chat with some people I know and waited. We all waited for quite a time really. At about 10:30 someone said that they thought that they could hear the sound of cowbells in the distance. I could hear the odd, doubting, mutter at this news but when the cows did turn up they looked really fantastic in the narrow streets. I forgot to take many photos, unfortunately, but did get a few poor quality videos which I will add to this thing. I asked one of the cowmen why they were a bit late. He said “They’re cows, they’re not machines you know! They didn’t want to go and we didn’t want to make them.” “Fair enough!” Was my feeble response.

After the excitement of loads of cows running around, the fire service turned up and hosed the excitement away leaving the streets completely free of the brown stuff. I have to say that the process was incredibly efficient.

The day finished at the local park for a small agricultural show with displays of cheese making and some people selling warm socks, vests, woolly hats, heavy saucepans and various traditional foods. It was at this point that the rain started. We all did what we do at British agricultural shows, we went to the bar and had a drink or two until the food was ready. My knowledge of the local dialect is a scanty but I did manage to learn a few new words at the bar.

The food and the bar was organised by the pro loco of Bagolino. The pro loco is something found in many communities where a group of volunteers organise events, put on amateur dramatics and musical evenings. I really enjoy watching the process of polenta making in quantity.

After a sturdy portion of polenta and a few drinks things began to develop into a very pleasant afternoon session.

I can’t wait for next year’s transumanza

Our delightful FIAT Punto has developed an irritating habit. Just before we set out from Shropshire, to travel to Italy, an engine management light became visible. On looking this light up in the car handbook the message was more or less “go directly to the dealers and do not collect £200”.

To cut a long and boring story short I went to see the FIAT dealer in Shrewsbury to get the thing cleared. It turned itself on again in Guildford two days later and  the Guildford dealer told us that we would wreck the engine if we didn’t get it fixed and that we would have to wait for at least five days before this could happen. The friendly bloke in Shrewsbury said “rubbish, carry on it can’t harm the engine” and, blow me, the light turned itself off in Italy. We visited the local FIAT bloke here in Italy today and according to this fine fellow the thing had probably cleared itself going over the St Gotthard Pass. So, if you get a problem with a FIAT car, drive it back to Italy.

As the car did not need any attention after all, we had an hour or two to kill so we went a few miles down the road to Lake Garda and Salo for a stroll around and some home made ice cream.

The beer here in Italy is quite nice but I fancied a pint or two of warm flat British style beer so started a brew a couple of days ago. I am a bit worried at the moment as the fermentation appears to have stopped. The beer fermenting bin is sitting in the sunshine by the patio doors at the moment soaking up some sunshine. I hope that if it relaxes in the late afternoon sunshine it will get going again.

After a frantic two weeks in the UK we returned to italy taking a route which brushed against the line of the stroll. We set off from the UK, via the shuttle, much later than intended as a result of some poor advice from a FIAT dealer in the South East of England. Luckily, our Shropshire chap told us to press on and ignore the irritating engine shaped light on the instrument panel, which went out after a few hundred miles. I am off to see the FIAT bloke here in Italy tomorrow so, fingers crossed that my Italian is up to the job.

Good old GPS technology meant that we had a line on our map which represented the original stroll and also our actual position on the road so we could gasp in pleasure when the two lines coincided. The two lines coincided incredibly frequently in Arras as we drove, by accident and poor navigation, into the town centre and its one way system.

Frequent visitors to France will already have discovered the wonderful network of traffic free roads away from motorways. Following our stroll route we also discovered the network of lesser roads which criss cross the countryside. How we chuckled when one of these roads turned into a cart track. It reminded us of the delight we had felt when encountering one of these tracks on the stroll, knowing that we should be very unlucky to be run down by a fast moving vehicle from behind. Travelling along the ‘N’ and larger ‘D’ class roads we saw lots of signs for chambres d’hotes. This frequency of accommodation caused us to modify our view of France which grew from the perspective of a stroller using paths and minor roads.

Our first place of rest was in beautiful Peronne where we ate very well indeed. readers of previous posts will recall that a good dinner was not always to be found when we strolled. Having spent most of the day oohing and ahhing we feel that we must spend more time in this bit of France. We decided to travel slowly and to stay the next night at Altkirch. If anyone has any experience of Altkirch as a good place to stay I should be grateful to hear of it. We wandered about for ages and couldn’t spot any likely places to rest our, by now, weary heads. Altkirch looked very beautiful in a Swiss sort of way but didn’t seem to have any hotels, restaurants, bars, cinemas etc. After a fruitless half hour we carried on towards Basel, finding a bed on the outskirts of Altkirch.

The following morning we set off missing Mulhouse out of the trip in order to save time and made straight for the Swiss border and Altdorf. Approaching Altdorf, via the motorway, the weather started to deteriorate. A heavy mist made itself known to us which was a shame as we had been looking forward to going over the St Gotthard Pass via the old cobbled road we had crossed on our pedestrian way upwards. It took us about 10 seconds to decide that the mist was probably low level stuff and would disappear as we drove upwards. We stopped for a comfort break, a coffee and a stroll around Altdorf before following the trail to Erstfeld and the St Gotthard Pass via the old road. The mist became fog as we made our way upwards but did not prevent us from enjoying this trip up and down memory lane. The conditions were a bit like driving over Plynlimon as the fog turned inevitably to rain and better visibility. The rain stopped for us at the summit so we could wander about without coats, although the temperature was definitely cooler than when we were there a few weeks ago.

The trip downwards to rejoin the motorway near Bellinzona was a real treat as the sun came out giving us a small taste of the experience we had had when we had followed the route on foot, although a few metres to the left, without a pack and in a sitting position.

When we have driven from Gravels Bank to Ponte Caffaro in the past one of us is usually fast asleep in the passenger seat as the other drives. This time neither of us slept at all during the journey. Even when on the motorway from Bellinzona to Brescia we were still chattering. I think that perhaps we should do the trip again.