The Via Francigena - Great St. Bernard Pass to Aosta

Col du San Bernard to Aosta 28.8km, ascent 455m, descent 2347m, 7hours. These were the statistics given in the book, I am not sure where the ascent of 455m came from, or the time of 7 hours. We were looking forward to walking from Col du grand Saint Bernard to Aosta. Since it was a long day, we were keen to avoid the ascent. We had researched and printed out the bus timetable in advance too. We ate a cold buffet breakfast at 7.30am, settled the bill at the Auberge de L’Hospice, and left at 8.10am. We walked down the road, passing the lake, statues of Napoleon on his horse and of St Bernard. As the road was quiet, we continued, then picked up the path, arriving at Casa Antonio Refugio, (La cantina 2208m) which is now unfortunately, shut down 45 minutes, 29m ascent, 2 miles. We continued down track, after a while a sign says path number 103, Saint Rhemy 1hour 25mins. Interestingly we met a biker with his Enfield motorbike, (made in England), half way up the track. We passed above the entrance to the St Bernard's tunnel at 9.20am, 2.85 miles. We went down the road, then a path, across the road following a stream to St Rhemy, passing a big information board about the Via Francigena (33m ascent, 2 hours 4.8 miles). There was a lovely church to visit in this pretty, small village, with no food available. There is one hotel, but it was closed. Further along the path is a very interesting record of how many walked this way last year and the year before, their nationalities, a sheet to complete and a Camino stamp. A total of 1159 pilgrims last year, and 1335 the previous year. We walked the15 minutes from St Rhemy to Saint Leonard and called the tabac for a coffee 1.2e each and a croissant. Outside the tabac, there is a full-size model of a pilgrim and a sign saying Rome 1005km. Continuing we arrived at another information board on the outskirts of the beautiful town of Etroubles. We walked round passing 3 restaurants, then decided to go to the Carrefour to buy lunch, arriving at 12.54, just as it was being locked up, as it shut at 1pm. We went to Hotel Beau Sejor for lunch next door instead, (75m ascent, 4 hours 45 minutes, 9.7 miles). The food was delicious but took 30 minutes to arrive, we left 13.45pm. We don't normally spend an hour having lunch. We followed the water channel, for a few miles, fortunately in the shade of the trees. This is 13km long, and was built in about 1400 to irrigate the land. We after 7 hours, came to a Grotto 168m ascent, 14 miles, shortly afterwards there is a sign saying Gignod, in hindsight maybe we should have taken this path, but instead we took the path saying Aosta (Arpuilles) 1 hour 15 minutes. We were getting slightly concerned as we knew it would be a long day, but Aosta was still a long way away. We cut down to the left, followed a red painted AV sign, past some houses, to arrive at a bus stop (4.45pm). We were so lucky as a bus was due in ten minutes, arriving just 5 minutes late at 5.00pm. It only cost 2euros each, and took 40 minutes to Aosta going through Gignod. We probably could we have continued walking, but it had already been a long hot day. The bus goes into Aosta, arriving at its final stop, the train station at 5.30pm. We called into Carrefour for some drinks, arriving at Hotel Roma at 5.40pm. So happy to have arrived. Distance 17 miles (27 km) Duration of Walk 8 Hours 30 minutes Ascent 580 feet (179m) Descent 4760 feet (1450m) Average Pace 30 min/mile Steps 38,400 Information We had been thinking that maybe we should have continued walking the previous day after arriving in the col de Bernard, relatively early at 1.30pm. But we were so happy that we had not done this, as we could not see any accommodation for at least 2.5 hours down towards Aosta. The first refuge having closed down, and the hotel in St Rhemy was shut. We were surprised how quiet the Via Francigena is. We only met a couple of people who were walking the Via Alpina red trail, it runs for 163 stages over the Alps from Monaco to Trieste. The road was very quiet too. Aosta was a fabulous city, it is very compact with a lovely pedestrian street, busy on a Friday night. We walked round, unfortunately the beautiful Roman remains were covered in plastic, undergoing renovation. But one could imagine how impressive they were. Having eaten a large lunch, we went to Il Panino Della Battega, for a sandwich, enjoying sitting out on the street, watching the world go by. We had walked for 17 miles, but I think the walk would have taken nearly another 2 hours, even if we had gone through Gignod, like the book. The following day, after a delicious breakfast in our Hotel Roma, we spent an hour looking round the beautiful town, with the Roman Bridge, old walls................... YouTube has a 5,000 character limit on video descriptions. To read Barbara's complete blog, please check out our website, www.hikingwithdaveandbarbara.com.