The high road and the low road 7/2

It was in Chatillon that I tasted my first authentic Italian gelato that everyone raves about. The other two Americans staying at the Ostello dei Fratelli Capuccini, like I had done, went to the local supermarket to buy food for dinner. It is much less expensive to make your own dinner than to go to restaurants, even if they have a fixed price pilgrims' menu. However, even before dinner, I found a local gelateria. They make the gelato on the premises - absolutely delicious. On the Camino Frances I usually treated myself to ice cream when reaching one of the big cities. I think the via Francigena will have a higher frequency of gelato stops. The Italians themselves frequent these gelato stores often. "When in Rome..." Although I'm not quite "in Rome" yet I will follow the cultural trend in this case. 

It's a good thing that I had the extra carbs for the next day. Kim and Kayla, my fellow American pilgrims, had left about a half hour before I did the next day. They reached the next Hostel in Verres well before me. It seems that there were two possible routes: the low route, following mostly roadways, and the high route, following a very scenic but extremely challenging path. After losing the trail and passing through St. Vincent, which actually was quite a nice self made alternative route itself, I found my way back to official trail. Little did I know that it was the more difficult one. With all the scenic views I instead spent less time enjoying the vistas and taking pictures than on trying to keep a sure footing and dealing with getting winded on the extremely steep climbs and descents. Anyone who has done the Camino in Spain and knows the climb to O Cebreiro - this was like two of that, one after the other. Even after hiking all the way from Canterbury, my other two American pilgrims were impressed that I arrived not too late after them - since they took the low route for most of the way. I asked them that next time if there were a high and low choice to please convince me to take the low one.

I probably won't see them again as tomorrow when I reach Pont Saint Martin from Verres I had planned on taking the train to Garlasco, first to save time on my itinerary and, more importantly, to meet two of my Italian friends from the Camino de Santiago who wanted to walk a couple of days with me when I had told them that I was coming to Italy.