I’ve realised that I never really explained why I took a few days’ break from the bike and how the spontaneous hiking trip came to be. So here goes.
Back at the Couchsurfing party in Nancy I’d met Elodie, a friend of my host’s. I had to keep heading south the next day, but I’d casually mentioned something to her about meeting further along the road. A few days later, she got back to me to say that flights were booked.
Reverse culture shock’s a funny thing. Being taken aback by the sudden change when reaching a far-off, unknown country for the first time comes almost as an expected ‘shock’ . But when it’s the other way around – when you’re arriving home or in any other place you know (or rather had known) well, and suddenly find yourself not-so-much at home after all, it hits totally out of the blue. That’s exactly what crossing over into Italy was like.
As I later found out, making it up the Great St. Bernard Pass is something of a personal milestone for many a professional cyclist. I’d just thought of it as the most direct route over the Alps and it wasn’t quite on my bucket list. Ah well, guess it is now.