first, biella:
the view from terry's window at citta dell'arte.
terry plays his new electric cello (that he, of course, made with own two hands).
the roman pagan church.
oropa is about a 20 minute busride away from biella and houses a famous sanctuary that is visited throughout the year by pilgrims and tourists alike who come to see the black madonna in the vecchia chiesa. two unfortunate things: we encountered some rather heavy fog, and the old church was under construction.
terry drinks some mountain spring water from the oropa fountain. see the old church in the background? yeah, neither can i.
inside the new church, where there's a painting of the black madonna. not quite the same thing, but i'll take what i can get.
all around the sanctuary there are little houses, each with life-size statuettes inside depicting biblical/saint scenes. this is that famous scene where women wearing 18th century garb spin yarn and knit. yeah, that one.
and of course, 10 minutes before we have to pack off to biella on the bus, the fog lifts for a moment:
(there's that old church behind the fountain.)
many of the structures in oropa -- including the old church here -- are built as extensions of rocks. terry theorizes that this was their attempt at structural stability. i am not inclined to agree, but then again, this church was built in the 13th century, so what the hell do i know?
and the next day, we escaped the rain in biella for the rarefied air in aosta ("rome of the north," terry tells me). aosta, the capital of the region of valle d'aosta, is a beautiful, serene town with an almost swiss feel and an impressive collection of roman ruins:
let me first point out here, just for the record, that the trip from bra to biella is about 2 hours by train. then it's another 2 to aosta, an hour to cogne by bus, and 3km on foot to valnontey. and then to get to the rifugio we stayed at, it's a 3 hour hike up the mountain. but worth it for the ibex!
me, needing a haircut.
we were so, so psyched when we spotted our first ibex, just 10 minutes into our hike and thought ourselves incredibly lucky. we ended up deleting the photo of that one later because it was about 500m away and we subsequently kept coming across more and more of these animals, until at one point, we found a whole herd that stared us down from their ledge.
even more amazingly, we happened upon this pair of males in the middle of combat. terry claims they are play-fighting because they were going at it so lazily and half-assedly. one of them even did that thing where it reared up on its hind legs. some impressive horn-knocking here. a close-up:
views nearer to the top:
overlooking a rifugio (not ours), about an hour from the top.
my favorite photo.
the morning after our stay at the rifugio, me needing sleep and a shower and more weather-appropriate gear:
we're about 50m outside of the rifugio, which is just around the corner. it is in the middle of nowhere, and we actually got lost twice trying to get to it and barely made it by nightfall. (an italian friend later congratulates me and tells me it is nearly impossible to get lost up there.)
i call this one "terry poppins." yes, terry carried that umbrella all the way up (and down) the mountain. and then some.