Road to Home 2023 Day 60: Bourg-Saint-Pierre - Gran San Bernardo

After 60 days of walking all across France and Switzerland, I finally reached the Italian border!

A final climb of over a thousand metres, with a net elevation gain of about 800 metres in 14.5 kilometres, brought me to the Grand Saint Bernard Pass, and to a hospice that has been hosting pilgrims on the Via Francigena for over a thousand years. 

My walking partners for the day were Audrey from Montreal, with whom I have been walking since Besançon, and Jannis, a New Zealander who arrived at our hostel in Bourg-Saint-Pierre yesterday. 

We set off just before 7 in the morning, up a small road to the foot of the Barrage de Toules, a dam 86 metres high and almost half a kilometre wide. The road climbed to the top of the dam, where we left it to take the footpath along the side of the reservoir and up the Dranse d'Entremont river. The spring thaw meant that the ground was very wet; we crossed many little streams, and sometimes the path itself was a stream!

The Gran San Bernardo highway ran parallel to our path, covered over to protect against avalanches and rock falls; where the highway became a tunnel and disappeared into the mountain, the first patches of snow appeared. At the second ventilation tower for the tunnel, at 2270 metres in altitude, the pass was only one more kilometre away via the footpath, but there was quite a bit of snow on the path, so we forded a stream to get onto the road. 

Cars and bicycles can't go uphill as steeply as people, and so we had to walk two kilometres instead of one, because of all the switchbacks. The stunning views from the road more than made up for this inconvenience!

By lunch time we had reached the top and the hospice of Grand Saint Bernard, where we had booked beds for the night. The hospice has been continually hosting pilgrims on the Via Francigena since it was founded by Saint Bernard of Menthon in the year 962! 

Extremely dangerous for much of the year due to deep snow and danger of avalanches, Saint Bernard's Pass has nonetheless been used since ancient times by pilgrims and travellers from northern Europe on their way to Rome. Saint Bernard established a monastery at the pass to take care of people coming over the pass and rescue anyone who might find themselves in difficulty with all the snow. This mission continues until the present day, aided until recently by the famous Great Saint Bernard dogs.

It so happens that we arrived at the hospice on the eve of the Feast of Saint Bernard of Menthon: preparations are underway for the celebrations tomorrow,  and a film crew was at work on footage for Italian national television.

Saint Bernard of Menthon

When we had checked in, I took a cool shower - the hot water does not appear to be working properly - and ate some leftover pasta from yesterday that I had carried all the way up to the pass in my backpack! Then I went for a walk around the lake to Italy and back.

In the evening I attended mass in the chapel and then partook of the communal dinner in the dining room. There are five of us in our dormitory room: Audrey, Jannis and I, another woman walker who is not walking the Via Francigena but another route, and a cyclist who is cycling from Yorkshire to Rome. It has taken him only 12 days to cover all the ground I have covered in three months - one month walking in England last year, and two months crossing France and Switzerland this year. In another eight days he will be in Rome!

Today's accommodations: Hospice Grand Saint Bernard 

Bourg-Saint-Pierre - Grand Saint Bernard Pass 14.5 km

1100 metre elevation gain