Joanne's long walks: Road to Home 2023 Day 67: Pont-Saint-Martin

Si quis sitit veniat ad me et bibat

(If anyone is thirsty let him come to me and drink)

- Inscription on the drinking fountain in Carema (1571)

Started walking again at 11 am at the Roman bridge in Pont-Saint-Martin. After a quick stop at the supermarket for more picnic supplies, I headed out of the town through vineyards trained on pergolas built on stone columns, which serve not only to support the weight of the vines, but to absorb heat from the sun during the day and give it off at night, maintaining a more constant temperature among the grapevines.

Leaving Pont-Saint-Martin over the Roman bridge

The trail took me on a steep climb over a rocky promontory, at the top of which I crossed the boundary between Valle d'Aosta and Piemonte.

I descended a rocky staircase into the village of Carema, where one of Italy's top red wines is made. It was a bit early to stop for a glass - and I didn't pass any bars so the opportunity didn't arise - but I paused repeatedly to take photographs of the beautiful vineyards and the village fountain, dated 1571. As if anyone would want to drink water in a village surrounded by so many vineyards! 😄

The name Carema is thought to come from Cameram, meaning "customs", because the village has historically always been on a border - between Italy and Gaul in Roman times, between the Kingdom of Italy and the Kingdom of Burgundy in the Middle Ages, between Piemonte and Valle d'Aosta more recently.

After the leaving the village, a beautiful path through the vineyards led, unfortunately, down to the highway, which the Via Francigena follows for a kilometre or so in order to squeeze through a narrow gap between the cliffside and the river. After leaving the highway at the village of Airale, I stopped for lunch at a picnic table in a grassy field by a campground.

From here it was a short and very pleasant walk to Cesnola, and from there to Settimo Vittone, where I had the good luck to arrive just after three on a Sunday afternoon: the village's chief attraction, the church of San Lorenzo with the adjacent baptistry of San Giovanni, is open only on Sunday afternoons from 3 to 6! The property is managed by FAI, Italy's heritage organisation, and I have a membership card, so I got in for free. I joined a guided tour that had just begun and spent almost an hour exploring the 9th-century church.

9th-century baptismal font

13th-century fresco of the nativity and the three kings

Another fresco of the three kings, in Byzantine style

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Last Supper, with lots of bread and wine

Leaving the Pieve di San Lorenzo behind, I descended along a rocky trail through the woods, among vineyards constructed on rocky terraces, and under a stone arch in a hamlet that had been abandoned following an 18th-century landslide, ending up on a steep old cobblestone road down to the village of Montestrutto. The national heritage organisation FAI has posted QR codes along this part of the trail which you can frame with your smartphone camera to go to a series of videos explaining various aspects of the geology, botany and history of the area, available in three languages. I didn't actually watch the videos, but listened to the commentary as I walked, with the landscape all around me in 3D!

On my way out of Montestrutto I saw a very busy place right by the trail, with a long line-up of families and groups of friends on Sunday afternoon outings. As I came closer I saw that they were all emerging with gigantic ice cream cones, and I decided to join the queue. The ice cream was well worth the wait, made with farm-fresh milk from the local cows!

If the line-up extends outside the door, the ice cream must be really good!

Turbocharged by three scoops of delicious gelato - vanilla, chocolate and hazelnut with nutella ripples - I speed-walked the remaining kilometre and a half to my hostel in San Germano, which turned out to be basic but perfectly adequate for my needs.

After a shower and a short rest I set out to explore an institution unique to the village of San Germano, in the municipality of Borgofranco di Ivrea: the balmet. Balmetti are wine cellars created by the unique climatic and geographic conditions of the area: the pressure of the Balteo glacier, which flowed down the Aosta valley from the Alps during the last ice age, against the solid rock of the valley walls created a series of cracks and faults, resulting in massive landslides. Rainwater and surface water flowing into the resulting cracks in the rock create a constant cool breeze, called the "ora", which flows through passageways in the rock and into the wine cellars at the foot of the mountain, so that they maintain a microclimate with a constant temperature of around 12°C year-round. These cellars dug into the rock are ideal for storing the local wines and cheeses; above and (in summer) outside these cellars are the bars, restaurants and meeting-places of the town.