Arco: A climber's paradise

JULY 7TH - 18TH
As we are wont to do after spending a few days in an urban centre, we headed for the hills to climb. We got to the train station early in the morning, bought our tickets to ‘Trento’ (the nearest train stop to Arco), went to the right platform at the right time, got on the train and went to sleep for the three hour journey north-west, only to wake up to the announcement that we were in Bologna (~3 hours south-west) and it was the last stop! We still don't know what we did wrong but the current theory is that we were supposed to change trains in Verona (of Romeo and Juliet fame). A very nice customer service agent interpreted our charades accurately (our Italian is improving daily but still pretty pitiful) and put us on the right train. Luckily we started early enough in the morning to allow for having taken the scenic route!

And here we are in a climber’s paradise. This is how Arco promotes itself and I have to admit they’re pretty right on the money there. There was one particularly nice rock that Nelson especially loved in the conglomerate at Montserrat and we have discovered that it was limestone and ALL the cliffs here are made of it. It’s the opposite of Montserrat in that all the holds go inward in little fun pockets and grooves, rather than being positive features.
Me climbing on a small crag but with my eye on the bigger wall behind. We later did a multi-pitch route on it, which was fantastic.

We met a wonderful Italian couple, Sarah and Ketriss, who invited us to climb with them for the next few days and we had much fun being shown great routes and even better swimming spots – especially the climbing area that had the lake at its base!

Finished the climb, let’s swim!

Wa hoo!
Yippee!!

Ketriss is in the military and spent some time in Bosnia during the war, so we were also able to learn a bit more about the history and politics of the area we are headed towards.

In addition to the obvious things that make Arco a paradise for climbers, like good climbing, it was also a pretty little town.

A wooden bike.

They serve gelato in coffee. Sigh!

Apparently in Italy, marble is so plentiful that they make parking stall lines out of it! There are so many mopeds in Europe that many areas have huge sections of parking just for them.

A drain grate made out of a huge slab of marble.

My view every morning, of Nelson making me instant cappuccino in our wonderful little campsite in the woods.

Dessert in the woods - Nutella on panettone. Atsa good!!

Eating pizza. When in Rome!

Italians are horrified to learn that in Canada we have thick crust pizza with cheese in the crust and dipping sauces.

We stayed for the weekend because we thought we saw signs for some sort of alpine festival but it turned out to be an “Alpini Festa”, which is a gathering of the Alpini, men and women who fight/fought in the mountains for the military. It was happening right below where we were camping so went and ate some good food with all these people and were so impressed with their dancing that we were scared to get on the dance floor ourselves. The band played many classic Italian songs, as well as some interesting renditions of Stevie Wonder songs, and some I recognized from the movie Flashdance.

Our last day there, we finally did a ‘Via Ferrata’ which are basically scrambles or easy climbs that have had fixed cables and rebar steps put into, so that you can move more quickly and secure yourself. Originally, these were created during the war for soldiers, like the Alpini, to be able to move quickly and safely through steep exposed terrain. Now they are developed for and used by tourists, as well as for climbers to quickly approach higher climbs.

We heard from Celia that the boat is going into the water at the end of the month and that she could use our help getting it ship shape, so were heading to Croatia!