Tag: europe

Breakheart Pass

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So, we’ve been to a wedding in a small village in France. We’re supposed to be making our way home but the satnav in the car seems unwilling to actually let us leave the country.  To the extent that we’re on an unpaved single-track road cutting through farmland somewhere near the French-Italian border and I’m beginning to suspect the technology is failing us

Caroline suggested we take the Mont Blanc tunnel, but I preferred the idea of the Little St Bernard Pass. It’ll be fun, I said. Very scenic. Mountains. Valleys. Snow. Terrifying hairpin bends and roads that plummet two thousand metres to the valley below (I might not have mentioned that). Also, much cheaper (I did mention that).

But so far the navigation system has guided us up the first five hundred metres of a two kilometre climb before suggesting we make a U-turn after taking the wrong turn in the road. Following which it takes us all the way back down again. We try again. We take the other road. We end up in a car park where the only other exit has a warning that the road is passable only with extreme caution in a four wheel drive vehicle. We’re in a Fiat Panda. 

We start again although the navigation system seems to enjoy guiding us into people’s driveways, and we’ve passed the same stretch of roadworks so many times that the workers are starting to seem like old friends.

By now we’re both thinking that maybe the Mont Blanc tunnel is the better option, Caroline is biting back on the words “I told you so” and I’m prepared to give the Pass up as a bad idea.

The trouble is there’s a road closure which means there’s no easy way of getting back the way we’ve already come, and hence no way of actually getting to the tunnel from where we are without some sort of basic navigational aid like, oh I don’t know, an actual physical map or something.

Like it or not, we’re going to have to have another go. Which is how we end up driving through farmland on a dirt-track road in a Fiat Panda. There is, I’m informed, another 1.5 kilometres before we hit a proper road. 

There is no possibility of doing a three point turn. I have no confidence at all in my ability to reverse all the way back. I’m expecting a farmer with a gun to appear. I’m counting down every single remaining metre. At any moment I expect the track to simply end. 

And then, mercifully, we hit a road. An actual, proper, paved road. I don’t know if it’s the right road but by now I don’t care. It’s a road, leading upwards, and that’s all that matters.

A note on the Little St Bernard Pass. On the Italian side, the roads are lined with thick, stout wooden beams backed by steel girders. On the French side, there might be the occasional brick wall, barely half a metre in height. Or, more likely, there may be nothing at all between you and a swift descent to the valley below.

There’s the occasional posse of bikers hooning around and evidently having a good time, and people in terrifyingly expensive cars going at even more terrifying speeds. I am from Venice, I barely drive anymore, I am in a Fiat Panda and right now I really, really want to be in the Mont Blanc Tunnel.

We climb and climb and climb and, yes, the views really are spectacular. And then we’re at what once would have been the France/Italy border. Caroline suggests we go out and kiss the ground. She’s half-joking. I think.

The old customs point at the Italy-France border, at the peak of the Little St Bernard Pass.

Courmayeur lies 2000m below us. Strong drinks and dinner await. We’re overtaken by a man on a moped at one point on the descent, but that’s okay. We’re happy to take the slow route…

The Little St Bernard Pass is usually open from May to October. It is a genuinely spectacular drive. Do, however, be sure to have a map with you.

The Vasari Corridor

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Or, A Warning to the Curious…

Or, Always Read the Small Print…

Florence is one of those cities that I wish I loved a little bit more than I do. It’s not much more than a couple of hours away from us by train but we don’t visit that often. The reason? We quite like it, but we don’t love it. Yes, Venice is overcrowded, but Florence feels like that as well, only with cars. It feels like slightly hard work.

Against that, you have to set the fact that it’s a city absolutely jam-packed full of Really Great Stuff. And that might be reason enough for a visit in itself.

January, then, would seem the ideal time to go. And, more than that, we’ve found that there’s the chance to visit the Vasari Corridor. It leads from the Uffizi and above the Ponte Vecchio to the Palazzo Pitti. Commissioned by Cosimo I de Medici to a design by Giorgio Vasari, the idea was to minimise the time the Duke would have to spend in public – for reasons of safety rather than vanity – whilst moving between his home and the offices of government. They put it together in just five months in 1465.

Perhaps most excitingly, it grew to house a collection of over 1000 paintings by the great and good, including a unique collection of self-portraits by Rosalba Carriera, Rubens, Van Dyck, Vasari himself and many, many others. From 2013 onwards, 20th Century works were added including Chagall, de Chirico and Beuys.

Private group tours became available in recent years, before the corridor closed for renovation in 2016. And now it’s been opened again to the general public. This, therefore, was an opportunity not to be missed.

The day arrives. We set off at a not-unholy hour of the morning, making sure Mimi has sufficient food and drink to survive the day (as ever, she inspects her facilities before giving us her familiar “I suppose this will do” look) and take the Frecciarossa down to Florence. There’s time for lunch – a splendid plate of meats and cheeses and a spritz. and then we’re off for the main event.

I head for my favourite room in the Uffizi, which is probably my favourite room in any gallery, anywhere. The one that holds the three Maestà of Giotto, Duccio and Cimabue. And I notice that Cimabue is under a transparent plastic sheet. I ask an attendant if it’s about to be restored. She tells me that there’s a lot of electrical maintenance work going on in the gallery and so lots of works are under wraps. They chose a transparent wrap for this one so that the room at least has the illusion of looking as it was.

Fair enough. I wander onwards and notice that this is the case in many of the rooms. Indeed, some of the paintings are wrapped up completely and can’t be seen at all. Now, you might think this would spoil the experience, but that’s not the case. Because a combination of the ongoing work and the time of year means the gallery is – if not exactly empty – surprisingly uncrowded. The Leonardo room, where viewing the paintings is normally akin to a contact sport, is remarkably quiet. And this is the case throughout the museum. Despite the fact that there are works in almost every room that can’t be seen, this might be my best visit ever.

Then it’s time to make our way downstairs to the room adjoining the Cappellina Veneziana, the starting point of our journey across the Vasari Corridor. Centuries of great artworks await us…

Except…

…we’re in a corridor. A bare corridor. Ah, well, this is obviously just the entrance. We turn right at the end, and that’s probably where everything starts and so…

Nothing. Except an empty corridor.

Caroline asks, politely I should stress, where the artworks are.

The guide looks faintly embarrassed. There aren’t any on display at the moment and there are unlikely to be for another two to three years.

This, frankly, is a bit of a blow. I consider getting cross, but it’s not her fault and, I think, it’s entirely possible we just didn’t read the small print. We have paid, it seems, for a 25 minute supervised walk down a bare corridor. Yes, the views are nice and you get a look down into the interior of the church of Santa Felicita , but I’m not sure that’s enough on its own. There are lots of nice views in Florence which you can see for free just by wandering around. We have paid, it seems, 43 euros a head to walk down a corridor.

Okay, that’s a little unfair. That 43 euros does also allow you two hours in the Uffizi itself (possibly more as you probably won’t be checked once you’re inside). And, as I said, this is actually a pretty good time to visit.

We could get pissed off about this but decide not to. We’ve had a nice lunch, a walk around Florence and a couple of hours in one of the greatest galleries in the world. More than that, I think, it’s probably our fault anyway. We must have forgotten to check. So we do what we always do when faced with slightly disappointing situations. We go for a spritz and find a bar – the Caffe Amerini – with lovely friendly staff not too far from the station. We’re not paying Venetian prices here but that doesn’t matter. We are, after all, the people who’ve paid 43 euros to walk down a corridor.

Upon returning, I decide to check if we had, indeed, forgotten to check the small print. And what do you know? Halfway down the page, there it is :-

“Riportato oggi alla sua originaria nudità…”

Or, on the English page :-

“Restored to its original simplicity” 

Both of which I think are understating things just a little bit when a “No art to be seen here, lads” might have been preferable.

So, should you go? Well, for us it was a relatively short journey. Those travelling from further afield might well feel short-changed. Yes, there’s the chance to see the corridor as it hasn’t been seen before. Yes, the views are impressive. If that’s sufficient, then go ahead. Just be aware, that’s all.

As ever, Caveat emptor, folks!