Il Falcone

Today is our planned hiking day out of Bellagio. We catch the ferry over to Menaggio, get a taxi up to Breglia, and away we go. Our goal is Mt. Grona, 1736 meters. And there’s a rifugio about 30-60 minutes from the top. It’s a nice hike up, but hot. On our path we cross the hair-pinned road a few times. We pass by the upper houses of Breglia, we see lots of cool mushrooms along the way. We all lick the bright red mushrooms and start to hallucinate and Danny turns into a bird. Just kidding.

We pound the water and then finally hit the hut, which has no water. We have a great lunch of cheese, bread, olives, salami, some candy, some PBJ. Then we make our decision for the top. We’re slightly worried about the water situation. Supposedly the top is 60 minutes away. Figure 2 hours for round trip, we have about 1/3 of our total water left. Jayne decides to chill at the hut, and Dan/April/peter decide to go anyway. After 5 minutes there’s a fork. There’s a Via Direttissima route (direct route, straight up) and the sign indicates it’s only 30 minutes. And there’s a Via Normala route that’s longer, one hour, it curves to the right to a saddle then ascends Grona from the north. Dan’s excited about the Direttissima, April prefers the saddle route. We split up, Dan goes alone, and I accompany April up the normal route. The other factor was the clouds had rolled in and we were uncertain of the view.

Away we go.

April and I make the saddle in about 20 minutes, slightly ahead of schedule. A few minutes later we see Dan at the top. And we hear him talking to the camera as he’s decided to film himself at the top. He seemed to be enjoying himself up there, as he filmed us sitting down at the saddle. At the top, Dan meets two Italian climbers who asked him about the Direttissima route down. Dan explained it to them and told them it was only 30 minutes. Dan loves to give trail information. I know the feeling. Now the other thing is when Dan’s hiking alone, he really pushes it. You can hear his little hiking poles going click, click, click with each step. He averages around 4/mph which is really really fast.

Anyway we had no views because of the clouds so we sat there and waited for Dan to come down to us, we could see him descending our way. So we all head down, it goes quickly. We get back to Jayne in about 20 minutes, she had taken a little nap. About 5 minutes later the two Italians pull in to the rifugio. They don’t speak any English, but they’re very surprised that Dan made it down the longer way faster than they did on the Direttissima.

Now here comes what turns out to be a key moment in Dan’s life. I mean super important.

The Italian waves his wings and declares Dan must be like Il Falcone.

Dan gives a little smile, then it really starts to sink in. He’s not “smoky pants” anymore, he’s a freaking Falcon!

So a little history is necessary to understand this incident and all that follows. When people hike the Appalachian Trail the whole way, they’re called “through-hikers”. And many of the though-hikers get trail names; examples half-gallon, rainman, the coyote, cascades girl, whatever. So when Dan and his kids did the NH portion of the AT, his kids gave him then trail name of “smoky pants”. That’s because he was pouring lots of Gold Bond down his pants to prevent jock rash, and when he walked, little clouds of talc powder would sometimes puff out of his pants. Nice.

Ok, so here he is in the Alps, soaring over the mountains, and now he’s become Il Falcone.

And just so you know, Dan decides he’s not just Il Falconi. He’s IIIIIIIL FAAAALLCCOOOOONNEEEE!!!!!! He takes to pronouncing it with a low guttural drawn out snarl. It takes him about 5 seconds to get it all out. It sounds like he’s being introduced as a professional wrestler. Now weighing at in 147 pounds from Manchester, NH,, IIIILL FAALLCCOOOONNEEE!

Often it’s followed up with a low villainous smirky ripple of HE-HE-HE. So just a new trail name would be fine. In fact we’re all happy for him. Who wants to be known as smoky pants?

Furthermore in a moment of deep Buddhist insight I had given myself an occasional nickname of PEM for his trip. The E standing for equanimous. The M for Mark. None of us can quite figure out what happened to the S. But anyway in moments of stress when we need pure unadulterated equanimity, I become PEM, the level-headed one without any cravings or aversions.

Well now Dan had a really cool name, Il Falcone. Like I said, that’s good.

But then he proceeded to ride that thing like there was no tomorrow! Dan had disappeared. Il Falcone was everywhere, in every sentence, as only Dan or maybe POC can hammer home when they get locked on to a phrase.

Il falcone is soaring over the mountains.

Il Falcone doesn’t need stairs he’ll fly up them.

Il falcone will scratch your eyes out with his talons.

Il Falcone’s people will take care of the connections in Milan.

Il Falcone doesn’t need food.

Are you talking to Il Falcone?

Il Falcone will swoop down on you if you don’t watch out.

Il Falcone is talking to some people about the movie rights.

Il Facone will be getting a new Falcon tattoo.

We’re eating breakfast on the piazza and there’s Il Falcone outside the glass wall waving his wings. I’m not making this up.

Of course he’s now referring to himself in the third person.

And it doesn’t just end there, it seem he’s adopting this persona in more dimensions. Perhaps by night he becomes a stiletto specialista who works night jobs out of Marseille? Maybe it’s the Europe thing, he’s hanging around the train station with his dark glasses on looking every inch a spymaster from a John le Carre novel.

Sigh.

We all threaten to pound him if he keeps it up but of course there’s no stopping him, he’s past being on a roll, he’s a new man.

I expect you’ll be seeing big changes in the man previously known as Dan O’Connor when he returns to his old life in Manchester.

Dan O’Connor is long gone.

Il Falcone will be returning.

Perhaps he won’t even use the plane for his return journey?

PS – It is a pretty cool name.

PEM.

Varenna, Lake Como

Time to head to Varenna and Bellagio to hang out with the Beautiful People for some R+R on Lake Como. We board the train in venice, we bought first class tickets for the large seats, it was only a few bucks more. We see we’re on compartment #2, it’s the first train section we see, so we jump on, find our seats, there’s a guy in one of them, we think about kicking him out but instead we all sit in a 4-pack of seats, we figure if we get kicked out then we’ll kick him out. But for now we’ll cut him some slack. Some more people board and also sit in our reserved seats. Hmm. Finally it dawns on us, maybe we’re in the wrong compartment. Then we realize that big #2 on the outside was not the compartment number, but an indicator for second-class. Wangsters! We haul off our luggage and rush down to the first class compartments just in time before the train leaves.

We get to Milan. The Milan train station is awesome, it’s huge and imposing; I think it was built by the Fascists, it certainly looks that way. Then we board the train to Varenna. Jayne has this monstrous green suitcase that takes two people to get it into the overhead rack, and then it sticks out about 1/3 of its width. So we man-handle it up there and take a nice ride along Lake Como up to Varenna. The train stops and Dan and I engage in hand-hand combat to get Big Green down, and some old buck is signaling us to hurry up. April pushes past me and leads the way off, and as she’s getting off, the doors start to close. Dan sneaks out with Big Green, I grab the doors before they close, push them open again and fight my way out, and then they close and there’s Jayne stuck on the train. She has no money, no ID, no idea where she is or where the train might be going. She’s got this dumb ass, hopeless and stunned look on her face as she realizes if this train pulls out, she might never see us again! Ha-ha. So I grab the door again and she and I pull them open a small amount. She struggles through and jumps off right as the train pulls out. We all get a good laugh and Jayne realizes she better start carrying some money at least.

We taxi to our hotel; it used to be an old monastery ½ way up the hillside slightly out of town. April made sure we got the highest rooms, and we have to take two funiculars and an elevator just to get up to our rooms. I use my room chit, even though we just stay in my assigned room. These are fantastic rooms. It’s like we’re in an Falcon’s nest (a little foreshadowing here) overlooking the lake/town.

Varenna is very small. Not much to do. But the area is so beautiful and peaceful and romantic, you easily fall into a pattern of just chilling. Katie and Adam spent a week of their honeymoon here; and from what I understand they didn’t go on any hikes or anything, they probably focused on the “romantic” aspect of the area! We were hoping that AMORE pixie dust settled on us too!!!

The next day we took a ferry a few miles north to Belluno and had a hike planned back to our village on the Sentiere Vendante, an ancient walking path that stays about 100-200 meters above the water. Since it’s Varenna we got off to a late start, we hit Belluno about 12:30 to start the hike, but as Dan scouted for the start of the walk, April and Jayne found a small hidden Trattoria in a back alley that was filled with Italians having their Sunday lunch. No Americans in there. No Rick Steves books in sight. Of course we had to try it. At first an old lady indicated we needed reservations, but we weren’t buying it since there were open tables. So we just stood there and when she realized we weren’t leaving she decided to set us a table. Dan seems a little anxious but the rest of us were psyched. We sat there for awhile as the staff figured out who was going to deal with the Americanos, but finally one women took up the challenge. There was no written menu, the waitress just described items to us. She brought us a sample of the darker pasta. It was fantastic, April, Jane and I all ordered pasta dishes as Primis, I had some red wine, we had salads, then we got a shared fish platter. All superb. Dan didn’t even eat as he felt we had been eating about 2X the amount of food we needed over the past few days. He was probably only slightly off in his observation.

So we finally close down the Trattoria and hit the trail about 3:00. Sort of a late start. The waitress’s little girl walks us a few blocks to show us the start of the trail, we go uphill for about 10 minutes the realize we’re walking right into a Pumpkin festival at the top of the village. Sweet! They’re weighing huge pumpkins. It’s like a mini-Glendi. April smells some pumpkin doughnuts, of course we have to have some. I buy some tickets, April waits in the food line, and we sit and enjoy the noise, music, the people, the view. Dan is sort of like a bird with his wings clipped (again some foreshadowing), he thought he was going on a hiking vacation in Europe, and it seems to have transformed into a food tour. Did he forget he was traveling with the Jayne and Peter?

We briefly discuss heading down to catch the boat back to Varenna, but no, we stick to the hike. It was really nice. A beautiful old path winding through the hills along the coastline. We get to the castle above Varenna, it’s 5:45 PM and only have 15 minutes to tour the site, but we get a discount on the tickets. As we rush in, we turn a corner, I was in the lead, I figure there’s no one behind us, so I let out a gigantic fart. I mean this was a real world-class explosion; loud, resonant, impactful. The kind that seems to project a slight shock-wave. Unbeknownst to me some prim, nicely dressed, middle-aged Italian women had forgotten her kid’s jackets in the castle so she had rushed up behind us and settled into our little line of travelers. Well I guess that was a bit of a shock for that poor women, instantly she split off the path to the right, D/J/A all fell onto a stone wall squealing like kids in school where you have to laugh and the teacher’s pissed and you’re trying to hold it in but you can’t. Ha-ha!

Author’s comment here: it may seem like there’s a surprising amount of commentary on food and farts in this Blog, but what did you expect from the son of Nick Spiro?

That night we got back so late and had eaten so much we cancelled our reservations we had at a nice restaurant and the boys went for pizza to-go while the girls slept. We woke them up, fed them some pizza, then tucked them again for a good night’s sleep! Pretty much true.

Our last day in Varenna we just chilled, walked around, Dan took a few work calls, we napped, did some internet and thought about our dinner meal. If we’re not hiking we’re mostly eating or planning our next meal. We had reservations at La Vista, supposed to be very nice; in fact as we sat down Dan felt he had to give a little lecture to the group about how nice the setting was and this certainly was not the kind of place where we could be gassing up. It was on a beautiful terrace, superb meal, more creative and sophisticated than the regular Trattorias. We had a delicious goose pate and arugula salad, minestrone soup, some pesto/cottage cheese raviolis, and I had a brilliant osso bucco with risotto, best risotto of the trip so far. Then we had desserts/tea; about ½ of the people still remained, it was just a magical evening and setting, the lights were twinkling, everyone was immensely pleased with their meal, their company, the chef, the waiters; the quintessential romantic, serene after-dinner glow. Then RIIIIP, sure enough someone at our table blows a huge fart. The entire terrazzo halts their conversation, there’s that nervous quiet pause, the magic is shattered.

Ok so who’s the culprit? I’m sure if the readers had to place money on this question, 90% would place it on either Peter or Jayne. But no, they’d be wrong, the Spiros were clean. April? Sure she’s had some problems controlling all her body functions. But demure little April at such a wonderful spot? Nope, not a chance. She knows to wait for the walk home. Yup, you guessed it, Mr. Let-Me-Warn-Everyone himself, Dan O’C, for some reason thought he was letting out a little puffer, when out came a dragon’s roar. Dan seemed thoroughly surprised, then tried to argue that no one heard it; many of the patrons began to leave at that point. Sigh. Anyway it was right then that we taught Dan, and the entire group, the usually reliable cough and fart trick. When it’s well executed the simultaneous cough will usually mask almost any fart. Of course there’s always the danger of a swing and a miss, the cough coming too early or late for the retort. Beginners sometimes have this problem. Anyway we instituted the new cough rules that evening. So far it’s been working pretty well. Although sometimes Jayne seems to go into a coughing fit as she tried to cover up a prolonged sequence.

Well enough of that. The next day we headed out to Bellagio, the Pearl of Lake Como.

Up next Il Falcone.