A friend asked me what do I do on a rest day, and was almost comically surprised by the answer: "rest". I've come to learn that there is an art to rest day, really doing nothing but the basics. This is not the time to play tourist or go for a run. Rest day is about giving your body time to recover. And perhaps eating a burger or two.
This is what rest day is about (alcohol not mandatory, but when in Rome...)
My hotel, Hotel la Chance, is a long gondola ride (20 minutes!) away from Aosta. Pila is a ski resort, reinventing itself as a mecca for mountain bikes in the summer. It's a collection of hotels and restaurants, and it's packed with families with kids and hardened mountain bikers. The hotel, a few minutes down the mountain from the gondola station, is exactly what I need, with a large lawn overlooking the Mont Blanc range. And a bar.
First things first: I empty my backpack and wash every single thing I own. In the past 10 days I've washed my underwear several times, taking advantage of the high temperatures for a quick dry. But staying here for two nights is an opportunity not to be missed to properly wash and dry everything, including the tights I've worn going down the mountain on my ass. It takes three rounds of soaking to get the dirt and grit out of it.
Having hung wet clothes on every rack, now it's time to head downstairs, order a drink and settle on a comfy lawn chair with a book until it's time for dinner.
A wedding taking place in the hotel on Saturday ruins my plans of lazying around on the lawn. I make the mistake of taking the gondola down into Aosta. One look at its packed main street and I recoil in horror and remember my own words: rest day is about doing nothing. What was I thinking. The idea of having to share my space with so many people makes my skin crawl.
I head back up into Pila and spend the rest of the day spying on the wedding. It's a full day's affair, starting in the church up the road and moving into the hotel for lunch, dancing and then dinner. There's only about 50 people, what would be considered in Israel to be a tinny intimate wedding. The DJ is simply awful.
Dinner is pizza (the burger place being closed, which is annoying - I've been fantasising about a burger for about a week. Funny, considering the great food I've been eating since I got here). Having planned on taking the bus to Ollomont tomorrow to resume the hike, I find that there are no buses in that direction on Sunday. I've spend so much time pouring over timetables, how have I missed this? I ask the hotel to arrange a taxi for me, expecting it to cost many many euros, I am surprised and delighted to hear that the driver will only charge 40. Even the hotel manager can't explain it. Tomorrow i'm back on the trail.
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