← All articles · Italy · 15 October 2017

Miazzina, Italy: Coffee in the village, then a long walk up to Pian Cavallone

Twelve October days in Miazzina, a village high above Lake Maggiore: garden grapes, espresso by the bell tower, and the long walk up to Pian Cavallone.

Miazzina sits on the mountainside above Lake Maggiore, in Piedmont. The road up ends in stone barns, vegetable patches and a bell tower, and the footpaths carry straight on into the hills behind. We spent the first half of October 2017 here, mostly walking, occasionally working, and eating a lot of what the gardens were producing.

Settling in

Early October is the good bit. The grapes are in, the tomatoes haven't given up, and the mornings are cold enough that the sun feels like a favour.

A wooden bowl on a stone table piled with white grapes on the stem, a glossy dark aubergine, a small courgette with its flower still attached, and orange and green tomatoes — One bowl, one garden. White grapes on the stem, an aubergine, a courgette with the flower still on, and tomatoes at every stage of orange and green.

A small fluffy white dog lying on its back on grass beside a stone path, having its chin scratched by an outstretched hand — The welcome committee. He rolled over about four seconds after we stopped walking.

Inga in a striped blazer leaning on a crash barrier on a mountain road, with wooded ridges and Lake Maggiore spread out far below under a clear sky — The road out of the village keeps handing you this. The lake, the towns flat along the bottom, and a great deal of air in between.

Inga sitting on rough stone steps built into a dry stone wall between old stone and timber barns, with a bright pink door on the barn opposite and a vegetable patch in front — Most of the old village is barns like these with a vegetable patch wedged into any flat ground going. The pink door is the brightest thing for streets around.

Up to Pian Cavallone

Behind the village the paths go up, and they don't mess about. We picked the one to the refuge and gave it a full day.

A metal post on a grassy bank carrying stacked red and white walking signs reading Bivacco A. Curgei, Rifugio P. Cavallone, Pian Cavallone, Pizzo Pernice, Cappella Fina, Alpe Pala and Miazzina with walking times — Everything on one post. Rifugio Pian Cavallone 1h45 up, Pizzo Pernice 1h25, and Miazzina 1h20 back down the other way.

Inga in a bright pink top standing on a stony hillside path with a small bag, wooded ridges dropping away and a hazy arm of Lake Maggiore in the distance below — Half an hour past the signpost and the lake was already a long way down.

Inga and Dileep crouching together among golden bracken on a high slope, with layers of wooded ridges and Lake Maggiore in the haze behind them — Bracken turning gold, and the lake doing its hazy silver trick behind us.

A weathered information board in a timber frame titled Piu che un rifugio, with black and white photographs of the Pian Cavallone refuge dated 1882, 1920, 1960 and 2010, and Parco Nazionale Val Grande logos — Più che un rifugio. The board tells the place's story in four photographs, from the year the Verbano-Intra branch of the alpine club built it in 1882 to the state it's in now, and doesn't skip over the damage done in 1944.

A small square white chapel with a stone slab roof and an iron cross on the gable, standing alone on a grassy ridge under a deep blue sky — A small white chapel on the ridge, roofed in stone slabs, with a plaque by the gate and nothing else up there at all.

Inga standing on the grass beside the white chapel wall with her back to the camera, looking out over blue mountain ridges and a flat hazy plain beyond — Round the corner of the chapel the ground simply stops, and the plain opens up past the last of the ridges.

Inga walking towards the camera along a narrow earth path running the length of a grassy ridge, with the small white chapel visible far behind her and steep slopes on both sides — The path runs right along the top with the ground falling away on both sides. That white speck behind her is the chapel.

Back down in the village

The next day we didn't go anywhere much, which is the whole point of a village like this.

Inga sitting at a table with a floral cloth, typing on a purple laptop beside a plate of mushrooms and peppers and a tall glass, with a wooden dresser and a bowl of bananas behind her and green trees through the window — Working lunch, village edition. Mushrooms and peppers on the plate, the woods out the window, and the laptop losing the argument.

Inga walking away up a narrow village street between a yellow house with brown shutters and a pharmacy sign, towards a tall grey stone bell tower with a clock face and open belfry — The street bends and there it is: grey stone, a clock face, and the bells left open to the weather.

Inga in a denim shirt and glasses drinking from a small patterned espresso cup on a bar terrace with red tablecloths, an awning and a stone wall behind — One espresso, village measure, roughly two mouthfuls and gone.

Dileep in a striped shirt holding up a small espresso cup at a table with a red cloth on a terrace shaded by a reed canopy, empty tables and a stone wall around him — Same terrace, same cup, and the whole place to ourselves just before two in the afternoon.

Looking up at two storeys of a yellow building with dark green shutters, its stone and wrought iron balconies crowded with pots of trailing plants and geraniums — The Italian balcony at full commitment. Pots on the rail, pots on the floor, pots hooked onto the ironwork.

Our other Italian stories, Milan, Rome, the Vatican, Capri and the red train out of Tirano, all come from a different trip in March 2016. They're all on the Italy page. This one was a lot quieter, and involved considerably more grapes.