Homeward bound!

On our last day the hotel supplied breakfast for us at 6 am in order for us to be on the road by 7 (thank you hotel staff). We are normally only allowed to travel so many hours at a time because the driver is obliged to stop and rest but even so we made good time to arrive at the Forti de Bard in time for our 11.30 guided tour. To be honest I wasn't overly enthused about the prospect of visiting this fort because I've passed it many times and always thought it looked "dreary". The valley at Bard is very narrow and the mountains are particularly high so the fort always seems to be sitting in shaded gloom, but I durifully trudged my way up from the car park for our tour - and boy oh boy was I wrong about the place. It was such an interesting visit where our incredibly enthusiastic volunteer guide told us all about its history (most of which I can no longer remember of course). What I hadn't realized was that this region (Upper and Lower Savoy) had not only been fought over by the French and the Italians, but also what we now know as modern day Austrians had once controlled it! It's amazing how much I don't know!!!! At one point Napoleon was marching his men (plus mules and cannons) down what must have been a dirt track over the alps in order to do battle with Count von Whatever from Austria, and in order to take the enemy by surprise, they spread mule muck and straw over the track in order to muffle the sound of the cannon wheels - and that's about the extent of what I took from our visit!

We had to take three funiculars up to the top where our guide showed us round the central courtyard where they hold concerts and other cultural events. The fort truly was so much more interesting than I had given it credit for!

Il Forti de Bard

Looking down over the village of Bard!

Now you're probably wondering what a yeti, Hulk, Ironman and Captain America are doing in this blog post. Well it turns out that Marvel's Age of Ultron was filmed using the fort as a backdrop and the film-makers left behind some of their "props" as a thank you gesture, much to the delight of the group of young kids who were following us around on our tour!

Age of Ultron?

After that some caught the funicular back down to the village while others walked, after which it was supposed to be straight back to the depot, but a few people asked if we could do a quick stop at the hypermarket just before the French border. I believe cigarettes and alcohol are cheaper this side of the border but I usually just end up buying huge blocks of Italian cheese and then wondering what on earth to do with it all when I get home!

Walking back to the bus!

Our driver didn't have to stop at all as it wasn't on the programme but he very kindly did so and then cracked open the ubiquitous bottle of limoncello to hand round before our final run up to the French border (the drivers obviously don't drink)! When we made it back to the depot there was actually snow on my car so we really had been lucky to have such great weather in Italy. As we'd all left our keys in our cars in order for the staff to park them it was just a matter of rummaging round in the key box like a bunch of wife swappers to get our keys and a quick 15 minute drive home!

Circumstances being what they were, I had another day trip on Tuesday, but I'll have to write about that later, and then tomorrow we're off for a family weekend to an animal park, which is actually my Christmas present to the family. Seven adults and four kids - so better take the ear plugs and bottle opener then. I don't normally plan for these things to all take place at the same time, and indeed my next trip isn't until September when I'm off to Andalucia, but considering it all happened more or less at the same time, I have to say that, while tiring, it's been a really good couple of weeks!