July 18, 2009
Serre Chevalier
On our last two days at Pedraces, we walked up either side of the slopes over Pedraces, from which the views were lovely but, perversely, the camera sat forgotten in the flat. That last day dawned warm and hazy with large cumulus clouds above the mountains that often mean rain. We hiked up a grassy slope that had scattered about drying sheds and small summer huts, and noted that a couple of these huts had covered porches. As we walked the sky became more overcast and the wind picked up. To be on the safe side, we walked over to one of these porches for our picnic and, sitting there, watched a storm move through the valley. Good thing, too - rain came down in sheets but, under our overhang, we stayed dry! It’s not often that we are lucky enough to find shelter from the sudden mountain rainstorms!
On Thursday we drove from Pedraces south to Verona and then west past Milano and Torino back to Serre Che, arriving here in the late afternoon, at which point the temperature was in the mid-90s. Our building has no air conditioning and the flats have no cross-ventilation so, when it’s that warm, sleeping isn’t very comfortable and, of course, we were grumpy about it.
However, one should be careful what one wishes for – a low pressure system moved in last evening bringing heavy rain, then the temps dropped considerably, we awoke this morning to see snow on the upper elevations, and it’s CHILLY out there!