On the balcony, I sit down in the wicker chair and in relief, I sip on a cold bottle of water. I stare at the roads now lying below me as they crisscross the valley in designs as intricate as the thoughts of the trip I have just embarked upon, for this is all so natural, yet so strange.

A warm trickle of sweat slides across my spine and underneath my shirt as I drop the weight of the backpack in the cold white tiles. I open the bedroom door using an almost violent force and a light of Alpine tones floods the room breaking through the stale air with the brightness of relief. Welcome to the Orobian range.

In Premolo, the only convenience shop in the village silently tucks behind a curtain of air conditioning under balconies covered in red flowers, and the attendant’s Italian sounds chaotic through his gap tooth smile. I pay and hug my fragile paper bag from the bottom, climbing the narrow streets up the valley at the amused stare of three locals sipping on cups of coffee under a flamboyant Italian flag crowning the library door.
Six in the evening and the church bells ring. Six in the evening and the distant sound of traffic stops. I hang onto my two-litre bottle of cheap wine and stare at the layers of mountains dancing with the late sunshine in a tango of shades from Bergamo to Clusone. The air around me grows intensely pine-scented before it turns cool enough for the day, but hot enough for the night.

I try my best Italian after hiking for fifty minutes across the narrow valley to Parre. ‘Siamo aperto?’. ‘Si’. And the message is both understood and lost. I timidly sit on the wooden chair and munch on my ham panini because who needs dinner when there is Aperol and Venezuelan gossip in the next table anyway.
Braving fears, I hike across the valley in the complete darkness of the Alps, accompanied only by a dim full moon encrusted in a faded blue sky and the owls that flap their wings at the sound of sandals stepping on the loose rocks.

On the balcony, I lay on the cushions of a pallet-made sofa and stare at the lights of villages, in the distance seeming to defy gravity. I finish the last of my wine before closing my eyes, at times to reminisce about the past, at times to long for the future. The trips to Belfast made for gaining immunity, and the trips to Belfast yet to be made for embracing the new normal. The impromptu miles to Donegal travelled to overcome sad memories, and the impromptu miles to Dublin to be travelled to forge a fuller future. From Doolin to Portrush in tents of anxiety, from Mullaghmore to Carlingford in bedrolls of unease.

I roam through my backpack for my book and carefully fold my crumpled pandemic paperwork, for a certificate proving health in good faith is needed for crossing borders nowadays. At the last of my wine I retreat to bed, not without a full briefing of Italian politics by three young fellow hotel guests.

– ‘Half-Egyptian, half-Italian. This one here, half-Moroccan. That one with the hat, Romanian’
– ‘The problem with Italy is the old generation. They refuse to any change. See our leaders. Five in five years!’
– ‘Any favourites?’
– ‘Depends on how many scandals they had.‘


Early in the morning, I grab a cup of coffee and a map of makeshift trails painted in red. I follow a narrow valley of dry rocks that once would ferociously carry glacier water in winter, climbing under the shade of green pine trees for hours as daft flies relish on the copious sweat drenching the back of my neck.‘Is this the correct trail?’ ‘It is a trail anyway’.

At over two kilometres above sea level, I rest at the foot of the first shelter and dip my head in the cold water stream. It is here where tall pines decide to surrender to the karst walls and refuse shade to the plateau of bright yellow grass. It is here where the sun shines through the thin air in hazy pastels.
I smile at the sight of my first two humans at Santamaria in Letten, and I follow the breath of twenty horses down a dry valley of rocks as white as snow. At Camplano, a group of Austrians have taken their tops off and are munching on oranges with no clue of where they are.
I sip on the last of my water and the second of two apricots I brought for the hike at the top of Monte Grem. I proceed to follow one of the few signposts on the rocky path until a local tells me the longest route is the best maintained, shortly after the novelty of the Alps in their rawest version wears off, cursing in both Italian and English at the non-existent trail to civilisation.

On the balcony, I clock eight hours of nonstop hiking and free myself from both sweat-drenched clothes and pandemic-drenched thoughts. I nap in anonymity to let the body process the hike in the afternoon, and I dine in eminence to celebrate it around the sage-infused pancetta ravioli at night.

To lay in a hammock in the Italian Alps early in the morning. To finish reading a book with the background noise of an opera blasting from a distant radio. A moment of serenity at the shoulder of the Ferragosto celebration.
At the balcony, I take a last look at the Serio-carved valley and close the zipper on my backpack. I descend from my Alpine retreat at midday just as the air grows heavy with summer moist and the return to Ireland looms. In Bergamo, my knees reluctantly climb the steps across the ancient walls of Citta Alta. History can sometimes be good, but gelato can always be perfection.
I sip on lemon granitas and bitter espressos relishing on the outburst of unique Italian flavours, in memory now blended with the view of the vast horizon of ceramic tiles across Lombardy.

On the balcony, I don my face mask and find a place to sit in the crowded lounge. I think of take off and landings as dynamic reminders of the unstoppable rhythms of life even during a pandemic and, underneath the medical cloth on my face, I draw a half smile, for this is all so natural, yet so strange again.