Team Elephant (-) arrived in the northern Italian city of Chiavenna in blistering mid-afternoon heat after a long day on back roads though the Alps. The intention was to press on and to stop for the day near Lake Como but, by the time I had refuelled and rehydrated, I decided this dusty town would do just fine. At the railway station I found an accommodation desk and was offered a room in a village a few kilometres down the road. The price was right and I wasn't in a mood to be too discriminating.

Seven kilometres down the road the village of Gordona was pasted against the steep valley wall and the B&B Cimavilla was right at the top. It had an amazing view down the valley (almost lost in the haze), two bedrooms, a kitchen, bathroom, a nice living area, 30 Euro a night price and breakfast thrown in. As I was moving in I noticed a photo on the wall. The owners and their Moto Guzzi were posed at the Arctic Circle marker in Norway. What followed from this over the next two days was a series of conversations in two different languages that managed to convey the important bits of two life stories and a common love of bikes. At the end of this first meeting, however, we agreed that something would happen. I wasn't sure what, but 1900h was the time.

At the appointed hour, and as apparently agreed, the car was backed out, I was called for and we headed down to the village for dinner. As soon as I walked into the place I knew it was going to be a “good” night. The small bistro and bar had a micro-brewery front and centre. I was introduced to the owner and his father with great fanfare, ordered a beer for my host and settled into conversation about how Giandomenico found himself making artisan beer in a small village on the edge of the Alps. It was a great story about how an original brewery had been busy in the town from 1844 until 1957 and how Giandomenico had acquired its trademarks for his business in 2001. It was also a story that went off in unexpected directions.

The original brewery, Birrificio Spuga, had been successful because of the local crotti. These grottos, or caves, were spread around the mountain valley and provided a constant temperature of 6°C which is ideal for the fermentation of lager beer. The crotti also formed the backbone of local village life. The city mayor oversaw a complex system of entitlement where every family had space allocated in a crotti for the storage of wine, cheese, bresaola (air dried salt beef) and other perishables. The daily trip to the grotto to bring back wine for the evening meal was the job of the old men who would use the entrance to the caves to socialise and share their cheese and bresaola.

By this stage in the story it was about 2300h, my hosts had long departed and the proprietor and I were left alone to finish tasting (perhaps not the best word here but...) each of the six beers made in his brewery. Somewhere along the line, Papa Marcello had fixed me a bowl of a local speciality noodle topped with the bresaola. I then discovered that I had arrived in the middle of the annual three day Sagra Die Crotti (Festival of the Crotti). Tomorrow, if I wanted, I could go to some of the crotti to eat and drink the local produce.

We got through the last of the beers and I said my goodbye.  Giandomenico offered to drive me up the hill to the pension. No, I insisted, it wasn't far, it was a beautiful evening and I could do with the walk. I headed out into the night and up the hill. About 50 metres up the road I started to wonder if I could remember the way. Too late to go back, I pressed on into the maze of narrow lanes that is an ancient Italian town guided only by the need to keep going up hill. Eventually, I found a turn I recognised and, in due course, a bed. The five minute walk had taken me an hour. I stayed over the next day to attend the festival (and recover from the previous evening) which seemed to gain the approval of the locals.

The festival story requires longer telling but the key details are straightforward. Firstly, there was no information in English (this is not a tourist event in the sense we usually think about these things) but I managed to find a local in a cool bar who read the brochure to me. Tickets were 28 Euro for which you visited four crotti with different specialities at each. The stops were for bresaola and wine, polenta taragna e salsiccetta and wine, Frommagi locali and more wine and finally cake and coffee. So, in short, a second night gloriously wasted in Chiavenna!

The next morning as I packed to leave my landlord found me, made a short but seemingly heartfelt speech then presented me with a T-shirt from his local Moto Guzzi club as something I might remember their town by. I value the gift very much, but it seemed to me, as I rode north into the Passo della Spluga, that I wouldn't need a shirt to remind me of the friendship and culture of this small town in this remote valley. That will stay vivid long after the shirt has faded.

And so, it was back into Switzerland and a loopy week literally rounding up important passes I needed to visit on my way west. Some of these are well know from history, art and cinema and include the Passo de San Gottardo (the Gottard Pass) and the Gran San Bernardo (no dogs seen). There were many others but always, now, I pressed west until I rolled into the industrial wasteland of east Lyon and sat waiting at the airport terminal for the Thursday 0950 flight from Frankfurt.

Jo appeared on cue and with the practised nonchalance that only comes from experience, I handed her the pants from her riding suit.
    “You might want to change into these,” I said. “We've got a date with our granddaughter on the Cote D'Azur and we need to get moving.”
    The best crew in the world took her pants and went looking for somewhere to change. It was great to have the team back together, and it is funny what you get good at.